Electronic – How to know about “press fit” connectors

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I'm looking a particular type of connectors and they are all press-fit style. I've never dealt with such connectors before and to my knowledge they do not require any soldering.

I have a questions about them though..

Here is an example of the type of connector I am looking at

HM2J07PE5118N9LF – Digikey

HM2J07PE5118N9LF Drawing

  1. Can these be manually inserted or do they require some sort of constant uniform force machine to press all the pins at once ?

  2. Are there special considerations that are required from a PCB design perspective other than that the diameter of the hole should be less than the diameter of the pin ?

  3. Can I just opt for soldering the pins instead of worrying forces and specific diameters ?

Best Answer

For starters, that connector has an insertion force of 0.75 Newtons per pin. There's 110 pins. Converting to lbs and multiplying by the number of pins gives us almost 17 pounds of force to insert.

Q1: 17 Pounds of force doesn't sound like a lot, but when you're pushing that into a PCB you can easily bend/warp the PCB to the point that components that are already soldered will get messed up-- especially BGA's. You will need some sort of bench press to push the connector in, and some sort of jig to hold the PCB so it doesn't bend too much.

Q2: Make sure that the plating of the hole is the correct thickness. Also, make sure the PCB thickness itself is going to be good with that connector.

Q3: Check with the manufacturer on the solder-ability of the connector. It might have platings on it that are more suitable for pressing than soldering. Also, the plastic used might not stand up to soldering temperatures. Even if you can solder it, you might want to make "some" of the pins press-fit if only to hold the connector in place while you solder it. If only 4-12 holes are press-fit then flexing and insertion force will be much more manageable.

In all cases, there is probably information on the manufacturers web site that addresses these issues with more accuracy than what anyone here could give you. Check for application notes and white papers. If you are doing volume production then call your mfg rep or distributor for help.

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