Connector Housings Research Articles

Wpływ nagrzewania indukcyjnego form wtryskowych na niezawodność złączy elektrycznych

Continuous increase in demand for electricity causes that electrotechnical industry is relentlessly under pressure of technological development. It is necessary to reduce costs while increasing a reliability of manufactured products. Common miniaturization of products mounted in land vehicles, vessels and airplanes along with limitation of their weight requires the use of innovative production methods. This publication presents the problem of exploitation related with reliable assembly and disassembly of rail-mounted electrical connectors. In order to improve the reliability of injected electrical connector housings, the authors proposed the selective induction heating technology as a heating method of injection mould. To reveal the origin of the problem, in case of this work, the simulation studies of filling the mould cavity were carried out. They show an incorrect localization of polymer streams weld line. Then the results of the simulation and induction heating experiment are presented. They were necessary for the proper design and make of the injection mould. In the final stage, the experimental tests of the manufactured housings assembly and disassembly were performed in conditions corresponding to the actual conditions. The obtained results show, that selective induction heating technology has significantly improved the reliability of rail-mounted electrical connector housings.

Analysis and Subsequent Testing of Cracked Brass Connector Housings

This paper details the examination of brass coaxial cable connectors which exhibited cracks in their outer housings. Failure analysis indicated a brittle failure due to stress corrosion cracking. Two common stress corrosion cracking tests for copper materials were conducted on new connectors from the same manufacturing lot. Failure of these connectors confirmed the observed fracture mode. This paper shows that failure analysis can involve testing to duplicate and confirm failure mode in addition to the requisite examination of failed components. This additional testing can be especially helpful in corrosion-related failures.

Temperature, humidity and pressure measurement on automotive connectors

Environmental testing under laboratory-controlled conditions has long been used to evaluate connector performance prior to practical application. There are a number of experimental procedures frequently used in the automotive industry such as the USCAR standard for automotive electrical connector systems to test connectors. However, recent research has shown that these tests appear to evaluate the mechanical stability of the connector housings and terminals, rather than their electrical performance. In order to establish more representative tests to evaluate the electrical performance of contacts, the actual environmental conditions at the contact interface, which are generally unknown, must be measured. This paper compares the temperature, humidity, and air pressure inside the connector housing to those measured outside. It was found that the conditions inside and outside the connector housing are different and a model relating the conditions is introduced

Comparison of long and short fibre injection moulded electrical connector housings

The adoption of injection moulded fibre-reinforced polymer electrical connector housings is being held back by the mechanical properties of the traditional ‘short fibre’ moulding materials. The recent development of ‘long fibre’ injection moulding materials with improved mechanical properties could change this situation. Long and short fibre electrical connector housings are characterized in terms of mechanical properties (using a novel test), fibre lengths and volume fractions in the as-moulded test part, and microstructure. The four materials reported on include: polyphenylene sulphide ( pps) reinforced with long and short glass and long and short carbon fibres. The results show a substantial improvement in ‘step strength’ for both long glass and carbon fibres compared to short fibres. Fibre length measurements show the expected relationship between long and short fibres. Strength differences are attributed to the difference in fibre lengths and not to any fibre orientation effects.

Fiber-optic coupling based on nonimaging expanded-beam optics

We have fabricated and experimentally tested low-cost and mass-producible multimode fiber-optic couplers and connectors based on nonimaging beam-expanding optics and Liouville's theorem. Analysis indicates that a pair coupling loss of -0.25 dB can be achieved. Experimentally, we measured insertion losses as low as -0.38 dB. The beam expanders can be mass produced owing to the use of plastic injection-molding fabrication techniques and packaged in standard connector housings. This design is compatible with the fiber geometry and can yield highly stable coupling owing to its high tolerance for misalignments.

Reaction of Contact Materials With Vapors Emanating from Connector Products

The interaction of organic vapors, evolving from connector housings, printed Wiring boards (PWB's), and wire insulations, etc., with the connector contact materials may cause the formation Of surface films and a contact resistance (CR) increase. In this study, the results of an experiment to study the effects of outgassing of different plastics on various contact materials are presented. The contact materials used in this study were Au, WE #3 metal (70Au, 30Ag), Pd, R156 (60pd, 40Ag), DG Pd (diffused gold palladium), and DG R156 (diffused gold R156); the plastics employed were from connectors used in BELLPAC® backplanes, PWB's, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) coated wires. The material systems Were exposed up to four months at two different environmental conditions: a) 120°C and b) 60°C at 95 percent RH. Condition a) was found to be more severe on material systems from a contact resistance standpoint than condition b). Recommendations for the appropriate acceleration tests are made based upon these experimental results.

Sterile connector.

Fabrication of a sterile connector for joining a supply source to an independent delivery location through a contaminated environment requires four design steps: 1) alignment of connector housings; 2) exclusion of the contaminated environment; 3) sterilization of the excluded region; and 4) penetration within the sterilized area followed by coupling of the protected internal conduits. Protective covers for connectors now in use may be modified to provide penetrable terminal barrier membranes that can be joined to exclude the environment. An adhesive containing an antimicrobiologic agent would set the stage for a controlled mechanical penetration of the decontaminated fused barriers. In another design concept, plastic barrier membranes without preliminary adhesions are simultaneously fused, sterilized, and penetrated by a nichrome wire heated to approximately 288 C. A system can be designed that is compatible, at the option of the user, with either of these methods. The more economical mechanical approach could then be used for parenteral fluid therapy while the nichrome wire technique would be reserved for more complex processing methods (frozen erythrocytes) or when storage of the resulting component is a factor.