In my project I need fairly long (up to 5 meters) shielded cabling that has compact 4 pin connectors (will be used in a noisy environment). As I understand the shield of the cable should connect to the connector, which connects the shielding to the header, which is grounded on the PCB. I believe that a good choice here would be RJ45, but the size of the connectors is excessive.
From an electrical engineer's point of view, would it be acceptable to implement USB or microUSB ports for an application which has nothing to do with the actual USB protocol? Would this decision cause problems if it would become a commercial product? The cables are for connecting digital sensors to a controller.
Suggestions for alternatives to USB connectors are also welcome.
Best Answer
This depends on your situation, and what the failure modes of plugging a USB cable into your device would be. When people see a USB connector, people want to plug a USB cable into it. A decade of user experiences confirms this behavior as valid. If it makes no difference, and your device can laugh at 5V coming in on the USB pin, and you won't kill someone's laptop in the process, you should be OK, but your users might get confused.