[Milsurplus] Connector history

[J. Forster]

> 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...)

Hi Mike,

The fine threads do require less torque, which is an advantage with high
pin count arrangements. However, the fine threads can gall.

> 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.

Same thing with desktop computers. Apple was a closed architecture and
discouraged second source cards. IBM was open to all comers. Apple did
poorly, until all-in-one boxes (laptops) came along.

-John

============

> 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