What Is a Board to Board Connector?
Board to board connectors are indispensable miniature coupling plugs and sockets that directly connect power and signal between printed circuit boards (PCB). They have a wide range of pin-pitches and stacking heights.
PCB board-to-board connectors come in two types — box headers and pin headers. Box headers completely encapsulate the connector contacts while pin headers expose their pins. Both have a male connector or female connector that fits into the connector’s plastic base.
Pins
Pins are metal objects with a pointed tip that can be used to attach other items to them. They are available in a range of materials, from steel to brass, and can be used for a wide variety of applications. For example, brass is often preferred for architectural applications because it is less prone to corrosion than stainless steel. Brass is also an attractive material for decorative purposes, as it has a golden hue that can complement the design of a piece of furniture.
The simplest kind of pin is the sewing pin, also known as a bobby pin, which has nickel-plated 0.5 mm metal shafts that are strong but not overly flexible. They are used in sewing machines to hold fabric together. The slightly rounded tip of the pin allows it to slide between threads without breaking them, which would unravel the fabric. It’s important to use these pins in fabrics that are resistant to damage, such as silk, or ones that will stretch when pinned, such as jersey fabrics.
Another type of pin is the board in connector, which connects wires directly to a circuit board without using a mating connector. They are available in surface mount and through-hole configurations, and can have up to 100 positions. Some connectors have locking mechanisms to prevent accidental removal, and polarization and keying features to ensure the correct orientation during assembly.
Insulators
Insulators are materials that do not easily allow heat and electricity to pass through them. Examples include plastics, wood and rubber. Insulators are often used to cover items that carry electrical current, such as wires. This helps to prevent the flow of electricity where board to board connector it is not needed and helps keep people and equipment safe from electrical shocks.
It is important to use insulators in applications that require high levels of data transmission. The higher the transmission rate, the more contact points required to ensure signal integrity. However, increasing the number of contacts per terminal negatively affects signal transmission speed.
Increasing the number of contacts also increases the likelihood of contact failure. To minimize these issues, it is important to use insulators with a low voltage breakdown rating. The breakdown rating of a material is determined by its ability to withstand the amount of energy that is released when the insulator fails. This energy is known as the puncture or flashover voltage of a material.
A type of plastic resin, phenolic is commonly used in electronic connectors. It offers good resistance to load denaturation and dimensional stability over a wide temperature range, as well as excellent moisture and chemical resistance. It also has a very high creep resistance of KB600. Like other plastics, phenolic can be formed into various shapes to create insulators with specific characteristics. It is molded using injection molding, a process that involves heating granular plastic to a molten state and then injecting it into a mold cavity.
Headers
Board to board connectors (also called headers) allow PCBs to connect to one another without the need for wire harnesses. Using them reduces the size of the circuit board and increases its reliability. These connectors are available in a variety of different forms to meet specific needs. For example, some are hermetically sealed, while others have filters to block EMI. They are also plated with tin that can be characterized as bright or matte to improve conductivity and resist corrosion.
Headers can be soldered to either the female or male side of a printed circuit board. The corresponding Board-to-Board Connector Supplier female header receptacles, which are sometimes called sockets or pin receptacles, have a row of female pins on the bottom. These pins can be straight, right-angled, or at a 180deg angle to the surface of the PCB. They can also have different pitch sizes.
When designing the layout of your circuit board, make sure to check and double-check that the header footprint and pin-outs match on both boards. This helps ensure that the mating connectors will fit properly. Several features in your PCB design tool should help you accomplish this task, including library tools and plugins that verify the pin-outs of the header with those of its mating receptacle. These plugins can also help you find online component suppliers that offer symbols, footprints, images, and other part information.
Gender
Board to board connectors connect printed circuit boards (PCBs) without using wires. They come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and pin counts to fit different applications. They can be plugged into each other or permanently soldered with hard soldering. Some are designed to be easy to handle, while others are built for high-speed data transmission and rugged conditions. They are also offered in both through-hole and surface-mount versions for manual insertion or automatic pick-and-place and reflow soldering.
While the terms plug, pin, and prong are often used interchangeably for male connectors, the term receptacle, socket, or slot is more common for female ones. These nearly synonymous terms can lead to confusion, especially in documentation intended for non-specialists. In addition, some connectors combine both male and female elements in the same connector body. These are sometimes referred to as hermaphroditic or, in less formally, bisexual.
Gender is usually determined by the innermost pins, although the outer shell may also determine gender in some cases. For example, receptacles for electrical power outlets are female and jacks for RS-232 serial ports are male. These gender conventions are generally agreed upon by experts and engineers in technical standards, but end users can still experience confusion over the informal usage of these terms. Even so, they can make the process of selecting the right PCB connector much easier by focusing on their priorities, constraints, and “must-haves.”
