connect/disconnect cycle durability of SMA?

[eccerr0r]

Curious have people worn out SMA connectors? Have the center pin wear badly such that the impedance changes? Or is it typical that the receiver end wears out quickly?

When mating, I see that rotating the whole connector is bad, should make sure you only rotate the ferrule. But have people frequently worn these things out?

Also those IPX connectors... probably has a very low power limit, but wonder how quickly these wear out too...

[stj]

Re: connect/disconnect cycle durability of SMA?

it's usually in the datasheets,
i wonder if it's the plating, or the springs they are concerned with?

[eccerr0r]

Re: connect/disconnect cycle durability of SMA?

Don't know if it's spring failure or plating failure, either would cause problems. Wondering if I should adapt all SMA to BNC as it seems BNC is more robust in general in so many more ways... PL-259/SO-239s suck just like SMA, but it seems even the "UHF" connectors are more robust.

Haven't worked with enough N connectors to know what they're like... but IMHO:

BNC > "UHF" (PL259/SO239) > SMA. The "F" connector probably is also as bad as SMA but usually F is for 75-ohm and rarely do people transmit through them...

[CapLeaker]

Re: connect/disconnect cycle durability of SMA?

Broken center pins, broken in half sma to SO239 Adapter, etc... yep been there done that and seen it from others too. To me these brake very easy if you use them a lot. From UHF on the RF travels more on the outside of the center conductor not in the middle.

Type “N” connectors also suffer with a wandering center pin that can retract or push into the other connector either disconnecting, or destroying the other end, when used with the wrong coax.

[redwire]

Re: connect/disconnect cycle durability of SMA?

U.FL/IPX connectors are intended only for assembly so they have a durability spec of 30 plug/unplug cycles.

[eccerr0r]

Re: connect/disconnect cycle durability of SMA?

I'm hearing 500 cycles is typical for SMA... anyone had actual experience of SMA failure?

Now IPX I am worried about ...

I wonder how many cycles PL259/SO239 are rated for now...and have they ever broke. I suspect that the wire to metal portion is the weak spot for the connector, but ignore that for now, curious about the actual mating portion...

[diif]

Re: connect/disconnect cycle durability of SMA?

Amphenol SMA in brass is minimum 100 and 500 stainless.

I've repaired a couple that had cracked at the base due to impact damage.

[eccerr0r]

Re: connect/disconnect cycle durability of SMA?

500 cycles is still terrible compared to microUSB rated at over an order of magnitude more... Full size USB is also rated for more cycles.

I suspect that abuse damage (like damage caused by dropping devices) afflicts SMA like microUSB, but what percentage of damage is specific to the contacts?

[stj]

Re: connect/disconnect cycle durability of SMA?

i cant imagine damaging a PL259, i used to use them for CB rigs and they are huge, with a big soldered center pin something like 2.5mm diameter.

[eccerr0r]

Re: connect/disconnect cycle durability of SMA?

Yeah I don't think PL259/SO239 will have way too many drop-induced failures, I'd also imagine that PL259/SO239 can protect equipment from drops by sacrificing the cable (What are these old Amphenol PL259's made of? SS? Starting to collect a few of them scavanged from useless pieces of cable...)

Also kinda funny... Anyone have any gold plated PL259 connectors? All tin as far as I can see, and occasional silver.

SMA seems invariably gold plated...

[stj]

Re: connect/disconnect cycle durability of SMA?

the good old pl259's are silver plated brass.

[eccerr0r]

Re: connect/disconnect cycle durability of SMA?

Then also the cheapest of cheap, the cycle durability of ...

The typical 3.5mm (⅛") and 2.5mm (3/32") phone plugs leave much to be desired, I've easily been able to destroy these.

The 6.35mm (¼") phone plugs are quite durable however.

Now how about RCA phono plugs... Ha. I think most of them die due to corrosion of anything!