Mating Halves

IDI’s spring contact probe based connectors have the unique advantage of requiring only a fl at pad as their target. This greatly simplifies the design of the complete connector. The mating halves for our connectors are often customer-created by simply exposing pads on a printed circuit board, the customer can grant reliable access for a spring contact probe based connector. IDI can provide target pins, or can supply a complete mating half which accomplishes alignment and sealing functions.

Whether IDI is providing the mate or the
customer is capitalizing on our ease of use, IDI’s advantage is often as much about what we’re hitting as what we hit it with. 

PCB Mate

Simple gold-plated pads on a printed circuit board are a reliable, easy-to-implement, and very low profile target structure for a spring contact probe based connector; this is also often a nearly zero-cost option for our customers. IDI can provide design guidelines to help our customers easily integrate our  mating half into their design.

Target Pins

IDI can construct a plastic mating half for the connector with solid metal pins for target contacts. This allows for an extremely robust and repeatable interconnection, and is often a good way to extend the interconnection into the customer’s device in a manner which permits sealing and a short Z-axis transfer. A selection of pins is available from IDI for those customers who wish to create their own mating half.

The mating half of the connector can incorporate features which help protect the customer’s device from the ingress of water and other contaminates. IDI has experience in sealing target pins, and in providing gaskets and design guidelines to make customer applications safe for harsh environments.

Blind Mate Capability

Spring contact probes contact only the surface of their target; they do not engage into the target in the manner of a pin an socket connector. This permits IDI’s connectors to mate at up to a 90 degree angle. Our connectors can rotate after the fashion of brush contacts for millions of cycles.

Critically, it is difficult to harm a spring probe based connector through mismating, and this makes our connector designs uniquely attractive in blind mate applications.

A spring contact probe requires only a flat pad for its target. It will safely mate to that target if its tip strikes within the target’s diameter, and that diameter is only limited by the desired pitch of the connector. A probe-based connector is thus very forgiving of
X-Y misalignment; and if the probe strikes off the pad, little harm comes to the connector and it may be safely re-engaged.