I am just wondering why IFI chose to make the headers female for the cortex’s COM ports, was this more cost effective. Because, what I have seen through some competitions is through the failure of cable management people wreck both their Cortex and their PWM Converter. I think having male headers would alleviate this issue, and would be handier for teams starting out.
Hi harrio34,
This is a good question to ask. Since VEX is primarily an educational product, interactions with students drove a lot of the design decisions. Based on our experience, male headers result in accidental shorts. The female headers derive from a desire to make the Cortex a little more tolerant of debris.
Hopefully this makes sense. Let us know if you have other questions.