This is only a question to people who have had their OP-1 a long time.
I noticed that the weak point of the OP-1 is ithe connector board. And knowing my other gadgets that constantly plugging unplugging headphone jacks power cables etc decreases the lifespan quite a bit as the jacks are often the weak point. So after already doing this a few times im thinking why not leave the headphones and usb plugged in permanently. Is this what others do?
If your OP-1 is blu-tac’d down to a desk and your wires are secure and dont move then yes it will massively reduce the risk of connector board failure.
I find a right-angled headphone jack seems to make a difference in this case. it’s definitely not “built like a tank” - far from it, so being extra gentle when plugging those connectors in/out also helps.
I don’t want to jinx things for myself, but I’ve been a moderately heavy user of the Op-1 (most weekdays) for about 5 years. I take it on the train, protected by the unit portables case and, like @spacetravelmadeeasy and @eesn suggest, have treated it well and been gentle where I can. So far, so good. The only problems I have with mine are little cracks up each of the encoders (which I never notice unless I look for them) and once I got a little bit of dust under one of the keys which made it act funny (the latter being dead easy to sort out - pop the key out, blow the dust out, put the key back on).