Finding the replacement of any electrical and electronic components causes time to market delays in production and increase lead times for sourcing and procurement process. Replacement, cross reference, is needed when these products in the bill of materials reach the end of life and out of stock. Before checking that the electrical connectors will fit in the design, when looking for replacement difficulties are produced by wire-to-board terminal blocks due to many factors that must be taken into account. Before dropping in the replacement part, different specifications must be checked and verified i.e. ESD requirements, material composition, footprint size etc. This article discussed the terminal block comparison aspects and introduced the automation technique for cross reference process.
Right Terminal Block Cross-Reference Selection
When we talked about wire-to-board terminal blocks, there are different requirements for selecting an electronic components replacement part. Requires testing electronic components. Firstly the replacement part must fit on the footprint as the previous part. In other words must have the same pitch of the contacts or connectors and the pin diameter must perfectly fit in the hole on PCB. The number of wire inputs and contacts must be the same in both the replacement part and the original part. There are the requirements of the project for input wire size that must be fulfilled by the new part. If the project requires side interlocking as in the previous part so this specification must be considered in the new part. If the project demands the same connection method i.e. screw, press etc., this must be in the replacement part.
Electrical specifications of the project have great importance and the replacement part must have the same. The isolation voltage and the rated current of both the project requirements and the certifications that product must possess will be checked. The terminal block height is also the major specification in the project. One also should not deny the importance of material composition i.e. the temperature behaviour of the material of terminal block, RoHS and REACH. For an engineer comparing all the above discussed specifications must be time consuming and expensive as well. Engineers should look for the automation tools that will speed up this process.
Wire-to-Board Terminal Block Cross-Referencing Automation Process
The fastest method of performing the above discussed comparison procedure is to automatically compare the parts on the datasheet specification and rank the part which is the most similar. After that engineers simply verify the differences that are difficult to compare i.e. interlocking dimensions and cross-reference is complete.
The SourcingBot engineers have an up to date catalog of parts and expertise in products as well to easily create a cross-reference automation system. For example,
1935174 Phoenix Contact, a 3-terminal, 5mm pitch wire-to-board terminal block. If this Phoenix Contact MPN is searched on the sourcingbot.com then this part page can be found. In this page pricing, availability, datasheet information and similar parts are given.
The important specifications in the match table can be compared and verified easily. For this part there are five competitors including Wurth, Amphenol, Eaton and TE Connectivity. This makes it easy for engineers to select the right replacement according to their design because of the variety of replacement suggestions.
SourcingBot automates and accelerates the cross-reference process that is helpful in risk avoidance for both the procurement specialists and the engineers. The important information about each part like PCB footprints, PCNs, distributor information, 3D models, lab measurements, specifications and cross-references has been collected and gathered at one place. SourcingBot has the most extensive information on your bill of materials for semiconductor products, connectors and passive electronic components.
