The Significance of Gold-plated Interface to Connector

Why do connector products always emphasize and adhere to the use of gold-plated terminals? It's not that expensive materials are used to increase the cost of products, but that gold-plated materials can increase the stability of our connectors.

General standard power connectors will be tinned, because tin is cheaper and has better anti-corrosion function. At the same time, the quality of tin is also relatively soft, which is conducive to a good fit between plug and socket. But just because of the soft texture of tin, the surface of tinplate will be abraded greatly after several times of plugging, which will lead to the deformation of the contact end, so that the designed contact force can not be achieved. At the same time, tinning will also produce the working temperature can not meet the requirements.

In addition, there are also some ways to plate brass or bronze tin working temperature can reach 110 ℃, steel tin can reach 190 ℃. For high plugging times, gold plating is generally required. For higher operating temperatures, other coatings are required, such as 340 degrees for copper nickel applications and 250 degrees for brass or bronze nickel applications.

Custom industrial connectors are mainly used for small signal applications with high reliability requirements, applications requiring small contact force and multiple plug and pull, so we generally use gold plating, and the corrosion resistance of gold is also outstanding.

Nickel is generally used as the bottom layer of gold plating, and most of the steel contacts are nickel plated (copper must be plated first). The conductivity of palladium is worse than that of gold, and it is often used to replace gold plating in some limited areas. At present, the price of gold continues to rise, and there are more and more products of palladium nickel alloy plating. Silver plated contacts have very good conductivity, but silver is easy to oxidize, so it is only used in special cases.

In addition to being superior in corrosion protection, the gold-plated industrial connector also greatly improves the insertion and extraction times of our products due to its wear resistance, ductility and other characteristics. It ensures that the contact force can be kept high after multiple plugging, to better ensure the continuity of conductivity and signal. The last point is the incomparable conductivity of gold. This is also an important reason for us to choose gold as plating material for industrial connector.