Classification of High Voltage Connectors for New Energy Vehicles

New energy vehicles have developed to this day, and more and more new energy vehicles have entered our lives.

Whether it is extended-range electric vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles, fuel cell electric vehicles, hydrogen engine vehicles, pure electric vehicles, or other new energy vehicles, a large number of connectors are required. Different from traditional fuel vehicles, electric vehicles often have higher voltage and current platforms, so new energy vehicles often have a large number of high-voltage connectors.

For example, there are small circular connector and hermetic rectangular connectors in terms of shape, and there are also high-frequency connectors and low-frequency connectors in terms of frequency. Different industries will also have different types.

There are a variety of high-voltage connectors on the whole vehicle, which can be divided into two types of connections according to different wiring harness connection methods:

1. Fixed type directly connected by bolts;

Bolt connection is a connection method that we often see on the whole vehicle. The advantage of this method is its connection reliability. The mechanical force of the bolt can withstand the impact of automotive-grade vibration, and its cost is relatively low. However, bolt connection requires a certain amount of space for operation and installation. As the area becomes more platform-oriented and the interior space becomes more reasonable, it is impossible to leave too much installation space. It is not suitable from the point of view of batch operation and after-sales maintenance, and the more bolts, the greater the risk of human error, so it also has certain limitations.

Similar products can often be seen in early Japanese-US hybrid vehicles. Nowadays, many similar connections can still be seen in the three-phase motor cables of some passenger cars and the battery power input and output cables of some commercial vehicles. This type of connection generally needs to use an external box to achieve protection and other functional requirements, so whether to use this method needs to be determined from the perspective of the design and layout of the power line of the vehicle, combined with after-sales requirements;

2. Plug-in connection;

In fact, there are two types of mating methods: circular mating and chip mating. The PCB plug-in connectors ensure the safety of the electrical connection by connecting two terminal shells, thereby providing a connection with the wiring harness. Because the plug-in connection can be directly plugged in manually, from a certain perspective, it can reduce the use of space (especially in some narrow operating spaces);

From the direct contact between the male and female ends in the early days, it has transitioned to the method of contacting materials with elastic conductors in the middle. The contact method with elastic conductors in the middle is more suitable for larger current connections. Better conductive materials and better elastic design structures are beneficial to reduce contact resistance, thereby making large current connections more reliable.

We can call the middle elastic conductor contact. There are many ways of contact in the industry, such as the familiar spring type, crown spring, leaf spring, wire spring, and claw spring.