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Molex is a leading one-source supplier of interconnect products. Our team of highly skilled experts is focused on the design, development and distribution of innovative product solutions that touch virtually every walk of life. Our portfolio is among the world's most extensive, with over 100,000 reliable connector products, including everything from electronic, electrical and fiber optic interconnects to switches and application tooling.
Latest News

  • Not just a lot of hot air!

    MolexConnectors

    Not long after I started my current Molex assignment of developing new power connectors, I asked a customer about the airflow environment around a  connector. His first reaction was to say “Never you mind about airflow,  that’s my safety net!” He thought I was suggesting that we could re-rate  the connector temperature rise using the cooling effects of the airflow  from system fans.

     

    And so I learned never to even suggest that the T  rise of a connector could be favorably influenced by system cooling  fans.

    But, as always, the times they are a changing. Now, some customers  are inquiring about predictions of T rise where airflow is available,  especially when the connector is already considered to be taking up too  much space (which is pretty much all the time!). So rather than add a  few power blades to decrease the T rise generated by pumping higher  currents in existing spaces, some folks are now taking airflow into  account. Tough times call for tough decisions!

     

    Come by the Molex booth at DesignCon to see a demonstration of the  effects of airflow on T rise. Now I am not about to try to convince  everyone that you can get even more current through our products by  baffling more airflow to the connector! I realize that airflow is  probably more needed somewhere else. But if you’re trying to sneak in a  few more amps without spending more money, you may be interested to see  the effects!

  • AC-DC

    MolexConnectors

    imageSome of you may think I changed my mind and decided to blog about old rock bands, AC-DC being one of my favorite old time rock bands.  But not the case! As more power is consumed in our digital world there is more talk of delivering higher voltage DC current instead of AC. So now connector suppliers are being asked about high voltage DC connectors.

    I have been asking around about what we would do differently when designing a power connector for higher DC voltage rather than AC. The first place to look for me was UL 60950, which offers guidelines for creep and clearance as voltages are elevated. Nothing there speaks specifically to high voltage DC.  Most folks agree. It doesn’t matter if it is AC or DC voltage, higher voltages in either current require the same adherence to strict guidelines for circuit isolation and safety. One comment I heard was that you might expect slightly higher temperatures with direct current. But we’d like to hear from folks who have ideas on features that might be unique to a higher direct current connector, like 350 volts

     


    Read More From The Connector by Molex: http://www.connector.com/2010/09/ac-dc/#ixzz1EENvPJEX

  • I Squared What?

    MolexConnectors

    I Squared What?

    image

    It’s the new popular color in the electronics world. GREEN! Everyone, everything, everywhere is better when green.

    I²R losses is the general term to denote inefficiencies in power transfer and conversion. And since there are more computer chips  running our lives, we need more power. It takes a lot of electrons to  open and close those tiny little gates in the computer chips that are  now found everywhere! And in route from the nuclear power station or the  hydro electric dams, a lot of those electrons are wasted on heat that  is generated by electric currents.

    Of course, we all want to use as little copper as possible to push  those little electrons along the way. One Ampere of current equals the  flow of one Coulomb of electrons (6.25 * 10 to the 18th power) past any point of a conductor in one second.  Now I don’t know  about you, but in my house, between hairdryers, curling irons and  televisions running all the time that is a lot of electrons!And a lot of  those are just wasted!  Look around your home and see the LED lights on  your clocks, stereos, refrigerators and everything that’s on 24/7, then  take that times 50 million homes and that is a lot of wasted energy!

    Server farms devour more electricity than I think most folks realize.  These are the systems that run the internet. And more and more, the  architects that build these server farms are paying attention to I²R  losses as the cost of running these server farms increases. And with  cloud computing around the corner, this will only go up.

    We haven’t seen it yet, but soon the engineers that are choosing connectors are going to want to know about I²R losses in the interface. There are a  lot of other improvements that will generate electricity savings before  the connectors jump up on the radar screen…

    But we know Big Brother will be watching us soon!

     

    Read More From The Connector by Molex:

    http://www.connector.com/2010/08/i-squared-what/#ixzz1BQOfpUQk

  • I thought nobody used Morse code anymore?

    MolexConnectors

    imageWhen I first got involved in Power connectors, one of the first things I noticed was there were a lot of “hybrid” connectors. Meaning a single connector had both power and signal contacts. At first I panicked. Omigosh, I thought. I am not only going to have to catch up on the power connector market after working in other connector markets for 20 years, but I was faced with learning about signal integrity. Terms like skew, FEXT and insertion loss danced through my head.

    I quickly learned that these so called signal lines are running at rates that, to the backplane guys, are like comparing the hare to a dead tortoise! These are basically go, no go circuits, which are also borrowed for lower current usage. In fact, in the first four years I talked with customers, only one time did an engineer ask me about the signal speed of our hybrid power connectors.  Now usually a signal integrity engineer will load up models run on unbelievably complicated software and high-end computing machines and then spit out more squiggly lines than a Boston street map! But when I handed my engineer a sample of our power connector and asked him about speed, he just looked at it and said 600 mhz and it would be a waste of time to try to get more accurate. He also said that at that speed they don’t call it insertion loss, they call it resistance!  Now I don’t know if that is going to change and suddenly we’ll be asked to put 2 Gbps signal products in with the higher current products we are developing. But when it does, at least I now understand FEXT, NEXT and skew!>Read More From The Connector by Molex: http://www.connector.com/2010/10/i-thought-nobody-used-morse-code-anymore/#ixzz181gwXAGL

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