What is a Circular Connector?
Circular connectors are electrical plugs and receptacles that are used to create connections for transmitting electrical signals and data or powering electrical devices. They are designed with multiple contacts that are housed in a circular body, and thus they are called circular connectors. The major purpose of using these multipin circular connectors is to interact with the outside world. These connectors consist of male plugs and female receptacles with corresponding sockets. They mate with each other to create a connection and power electrical devices. With the use of multi-pin connections, the connectors can easily transmit both power and signal.
The bodies or housing of these connectors are typically made of aluminum, stainless steel, nickel aluminum, and bronze. Therefore, they can easily be used in devices that work in harsh and extreme environmental conditions like extreme temperature (hot and cold), pressure, shock, vibrations, etc. They easily withstand these conditions and deliver the signal and data with high-level protection. They don’t allow interference to disturb or interrupt the data quality.
Because of their high reliability and robustness, they are widely used in military, aerospace, and various other industrial applications that work under harsh environmental conditions. Their most common standards include MIL-DTL-5015, 38999, 26482, and 83723.
Shells, Inserts, Backshells, and Contacts
As we discussed above, circular connectors are comprised of two parts: multipin male plugs and multi-socket female receptacles. The male plug is encased in a circular shell that is made of metal or plastic. The female receptacle is designed with a corresponding socket for connecting to the male pin mates. The shell of the connector is available in various sizes with different diameters. Depending on your needs, you can get the shell in sizes ranging from nano miniature to 50 mm and beyond. Larger shells are designed to provide housing for the larger contacts that are used to power the device, whereas smaller shells are designed to provide housing for the smaller contacts that are mostly used in the sensors.
The best part of using these circular contacts is their easy engagement and disengagement processes. They have tight environmental sealing properties, and this is the reason they are specially used in equipment that works in harsh environmental conditions. The male plug contains the pin, and the female receptacle contains the socket. They plugged into each other to create a connection. In these connectors, various mating styles are used, such as screw, bayonet, push-pull, and twist-lock, to make them highly environment-resistant and protect them from any kind of accidental decoupling.
The male plug and female receptacle come into contact so that electrical current can flow through the electrical contacts. These contacts are designed with highly conductive, oxidation-resistant materials to provide better conductivity for even lower voltages and currents. Therefore, the most common materials that are used to make these contacts are brass and steel, which are sometimes also coated with gold or silver to achieve the same purpose.
Many of the circular connectors are designed with backshells, which help them provide physical as well as electromagnetic protection. It also protects the circular connectors and cable link from any physical stress which may include strain, shock, vibration, etc.
