How are connectors manufactured?

Author: Harry

May. 13, 2024

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How are connectors manufactured?

The production of connectors primarily involves processing three materials: copper, plastic particles, and metal. These materials are used to make a variety of electronic connectors. The manufacturing process is generally the same and can be divided into four main stages:

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  • Stamping
  • Plating
  • Injection
  • Assembly

Stamping and plating are both processes for copper and metal materials. Plating can happen either before or after the stamping process.

1. Stamping

Stamping creates electronic connectors (pins) from thin metal strips using a large high-speed stamping machine. One end of a large roll of metal tape is fed into the front end of the machine, while the other end is rolled into a reel through the hydraulic table of the stamping machine to produce finished stamped terminals.

2. Plating

After the connector pins are stamped, they move to the plating area. In the plating stage, various metal coatings (like nickel, tin, or gold) are applied to the connector's electronic contact surface to prevent oxidation and enhance electrical conductivity. During this process, issues like distortions, cracks, or deformations may occur, which are easily detected with the right technology.

3. Injection

The plastic housing of the electronic connector is created during the injection molding stage. Molten plastic is injected into the metal film and then quickly cooled. A "leak" occurs if the molten plastic doesn't completely fill the mold, a typical defect detected at this stage. Other issues include filling or partial plugging of sockets, which must remain clean and unobstructed for proper connection to the pins during final assembly. The quality inspection after injection molding is relatively simple, as the backlight can easily identify leaks and socket insertions.

4. Assembly

The final stage of electronic connector manufacturing is the finished product assembly. This can be done in two ways: inserting pins individually or combining pins with the housing simultaneously. Regardless of the method, all pins must be correctly positioned without any omissions.

These are the four main processes of connector production. If you are interested in learning more, I will update on this content. Thank you for reading.

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"Hello, I'm Jenny Zhang, the author of this article. I've been doing overseas marketing for almost 10 years. Through constant communication and cooperation with customers worldwide, I found very few quality English resources on the Internet about Chinese electrical connector suppliers and the industry and products. Knowing the difficulties sellers face in purchasing, I created this page and wrote this article to share my knowledge with you."

Analysis of connector manufacturing process and technical stages

There are many types of electronic connectors, but the manufacturing process is generally the same. It can be divided into four stages: stamping, plating, injection molding, and assembly.

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1. Stamping

The manufacturing process of electronic connectors usually starts with stamping pins. Electronic connectors (pins) are stamped from thin metal strips using high-speed punching machines. One end of a large roll of metal tape is fed into the machine's front end, while the other end is rolled into a pulley through the hydraulic table.

2. Plating

Immediately after stamping, the connector pins are sent to the plating area. During this stage, the electrical contact surfaces of the connector are coated with various metals. Problems such as pin twisting, chipping, or deformation can occur, similar to the stamping stage. Such defects are easily detected. However, for many machine vision system suppliers, many quality defects in the plating process still belong to the "forbidden area" of the inspection system. Manufacturers want the inspection system to detect various defects such as scratches and pinholes on the plated surface, which is challenging due to the irregular surfaces of most electronic connectors.

Because some pins require multiple layers of metal, manufacturers also want the inspection system to differentiate between the layers to ensure correct ratios. This is difficult for a vision system using a black-and-white camera because the images of different metal coatings have similar gray levels. Although color vision systems can distinguish these coatings, the irregular surfaces make lighting difficult.

3. Injection

The plastic housing of the electronic connector is made during the injection molding stage. Molten plastic is injected into the mold and quickly cooled. Defects like "leaks" occur when the molten plastic fails to fill the mold completely. Other issues include filling or partial plugging of sockets, which must remain clean and unobstructed for proper connection to the pins. Quality inspection after injection molding is relatively simple due to the backlight's ability to identify leaks and socket insertions.

4. Assembly

The final stage in the manufacturing of electronic connectors is assembly. Plated pins are inserted into the injection cassette holder either individually or in combination. Regardless of the method, manufacturers need to ensure all pins are correctly positioned. Another routine inspection involves measuring the distance on mating surfaces of connectors.

The assembly of connectors challenges the automatic inspection system in terms of speed. Although most assembly lines operate at one to two beats per second, the vision system usually needs to complete several different inspections per connector. This makes detection speed a crucial performance index.

After assembly, the overall dimensions of the connector are much larger than the tolerances for a single pin, posing another problem for the visual inspection system. For instance, some connector housings are larger than one foot in size with hundreds of pins, and the detection accuracy must be within a thousandth of an inch. Testing such connectors is challenging.

"Actual position" detection is another requirement. This involves measuring the distance from each pin top to a designated design reference line. The visual inspection system must draw this imaginary reference line to measure the "actual position" of each pin vertex to ensure quality standards are met. Reference points used to define this line are often not visible on the connector or may appear on a different plane, complicating the process.

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