How Does Environment Temperature Affect Connectors?

Sunkye’s Micro D Connector and Nano D Connector are designed for extreme temperature applications.

Extreme temperature application conditions present difficult challenges in terms of the design of all the equipment. Electrical connectors must work reliably and uninterruptedly in everyday use in order to guarantee perfect operation.

Traditionally, engineers had to rely on active or passive cooling when designing electronics that must function outside of normal temperature ranges, but in some applications, cooling may not be possible—or it may be more appealing for the electronics to operate hot to improve system reliability or reduce cost. This choice presents challenges that affect many aspects of the electronic system, including the silicon, packaging, qualification methodology, and design techniques.

High Temperature Application

Heat, is a factor that engineers constantly tackle, particularly in the extreme situations. Heat is a natural consequence of many industrial processes, and many more still involve heat directly in the process, such as in oil and gas industry.

There are some methods to control this heat, Most equipment uses active cooling such as ventilating fans, cooling lubricant sprays, and water-cooling. But for connectors, these methods not such useful, to make the choice of connector in the first instance is very important.

When dealing with hot environments it’s tempting to simply pick a connector with a metallic housing, such as steel or aluminum, because these metals typically not easy to melt. Doing this overlooks major problems, however. For instance, the connector enclosure might easily withstand the high temperatures in question, but inside the enclosure can act as a heat sink because heat is not actively wicked away.

Low-Temperature Application

In some applications, equipment is facing an extremely cold environment. In most working environments, high-temperature heating is not practical. In this case, it is a big challenge for each part of the components.

Fluctuating extremes of temperature can affect connectors that aren't ruggedized for both high heat and extremely low temperatures. Connector materials may expand and contract under temperature changes, affecting connector mating integrity, causing cracking or damage to components, introducing moisture, and impairing system performance.

Sunkye's Micro D and Nano D connectors are designed for applications that require stability at extreme temperatures. Sunkye's connectors are rugged, high performance, Micro D densely compacted 1.27 mm pitch interconnects, Nano D 0.635 mm pitch interconnects. Working environment temperature can be -55 °C ~+125 °C. Sunkye's connector series are the ideal connectors for applications where weight and space must be kept to a minimum while maintaining maximum reliability. Micro D and Nano D are the most widely used high-density connectors. Typical applications for these connectors are miniaturized military and aerospace electronics and data processing equipment, where shorter signal paths are needed.

Sunkye’s Micro D Connector & Nano D Connector Specifications: