High-count mating cycles card edge connector?

"Morten Leikvoll" <mleikvol@yahoo.nospam> wrote in message

news:hm8ksc$ha0$1@cheetah.cadsoft.de...

Anyone know a manufacturer of card edge connectors that guarantees a lot

of mating cycles? A typical PCI express x16 connector guarantees only 50

cycles (Tyco 1746220-1)

I want to make a jig for pcb bringup and testing and I want to plug a lot

of pcb's into it.

Maybe there a some specialized pinching connectors out there?

 

Hi!

No, there isn't. 

I once faced a similar problem. In the company, we used a smal adapter pcb

with another socket. That makes 50 times 50 cycles which sums up to 2500. We

needed 1000 cycles and a board lasted about 70. Some vendors do advertise

special connectors with thicker gold layers on their webpages, but you are

unable to buy them. It's only vaporware.

Carsten

Morten Leikvoll wrote on Fri, 26 February 2010 09:12

Anyone know a manufacturer of card edge connectors that guarantees a

lot of

mating cycles?

Bare conductive fingers on a board are not good for many insertions.

Perhaps there is such a thing as a board edge ZIF connection, but I've

never seen one.  I suppose you could make one from pogo pins and your own

jig.

I have seen card to bus connectors intended for lots of cycles.  These do

not use fingers on the board, but a actual connector that mates with a

connector on the bus board.  The ones I've seen looked like little two

prong forks at each end, and they fit into each other at 90 degrees.  I

have no idea what they were called.  I haven't seen such thing in many

years.

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Morten Leikvoll schrieb:

Anyone know a manufacturer of card edge connectors that guarantees a lot of

mating cycles? A typical PCI express x16 connector guarantees only 50

cycles (Tyco 1746220-1)

I want to make a jig for pcb bringup and testing and I want to plug a lot of

pcb's into it.

Maybe there a some specialized pinching connectors out there?

Perhaps you can contact the DUT by some other means, like spring contact

probes? There are ones with round top which wouldn't even scratch the

gold finish of the PCB contacts. Example:

<http://www.ptr-messtechnik.de/en/produktuebersicht/federkontakte/detail_fk.php?id=5>

Of course, it's some effort to build a test fixture - but that will be

very reliable then.

Tilmann

if possible, add your own test connector, 50 cycles is pushing it for

any card edge. you can leave the test connector off the BOM when you

make alot of them.

the only other alternative I can think of is to make a test jig, I would

use a flexible "pink link" rubber connector to bridge the gap between

edge contacts on two boards ( three if edge is double sided w/2

connections per pin position ). these things are really ZIF and only

require being compressed evenly to work well. usually used to contact

LCD panels>.

one manufacturer, there's probably more:

http://www.fujipoly.com/design/default.asp

oh yeah, just remembered, i think these only work for low to modest

current ranges. oh well.

Morten Leikvoll schrieb:

Anyone know a manufacturer of card edge connectors that guarantees a lot of

mating cycles? A typical PCI express x16 connector guarantees only 50

cycles (Tyco 1746220-1)

I want to make a jig for pcb bringup and testing and I want to plug a lot of

pcb's into it.

Maybe there a some specialized pinching connectors out there?

Another approach: add a separate connector between the card edge

receptacle and your test environment. Then you can simply replace that

"adapter" every time the contacts are worn out.

For that interface connector I'd suggest VME type connectors (german

standard DIN 41612), they are specified for 500 mating cycles and in

practice are /far/ better. If your PCIE connector lasts for about 100

cycles, you'd be able to test at least 50000 boards... (Of course you'd

wear out several of the PCIE connectors for that.)

Tilmann