New miniaturised connection technology is ideally suited to field assembly

har-flexicon® from the Harting Technology Group is a miniaturised individual conductor PCB connection technology featuring 1.27 mm spacing and ideally suited to field assembly.

Consisting of a pluggable SMD terminal block, with IDC wire connection, har-flexicon® allows the rapid, tool-less termination of single wires directly on to a PCB, with the benefits of low processing costs, compatibility with automatic SMT mounting and reflow soldering process, and a high level of rigidity with large-area SMT fixings.

Flexible individual conductor wiring of industrial devices with PCBs as their key component is one of the principal requirements of modern device technology. Because sensor/actuator subassemblies need to be connected on site rapidly, PCB connection technology must continue to be universally applicable. These challenges are addressed by har-flexicon®, which offers flexibility in the connection of I/O signals with tool-less individual conductor wiring, allowing on-site assembly in the field.

It is always the overall, not the individual, costs of components which are paramount in the development of industrial subassemblies. The use of reflow and SMD solderable components in automated assembly and soldering processes leads to manufacturing costs that are lower than those for the manual assembly and wave soldering of wired components.

There is also a universal demand for units to become ever more compact. Efficient device design and more powerful components with higher efficiency and greater power density lead to innovative devices, which deliver a growing variety of functions and performance coupled with reduced device volume. As a result, even with traditional PCB connectors, miniaturisation continues to advance with components in this segment getting smaller and smaller. Despite this reduction in size, users still expect to operate connection technology just as conveniently and quickly as conventional products with higher spacing measurements.

har-flexicon® meets all these requirements consistently, and is a model for rapid and convenient wiring of ever more compact devices while addressing the economics of the assembly process.