I can get one or two open/close cycles on the RED units, then it will fail to open completely. The metal tabs only partially open which prevents a proper insertion of the next chip. The problem with the RED units is they do not fully open. The BLUE version from ADAfruit works fine. The ones from Adafruit have a couple of bars across the slot area and they are blueish in color. Curiously, they have the same part number but they are NOT the same thing. When I ordered from you I also ordered 10 from ADAfruit (ID 382). You might want to check out a few in your stock. Out of the 10 sockets I can only get one to work reliably. I ordered 10 of the 28 pin ZIF sockets and from what I got I think you may have received a bad batch. I received the RED version of this device as others have also commented.
This is probably due to the stress applied to the socket beyond a certain point causing a deformation and the socket not being able to return to its original position. There were reports that the DIP socket will probably not be the same after placing the ZIF socket into the DIP socket =>. Note: Keep in mind that since the pins are bigger. Here's one example that illustrates how I was connecting the ZIF Socket onto an Arduino Uno =>. You just have to make sure that there is enough clearance around your board's DIP socket for the ZIF socket to plug in. It required a little bit more force to put into the socket but there was still continuity between the DIP socket pins and the ZIF socket. The pins where slightly bigger than a standard DIP chip but I was able to insert the ZIF Socket into one of the 28-pin sockets soldered on an Arduino Uno R3's development board. The ZIF Socket has 28 header pins on the bottom. ZIF Sockets on Boards with Existing DIP Sockets?
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