Look again at the photo. The Bulgin has separate gold plated pins. I have
the solder type. I bought the extractor and had to use it once. The 8 pole
connectors are rated 5A at 125VAC, much more than needed for tower relays.
Also, the Bulgin is sealed to IP68 when mated (continuous immersion in up to
2 meters of water).
The first tower is up and operational. No problems to date.
I have not found any other connector to come close to these specs for under
$100. Maybe you can point me in the right direction for lower priced,
comparable connectors for my next three towers.
73, Keith NM5G
-----Original Message-----
From: amps-bounces@contesting.com [mailto:amps-bounces@contesting.com] On
Behalf Of Will Matney
Sent: Sunday, February 26, 2006 2:26 PM
To: amps@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [Amps] [BULK] - DIN stands for....?
Keith,
It's according to how many conductors you will have, and the current they
will carry. A set of AMP connectors counting the male and female contacts,
the plug, socket, and back ends (housings) with the clamps wouldn't be close
to $30 I wouldn't think as I used to buy them a lot. You can also by a
gasket for outside applications if you think it will get waterlogged where
it's at. The thing is, the Bulgin brand is like the Amphenol in that its
contacts are permanent inside the socket or plug. If you have a contact to
go bad, you have to change out the whole socket/plug, pins and all. With the
AMP, you only change out the one bad pin-contact which saves a bunch of
money. I just looked at all these in Mouser and the AMP brand, shell style 1
would be about what you would want using probably 18 gauge wire to control
switching relays for your array? If so, the total components would equal in
cost about the same as a Bulgin from what I seen except buying the tool to
remove the contact s which was about $14. You can really remove them with a
small piece of brass tubing just large enough to slip over the contact and
pull the contact from the rear. The tool has a small rod inside the tubing
that shoves it out for you like a syringe the doc uses for a shot. You don't
need to by the solder type contacts which are a shade bit higher in price.
Buy the crimp type, crimp them and then solder them too. That's the way I
always did do them. You don't need to buy one of those expensive had
crimpers either, a pair of needle nose pliars will do it. If you were going
to mount the socket in a housing, you would by a flanged socket with the
contact type you want, male or female. The plug requires three things, the
plug, the contacts to mate up with the socket, and the back end with the
cable clamp on it. You size the back end housing by the size of cable your
running. In the specs, it will give a minimum and maximum cable diameter the
clamp will accept. To order the Bulgin , you just need to order the two
ends but again, cant change a bad contact. Amphenol though is way too
expensive. Miller Electric, who makes welding machines, changed to AMP years
ago because the Amphenol was too expensive. I think Lincoln Electric and
ESAB started using them too, except for military equipment of special
design. If it were me, I'd go with AMP just because of the easy fix if a
contact ever went bad. I would much rather change out one contact and solder
one joint than do 8-10 off a tower and pay again for a whole plug or socket.
If you want, I can help you size these since I've used them in the past.
Best,
Will
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
On 2/26/06 at 12:47 PM Keith Dutson wrote:
>A while back I decided to plan for a multi-2 station with at least four
>towers. Since I am only a year away from retirement and not looking
>forward to a lot of tower/antenna maintenance in the future, I wanted
>to design the wiring harnesses using the best cables and connectors. A
>search for industrial connectors for the control cables yielded the
>type of information you have described below, Will. Most of these have
>a price around $100 each, so one connection would be double that figure
>- much more than I am willing to pay.
>
>I did, however, find an industrial quality connector made by Bulgin, a
>British firm. The 400 series Buccaneer line is what I chose. These
>likely would not be used on military/aviation equipment, but seem fine
>for my project. They are waterproof. Mouser sells the components and
>the total price per connector is about $20. There are chassis/in-line
>and in-line/in-line connectors, so there is plenty of flexibility for
design.
>
>I also found a high quality, screw-in DIN connector from Amphenol and
>use some of these in the shack. These are also available from Mouser.
>
>A photo of the Bulgin and Amphenol connectors can be seen here:
>http://www.dutson.net/Transfer/HamRadio/Connectors/DSC00053ds.JPG
>
>Here is a close-up of the Amphenol, showing components and assembled views:
>http://www.dutson.net/Transfer/HamRadio/Connectors/DSC00054ds.JPG
>
>Here is a close-up of the Bulgin components, chassis mount on left:
>http://www.dutson.net/Transfer/HamRadio/Connectors/DSC00055ds.JPG
>
>Last, here is a Bulgin assembled in-line connector:
>http://www.dutson.net/Transfer/HamRadio/Connectors/DSC00056ds.JPG
>
>
>73, Keith NM5G
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