Welcome Davide Andrea, author or The Electronic Connector Book! And many thanks to Blues for sponsoring this episode of The Amp Hour! Get 10% off your next order in their online store for a development kit by using the code AMPHOUR.

• Davide is an engineer working on Battery Management Systems at Elithion


• He got into writing and editing books via a postcard sent to him after he gave a talk


• For many years he was an editor at Artech house


• He works on Lithium BMS systems for large setups


• How do young engineers learn about connectors, but for tribal knowledge within larger companies?


• Digikey catalog is a good search for connectors overall


• Industrial cinch by Harting


• Should you design a custom connector (“no”)


• Davide also built and maintains an online tool for finding connectors called Identiconn


• Fretting is when vibration causes a connector to fail


• Davide had to go to Bell Labs docs to look up some specs


• Chris remarked that Identiconn is a McMaster (Carr) style browsing experience


• Vendors divide based on how the fields are set up, because that is actually logical for them selling parts. It’s harder for finding/discovering components though.


• On distributor sites, the connectors are grouped by how they were bought


• Chris asked Davide about things that have gone wrong in his career with connectors


• FFC doesn’t connect back into the socket after the tab is ripped away


• ribbon cable vs ffc, CIC vs FPC


• IDC – insulation displacement connector


• Davide has filled in with generated terms where there are no defined language for a family/type of connector, such as with “bump idc” connectors


• “dual beam?


• Chris and Davide did a joint search for the high density CM4 connector that mounts the Raspberry Pi module to another board


• Gender of connectors (note: there is a great discussion about the historical nature of using gender for connectors in the book)


• Pin vs plastic gender


• Shrouded vs enshrouded


• gaziatea (sic) – poem from the 1800


• USB type A connector


• Self mating


• APC7 – self mting connector


• Anderson connectors


• TNC BNC search


• PFFE for the dielectric on a BNC/TNC


• Magnetic connectors with pogo pins


• Example connector from Hyte


• Crimps were designed in the 50s

• The source of having so many power connectors is … imperialism? tahiti / fiji / nz all have different connectors


• Why antennas are male/female is…money? And regulatory silliness via the FCC


• Davide has also written about and is working on lithium ion batteries


• A sodium ion battery book (self published, unlike the LiIon books) should be out next year


• The Connector Book is self published. Your purchase directly supports Davide’s work…and you get the web tools for free!


• “peak lithium”


• What is required when refining sodium for batteries?


• The voltage range and charging needs are different for Sodium Ion. For instance, the range goes from 4V to 2V


• Find Davide on his various websites, on LinkedIn, on StackExchange, and on reddit