Out with the old, in with the new

Innovation continues to rule the connector industry despite the downturn. RS Components' category business manager – electromechanical and connectors, Valerie Ramon, reviews the trends.

Although the connector industry hasn’t been immune to the effects of the downturn and many connector manufacturers have weeded out less popular variants from their standard catalogue, innovation has certainly continued apace in this area. Green applications and other growing markets like medical electronics have prompted manufacturers to bring out product ranges designed specifically for this purpose. New tools to address the growing health and safety culture in European industry have also emerged. Green hits gold
One of the most promising markets for electronics as we emerge from the downturn is renewable energy and energy saving solutions. Lighting in commercial and domestic buildings uses a lot of electricity and there is growing interest in using LEDs as an energy efficient and long lasting light source. Tyco has responded to this opportunity with a new family of hermaphroditic blade and receptacle wire-board and board-board connectors, supporting the increasingly popular strips of LED lights produced to give effect lighting and to replace fluorescent tubes. Rated at 6A and 125VAC/DC, they are ideal for this class of applications.
Electric and hybrid cars require small, light and cost-effective connectors that can cope with the very high DC currents. Tyco offers a broad range of multi-point contact systems that meet these specifications, from the cost effective AMP MCP system to higher performance interfaces with a larger number of contact
points. The Tyco Kilovac range of hermetically sealed contactors (relays) has been used in electric vehicles for many years and the manufacturer has extended the range with new versions addressing the needs of the latest applications.
Solar energy is another growing market with exacting requirements that must be met. Solar panel installations feature a series of connectors between the module and the inverter, often linking multiple panels in the same installation. The requirement here is for a low loss, easy to use push in/pull out connector that meets the demanding safety and environmental requirements of this application. Each connector needs to be well protected against UV radiation and water alike, have the required UL/DIN/VDE strain relief and should feature a safety clip that prevents un-mating without the appropriate tool to meet NEC 2008 standards. The system also needs to be low loss, so that as little as possible of the hard-won renewable electricity is dissipated as heat downstream of the panel. Multi-Contact is a market leader in this field. Its solutions meet IEC 60529 for protection of the contacts against accidental touching when un-mated. A recently introduced innovation is a plug that interrupts the flow of current when withdrawn and activates an anti-arcing circuit.

Medical matters
Medical instruments are always exposed to fluid spillage and should be designed to operate correctly and reliably even when used by non-specialist staff under considerable pressure. They are also normally fairly costly and in consequence manufacturers tend to look for connectors that look and feel good, work reliably over a large number of mating cycles and stand up to rough handling. The new Redel range of plastic connectors is typical of the products specified here. Features include a self latching system that allows the connector to be mated securely with a simple push action and then holds it in place firmly in the face of stress on the cable. When required, a straight pull on the release sleeve disengages the latches and withdraws the plug from the socket. Redel offers an extensive range of styles, contacts and options in this range to support the diversity of medical applications and indeed any other uses for this family.

Secrets of crimping
A correctly assembled crimp is a reliable and durable form of interconnection, but there is something of a knack to achieving perfection. The overzealous amateur has a tendency to over-crimp, squeezing hard, often with a pair of pliers, and as a result producing a connection with increased electrical resistance that is prone to heating. Equally, the more experienced may rush and under-crimp. This can cause a loose connection causing losses and the risk that the cable becomes detached altogether.
Increasingly, crimp manufacturers are offering bespoke tools with dies to assemble a specific connector to a specific cable, giving a perfect crimp every time. For example, Molex has developed a full line of crimp and extraction tools to complement its KK series
of building block connectors. These blocks can be used to create thousands of different configurations, allowing each user to build a system suited to their application.
For more general applications, a relatively recent innovation is the ergonomic crimp tool, developed using knowledge acquired from research into repetitive strain injuries. The Swedish company, Pressmaster, has paid particular attention to the mechanical gain mechanism, the handle form and material usage in these tools, with the result of reducing the hand pressure required to make a crimp.

The thinning effect
Despite the economic conditions, connector manufacturers have continued to support most major families of connectors. There is no doubt, however, that almost all have reduced the scope of their standard connector portfolio by removing the least popular variants.
As a result the number of ways, housing styles and contact materials offered within the standard catalogue is now less than it was a year ago. Overlap within ranges, often the result of business acquisitions by manufacturers, has also been reduced, again reducing flexibility for the specifier. If production volumes are likely to be in the hundreds of thousands, the withdrawn products will still be accessible as specials but otherwise the range of solutions on offer isn’t quite what it was. The popular design approach of leaving the choice of connector until last has become a little more fraught and it pays to give some thought to the connector at a relatively early stage in the design process.
A connector distributor like RS Components, with its ever-growing portfolio of connector products and solutions can often come up with an acceptable alternative where a preferred connector solution has been withdrawn. RS currently stocks 35,000 connector types from over 70 suppliers, but it's worth remembering, the more flexibility you have when you ask the question – the more alternatives you’re likely to be offered.

rswww.com