[Milsurplus] Connector history

[Mike Hanz]

Close enough, John.  Anyone who has had to work with the fine threaded 
AN/MS connectors versus Cannon connectors in close quarters blessed the 
foresight of the Cannon Company (who I seem to recall may have obtained 
the design from the Breeze connector folks in England in the 1930s 
through the simple avenue of buying rights in the company...)  It's hard 
to figure out why the coarse thread Cannon was eclipsed by the Amphenol 
produced design other than influence, political or financial, although 
Cannon apparently took credit for the fine thread design as well.  The 
drawbacks of the Cannon coarse thread design were few - a limitation on 
the right angle backshell position to only three or four directions 
being one of them.  There may have been an issue with second party 
sourcing that prevented their widespread use as well - Amphenol had 
apparently released manufacturing rights to the government for the 
duration of the war, and I have seen the Amphenol design with minor 
variations and at least four other company trademarks.  All were 
interoperable physically.  I've never discovered a second source for the 
Cannon style connectors of the period, though one or two may exist.

Interestingly enough, the coarse thread Cannon style is still produced 
by PEI-Genesis as "Standard-K" connectors.  Their brochure sez, "Since 
1994 Standard-K has been manufactured in the USA by Sure Seal 
Connections, a division of PEI-Genesis. Standard-K is used in 
applications as diverse as rock concert audio snakes, mass transit, and 
in the frozen heart of the latest MRI medical machines."

73,
Mike

On 11/27/2011 5:42 PM, J. Forster wrote:
> My (possibly incorrect) usage has been:
>
> Course Acme threaded- as in ART-13, MN-26, and ARB = Cannon connectors
> Fine triangular thread- as in APN-1, APN-2, ASB = MS connectors