Samtec offers one of the industry’s largest and most flexible lines of two-piece, pin-and-socket board-stacking interconnects. To say it another way, we have more ways to stack two or more boards together than any other connector company. Also, you can specify a custom stack height system using standard part numbers, and you have a ton of options if your design requires something besides a standard parallel board stacking system.
“Custom Connectors” That Are Really Just Standard Part Numbers
Custom Stack Heights: Designers can create part numbers for very specific, non-standard (i.e., “custom”) board stacking heights. Our manufacturing process allows us to locate the body on the terminal pin in increments of .005” (0.13 mm) on standard dual-body stacking connectors and on standard terminal strips (“headers”).
This functionality allows designer to essentially create a custom stack height system with:
- standard part numbers
- no minimum order size
- no long lead times
- no tooling charges
You specify the stack height or the post height in the part number and you’re good to go. Below are links to our flexible stacking header and stackers, by pitch:
- 100″ modified header strips
- .100″stackers
- 2 mm modified header strips
- 2 mm stackers
- .050″ header strips
- .050″ stackers
- .050″ x .100″ modified headers
- .050″ x .100″ stackers
- 1 mm stackers
- 0.80 mm stackers
This design flexibility can help you connect boards with standard profile stack heights, low profiles, and even elevated designs. For example, .500″ (12.7 mm) is a pretty standard stack height, but what if you need .520″ (13.21 mm) or .480″ (12.19 mm)? We can do that with standard connectors.
For that matter, why would somebody want elevated board stacking? They may need space between the boards for air flow, they may have tall components on one board, they may need to keep a board away from a heat source or conversely from the cold. We can do that too, with standard connectors.
More Than Just a Sandwich: Most of our customers’ applications use traditional parallel board stacking, like a sandwich.
But if you need something more exotic, Samtec has pass-through contacts where the terminal strip pin passes through the bottom and/or top of the socket strip.
Pass-through sockets give designers the ability to connect three boards. A common example is shown in the illustration to the right. The terminal strip, with longer pins, is on the top pcb. These pins pass through the Tiger Claw contacts in the socket, and through non-plated through-holes in the middle pcb. These same terminal pins then mate with a second socket on the bottom (third) board.
Pass-through sockets also allow bottom-entry, pass-through applications, where the terminal strip pin (on the bottom pcb) passes up through the bottom of the top pcb and into the contact. This is used for low profile board stacking, or if the application requires certain components to be on the top side of the pcb.
For that matter, another common application is self-nesting systems, where the tails of one socket pass through the pcb and plug into another socket, which plug into another socket, which can plug into another socket, and so-on. PC/104 is a common example of this design.
Contact Systems
Here’s a link to a quick overview of our different contact systems.
Variety
Two-piece board stacking interconnects are available on 2.54, 2.00, 1.27, 1.27 X 2.54, 1.00 and 8.00 mm, and larger pitches are available for power applications.
They are available in through-hole, surface mount, and press-fit terminations.
In single and double row, and many series are available in three, four, five, and even six rows of pins.
Finding the Right System
Truth be told, we have so many connector options that sometimes it can be difficult to choose. Check-out the online Solutionator® tool that makes it very easy to find the best Samtec socket and terminal set, based on your design requirements. The cool thing about Solutionator is it gives you the mated socket and terminal set, not just one connector.