Electrical connector
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An electrical connector is a conductive device for joining electrical circuits together. The connection may be temporary, as for portable equipment, or may require a tool for assembly and removal, or may be a permanent electrical joint between two wires or devices. There are hundreds of types of electrical connectors. In computing, an electrical connector can also be known as a physical interface. Connectors may join two lengths of flexible wire or cable, or may connect a wire or cable to an electrical terminal.

Contents
1 Properties of electrical connectors
2 Types of electrical connectors
2.1 Terminal blocks
2.2 Crimp-on terminals
2.3 Insulation displacement connectors
2.4 Plug and socket connectors
2.5 Component and device connectors
3 Commonly used connectors
3.1 8P8C connector
3.2 D-subminature connectors
3.3 USB connectors
3.4 Power connectors
3.5 Radio frequency connectors

Properties of electrical connectors
An ideal electrical connector would have a low contact resistance and high insulation value. It would be resistant to vibration, water, oil, and pressure. It would be easily mated/unmated, unambiguously preserve the orientation of connected circuits, reliable, carry one or multiple circuits. Desirable properties for a connector also include easy identification, compact size, rugged construction, durability (capable of many connect/disconnect cycles), rapid assembly, simple tooling, and low cost. No single connector has all the ideal properties. The proliferation of types is a reflection of the differing importance placed on the design factors.

Types of electrical connectors
A terminal is a simple type of electrical connector that connects two or more wires to a single connection point. Wire nuts are another type of single point connector.

Terminal blocks of various types.
erminal blocks
Terminal blocks (also called terminal boards or strips) provide a convenient means of connecting individual electrical wires. They are usually used to connect wiring among various items of equipment within an enclosure or to make connections among individually enclosed items. Since terminal blocks are readily available for a wide range of wire sizes and terminal quantity, they are one of the most flexible types of electrical connector available. Some disadvantages are that connecting wires is more difficult than simply plugging in a cable and the terminals are generally not very well protected from contact with persons or foreign conducting materials.

One type of terminal block accepts wires that are prepared only by removing (stripping) a short length of insulation from the end. Another type accepts wires that have ring or spade terminal lugs crimped onto the wires. Printed circuit board (PCB) mounted terminal blocks allow individual wires to be connected to the circuit board. PCB mounted terminal blocks are soldered to the board, but they are available in a pull-apart version that allows the wire-connecting half of the block to be unplugged from the part that is soldered to the PCB.

Crimp-on terminals
Most types of crimp-on terminals (or lugs) are attached to wires to allow the wires to be easily connected to screw terminals and fast-on or quick-disconnect terminals. There are also crimp-on terminals for connecting two wires together either permanently or with disconnect capability. Crimp-on terminals are attached by inserting the stripped end of a stranded wire into the tubular portion of the terminal. The tubular portion of the terminal is then compressed tightly around the wire or crimped by squeezing it with a special crimping pliers.

Insulation displacement connectors
Since stripping the insulation from wires is time-consuming, many connectors intended for rapid assembly use insulation-displacement connectors so that insulation need not be removed from the wire. These generally take the form of a fork-shaped opening in the terminal, into which the insulated wire is pressed and which cut through the insulation to contact the conductor within. To make these connections reliably on a production line, special tools are used which accurately control the forces applied during assembly. If properly assembled, the resulting terminations are gas-tight and will last the life of the product. A common example is the multi-conductor flat ribbon cable used in computer disk drives; to terminate each of the many (approximately 40) wires individually would be slow and error-prone, but an insulation displacement connector can terminate all the wires in (literally) one stroke. Another very common use is so-called "punch down" blocks used for terminating telephone wiring.

Insulation displacement connectors are usually used with small conductors for signal purposes and at low voltage. Power conductors carrying more than a few amperes are more reliably terminated with other means, though "hot tap" press-on connectors find some use in automotive applications for additions to existing wiring.

Plug and socket connectors

A male plug made by Amphenol.Plug and socket connectors are usually made up of a male plug and a female socket, although hermaphroditic connectors exist, such as the original IBM token ring LAN connector. Plugs generally have one or more pins or prongs that are inserted into openings in the mating socket. The connection between the mating metal parts must be sufficiently tight to make a good electrical connection and complete the circuit. When working with multi-pin connectors, it is helpful to have a pinout diagram to identify the wire or circuit node connected to each pin.

4-conductor hermaphrodite connector for token-ring attachment.
Detail of mating surfaces of hermaphrodite connector.
Transistor switch module with large screw connectors and small fast-on connectors.

Component and device connectors
Electrical and electronic components and devices sometimes have plug and socket connectors or terminal blocks, but individual screw terminals and fast-on or quick-disconnect terminals are more common. Small components have bare lead wires for soldering. They are manufactured using casting

Commonly used connectors

8P8C connector

8P8C Connector crimped to cableMain article: 8P8C
8P8C is short for "eight positions, eight conductors", and so an 8P8C modular connector (plug or jack) is a modular connector with eight positions, all containing conductors. The 8P8C modular plugs and jacks look very similar to the plugs and jacks used for FCC's registered jack RJ45 variants, although the true and extremely uncommon RJ45 is not really compatible with 8P8C modular connectors. It neither uses all eight conductors (but only two of them for wires plus two for shorting a programming resistor) nor does it fit into 8P8C because the true RJ45 is "keyed". The connector is probably most famous for its use in Ethernet and widely used on CAT5 cables.

D-subminature connectors

A male DE-9 plug.The D-subminiature electrical connector is commonly used for the RS 232 serial port on modems and IBM compatible computers. The D-subminature connector is used in many different applications, for computers, telecommunications, and test and measurement instruments. A few examples are monitors (MGA, CGA, EGA), the Commodore 64, MSX, Apple II, Amiga and Atari joysticks and mice, and game consoles such as Atari, Sega and Amiga.

USB connectors
Main article: USB

A male USB series A plugThe Universal Serial Bus is a serial bus standard to interface devices, founded in 1996. It is currently widely used among PCs, Apple Macintosh and many other devices. There are several types of USB connectors, and some have been added as the specification has progressed. The most commonly used is the (male) series "A" plug on peripherals, when the cable is fixed to the peripheral. If there is no cable fixed to the peripheral, the peripheral always needs to have a USB "B" socket. In this case a USB "A" plug to a USB "B" plug cable would be needed. USB "A" sockets are always used on the host PC and the USB "B" sockets on the peripherals. It is a 4-pin connector, surrounded by a shield. There are several other connectors in use, the mini-A, mini- B and mini-AB plug and socket (added in the On-The-Go Supplement to the USB 2.0 Specification).

Power connectors
See Domestic AC power plugs and sockets, NEMA connectors, Industrial and multiphase power plugs and sockets for discussions of connectors used for electric power. Power connectors must protect people from accidental contact with energized conductors. Power connectors often include a safety ground connection as well as the power conductors. In larger sizes, these connectors must also safely contain any arc produced when an energized circuit is disconnected or may require interlocking to prevent opening a live circuit.

Radio frequency connectors
Connectors used at radio frequencies must not change the impedance of the transmission line of which they are part, otherwise reflections and losses will result. A radio-frequency connector must not allow external signals into the circuit, and must prevent leakage of energy out of the circuit. At lower radio frequencies simple connectors can be used with success, but as the radio frequency increases (so that the dimensions of the connector are getting lcose to a small fraction of one wavelength, connector design becomes increasingly critical. At UHF and above, silver-plating of connectors is common to reduce losses.

For Wi-Fi antennae the R-TNC connectors are used. A BNC connector is common for radio and test equipment used up to about 1 GHz.