Well, I went to DesignCon this week (sigh. Bit of an eye-opener; mostly over my head.) Samtec was there, and since I considered this an interesting question, I asked them about typical costs for a custom connector.
It ranges all over the place, depending (essentially) on how many pieces are actually custom. Need a new type or size of metal finger? That's one custom piece of machinery of some kind. Need a different plastic housing? That probably mean a custom-made injection mold ($$$$$), possibly with fancy plastics engineering. While I didn't get specific about your particular requirements, I got the sense that you'd run into that "new housing" part and hit the high prices. (overall range: a few thousand dollars to about $100k...)
The other observation I made was that you get higher density and somewhat more flexible "number of signals" count by going to two-part board-to-board connectors. I guess they get more confident about tolerances when they make both sides of the connection. There were several vendors with high density, high speed connectors available in both in-line and right-angle versions. All the high-density connectors were being touted as high-speed as well, BTW. Probably not cheap Example: http://samtec.com/MicroBoardToBoard/Mic ... stems.aspx (My "real job" employer is using lots of this sort of connector.)
Get an electronic part made?
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Re: Get an electronic part made?
Thanks for checking into it while you were there and thanks again for all your help.
I have ended up moving back to pin/receptacle but have moved to a smaller pitch to increase contact numbers.
Boz
I have ended up moving back to pin/receptacle but have moved to a smaller pitch to increase contact numbers.
Boz
Forum rules
Get help, and assist others in with open source kits and running a business! Do not ask for legal advice or for consulting services in this forum, only general biz questions!
Get help, and assist others in with open source kits and running a business! Do not ask for legal advice or for consulting services in this forum, only general biz questions!