high pin count, high mating count, relatively low cost connector.. - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: forrestc
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 19, 2020, 10:22:16 am
content: I have a piece of automated test equipment we use here to test various circuits which has a lot of pins. Like up to around 300 pins. Long story short, I'd like to move to a better cabling system than we're using, and part of that is that I would like to have a large (300mm x 300mm or so) PCB for each type of gear which has the correct connectors on it for the gear, and then has some sort of high pin count connector which mates with the rest of the test equipment. Not all 300 pins will need to go through this connector, but it would be nice if it could.One thought I had was to put a card edge connector fixed on the test gear and then put a standard card edge on the adapter PCB. This would work great, except the card edge connectors that I've found are typically only rated for 50 mating cycles. This is a problem since we'd probably doing at least one swap a day, and sometimes two, so we'd exceed this in a month or so which I guess isn't the end of the world, but it isn't ideal.I've looked at several board-to-board, mezzanine, pogo pin, etc. connectors and haven't found any which fit my needs. I'm really looking for something which is:Durable. Needs to last at least a few hundred if not thousand cyclesNot fall out of your chair expensive. Some of this will have to do with durability. Also an expensive 'test equipment side' connector is more tolerable than the adapter PCB side connectorReasonable method to get to a couple hundred pins. Multiple copies are ok (say 100 pins/each).Insertion/removal/mounting friendly. I need a connector which I can reasonably expect to be able to come up with an arrangement where swapping the adapter PCB's are relatively quick to do (seconds, not multiple minutes) and is reliable. Easy to mount/deal with mechanical issues falls into this item.I think the problem is that there is a good chance that I'm just looking in the wrong spots and/or not uttering the right magic incantation into digikey/mouser/google/etc. to find the type of connector I'm looking for. Or I'm not thinking outside the box enough.Anyone have any ideas?As people post I'll probably be able to explain a little better some of the things I've looked at - at this point I've looked at so many different connectors I feel like I'm going around in circles.

author: Twoflower
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 19, 2020, 10:42:57 am
content: If you can live with 3 separate connectors: There are 100pin D-Subs available.But I think the information you provided isn't enough. From the beginning the missing items are: Current, Voltage, Frequency, Cable-design (1 big twisted pair cable or 300 individual wires...)And I'm sure Samtec has a solution just waiting for you

author: Ian.M
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 19, 2020, 11:03:43 am
content: DIN 41612 connectors are available in a 96 contact version, and if Class 1 are rated for 500 insertion cycles. They are three row 0.1" pitch, so you could get the long pin straight version and, on the ATE main unit, socket the DIN 41612 connector in ordinary SIL 0.1" female headers, which assuming a 50 insertion limit for the female header, would get you up to 25K insertions, by replacing the DIN 41612 connector as required, which would take a few minutes to do - undo two screws, pull out the old one, replace it and replace the screws. That's enough for decades, even at three product adaptor board swaps a day. If your usage pattern doesn't change, you could simply replace the DIN 41612 connectors on the main unit during annual maintenance .Its probably not worth socketing the mating DIN 41612 connector on the product adapter board, as it would be simpler to have a couple of spares so the line is only down for as long as it takes to swap boards, and rework them as required when either the DIN 41612 connectors or the product interface connectors become unreliable.