Product category:
Plugs and Sockets
News Release from: Lemo UK | Subject: Fluke
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 07 March 2002
Making connections for calibration
Lemo UK has provided a multiway connector to achieve sleek and efficient design lines for Fluke's successful 9500 calibrator series.
High precision engineering requires an exacting and reliable method of measurement When Fluke Precision Measurement was designing its successful 9500 calibrator series, it required a reliable and secure connection system
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 8 Mar 2002 at 8.00am (UK)
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Swiss-owned connector manufacturer Lemo UK provided a multiway connector to achieve sleek and efficient design lines from the first model in the series, to the very latest addition, the 9500B calibrator.
For high quality design and testing of electronic equipment, the instruments used to test and analyse must be reliable.
But how do you analyse an analyser's performance? To do this, a calibrator is used; it provides a known high quality waveform to an oscilloscope.
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The oscilloscope can be adjusted against the known waveforms to ensure accurate signals and integrity.
Norwich-based Fluke Precision Measurement manufactures calibration equipment for high reliability and, since its launch four years ago, Fluke's 9500 calibrator series has been the market leader.
From its introduction, the 9500 series has been used in third party calibration labs, national labs, where instruments are sent for calibration and at in-house calibration houses worldwide.
The series' latest addition is the 9500B, launched globally, July 2001.
The 9500B can drive up to five oscilloscope inputs via five, external active heads.
The oscilloscope design was required to provide a neat, compact solution.
To simplify assembly the Lemo PCB mating connector mounts multiple wires directly on to the PCB, which is fitted behind the oscilloscope's front panel.
This is also a cost-effective solution, as a single connector negates the cost of assembling wires.
Lemo's mating plug is fitted to the cable and over-moulded, to facilitate a secure single interconnection operation during installation.
Additionally, this single operation, connecting multiple cables to the PCB, reduces assembly time.
The 9500B's innovative design enables the calibrator to be used with four channel oscilloscopes and a trigger.
Fluke's project manager, Mark Ashcroft explains: "Using the five active heads this solution means that the calibration process can be automated, as a technician does not need to change over leads on the scope for measurements on each channel.
In addition, the scope's software produces a certificate of calibration".
The unique active head incorporated into the 9500B design allows users to generate very high-speed signals within millimetres of an oscilloscope input.
This prevents most of the distortion and aberrations caused by cabling on high-speed signals.
Each head connects to the 9500B calibrator through a Lemo UK 18-way, stainless steel, circular socket.
Lemo UK offers a range of PCB-mount connectors that are ideally suited to applications where space is at a premium and where aesthetics are paramount, as in this prestigious range of calibration equipment.
The company offers coaxial, triaxial and multi-pole versions with straight or elbow contacts options.
The connectors are suitable for back-panel mounting and are available in options up to 64 contacts.
The 9500B has been designed with up to five active heads, which fit abreast on the panel.
Lemo UK supplied PCB-mounting multiway ECG.2B.318.CLVY connectors with mating plug FGG.2B.318.CLAD62.
Ashcroft says that the Lemo UK connectors are the ones that the customer would recognise as renowned for reliability.
He adds: "Because the 9500B is a high-value instrument, Lemo connectors are designed in due to their proven robustness, high quality mating and appearance".
With calibration for such high reliability end-users as aircraft manufacturer, Boeing, for example, the calibrator head requires a high-integrity multiway connector from the head to the calibrator base.
With the PCB-mounted connectors, Fluke increased the speed of assembly and presented a calibrator with clean lines, as the 18-way connectors, over-moulded by Tekdata, encase multiple cables in a single channel to ensure that there are no bundles of cable over the workspace.
The connectors include a special location washer which allows right angle contacts to be held in position while the PCB was located close against the socket's body.
The solution meant that a PCB could be inserted behind the connector panel and the connectors mated directly to the PCB for a neat front panel that offered secure mating access.
This design also meant the initial cost of the connectors was offset against the cost of assembling the wires to the connector.
The Lemo UK solution meant that Tekdata, who used a Lemo UK mating plug to fit to a cable that was over moulded into a single cable connection, could complete the cable assembly.
The over-moulded plugs form part of the unique active head technology, which generates high-speed edges, square waves and levelled sine waves within millimetres of an oscilloscope's input connectors.
The latest addition to the 9500 series is the 9500B, offering functional (new and higher functions) differences to the existing models.
It replaces the existing 9500 model, the 1.1GHz performance 9510 and 9520 models, the 9530 model with 3.2GHz frequency performance and the 9550 model which has a special head for high speed edges (25ps operation).
Fluke is also announcing the 9560 head, as an addition to the range.
There are over a dozen interconnects in each of the compact connectors Lemo UK supplied.
For the display mounting, a circular connector was selected, for an aesthetic, easy assembly rather than a D-type.
The Lemo UK range offers a one-push fit, which is essential for high reliability applications such as calibration.
The design offers a self-latching push-pull system that enables easy and quick mating and unmating.
It is also secure against vibration, shock or pulling on the cable.
"The connector", says Ashcroft " offers quick location, for ease of operation".
The Lemo UK range also offered future development opportunities for Fluke's, formerly Wavetek's, 9500 series.
Ashcroft describes the versatility of the Lemo UK connectors thus: "By taking a connector from Lemo UK with more connections than we needed on the original design, we were able to use the connectors for development without having to change the connector [on subsequent designs]".
This was to prove vital as a previous calibrator can be used with the new design.
It was the extra capacity offered by the Lemo UK connectors that enabled this design development.
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