/products/manufacturers/amphenol/b/blog/posts/designs-choices-that-quietly-reduce-system-lifetimeMost systems don&#39;t fail suddenly. They wear out quietly - often long before anyone expects - because of design decisions that seemed reasonable at the time. In many cases, reduced system lifetime isn&#39;t caused by a single flaw, but by small trad...en-USTelligent Community 12https://community.element14.com/products/manufacturers/amphenol/b/blog/posts/designs-choices-that-quietly-reduce-system-lifetimeThu, 22 Jan 2026 13:39:37 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:e7cd947e-066c-41f4-9a97-0645d383f690colporteur0<p>Button pushes that triggered an animation, comes to mind when I think, interconnects meets the real world. I purchased some real cheap push buttons for a project where the public pushes a button to trigger an animation. The buttons didn&#39;t survive the first day of the show before they became intermittent. I learned ten push button for under $2 is not such a good deal after all.</p> <p>The additional lesson learned is building into a design troubleshooting tools (i.e. LEDs) to reduce the need to get out the multi meter to uncover faults is not such a bad idea.</p><img src="https://community.element14.com/aggbug?PostID=29470&AppID=58&AppType=Weblog&ContentType=0" width="1" height="1">