[NJARC] Fascinating Facts About Connectors

[john ruccolo]

Folks,

This all started due to a lunch time disucssion about
the origins of "BNC." So, I Googled "BNC" and....

Fascinating Facts About Connectors

One of the favorite sports of the AV industry is the
trivial pursuit of ultimate knowledge of connector
labels and types. Many connectors have histories that
pre-date AV, and so their origins, in some cases, are
not entirely clear. But that makes debating them all
that much more fun. Here are some fun facts about name
derivations.

•Banana - A speaker wire termination consisting of a
single, fat shaft, which bulges on the sides similar
to a banana and inserts in five-way binding posts.

•BNC – the origin of the BNC connector is one of the
most debated (and most trivial) arguments in AV. While
twist-and-lock connectors are used for coaxial cable,
BNC connectors are used for electronic equipment and
LANs, and permit frequencies into the Gigahertz
ranges. Some of the most popular explanations for what
"BNC" stands for are:
- Bayonet Neill Concelman, named for the inventors
Paul Neill (of Bell Labs) and Karl Concelman (of
manufacturer Amphenol).
- Baby Neill Connector
- British Naval Connector
- BayoNet Connector, because of the way the connector
fits into a 'sheath'

•Cannon – from ITT Industries, this connector is
derived from the Cannon "X" series. The original
version didn’t have a latch to lock the connection, so
once a latch was added, 
the X Series became the XL (latch) series. Later,
Cannon modified the female end only to put the
contacts in a resilient rubber compound, and called
this new version the "XLR" series. XLR became the
generic term, even though not all XL connectors
included the rubberized compound in the female end.

•N – A 50-ohm connector designed in the 1940s for
military systems operating below 5GHz. Some say the
"N" stands for "Navy," but others attribute it to Paul
Neill, the RF engineer at Bell Labs generally credited
with its invention.

•Phoenix – The company known as Phoenix Contact is not
based in Arizona, but is a global company based in
Germany. Its famous connector that we call a "Phoenix"
connector is actually only one of 15,000 products that
the company makes for all types of electronic
assemblies.

•Phone - A 1/4-inch-diameter connector originally used
for plugging in telephone connections, hence the name.
This is the common electric guitar plug. It’s
available in two-conductor (tip-sleeve) and
three-conductor (tip-ring-sleeve) configurations.

•Phono – Another name for an RCA, or "cinch"
connector, commonly used for composite video or
unbalanced line level audio signals.

•Pomona plug – Another term for dual "banana"
connector, although Washington-based Pomona
Electronics makes all kinds of audio and video
connectors.

•RCA – Generally known as the most common audio and
video connector and first made by RCA. Also known as a
phono connector, because it was originally exclusively
used to connect the audio output of a phonograph to
its corresponding pre-amplifier input.

•RF - A radio frequency connector is an electrical
connector designed to work at radio frequencies. F,
BNC, and SMA are the most common types used in AV.

•RG - Stands for "radio grade," as in RG59 or RG6, and
was developed for use during World War II. These are
still the common coaxial cable connectors in use
today.

•RJ45 – Registered jack 45 is an eight-wire connector
used commonly to connect computers onto a local-area
network (LAN), especially Ethernets. RJ45 connectors
look similar to RJ11 connectors used for connecting
telephone equipment, but they are somewhat wider.
These are the common "Ethernet" connectors found on
most networkable or Ethernet-controlled AV equipment.
RJ45s are most commonly connected to category wiring
such as Cat5.

•SMA – Stands for subminiature A, and is another very
common type of RF connector. 

•TNC – Threaded N connector that helps resolve leakage
and geometric stability problems of some BNC
connectors, permitting applications up to 12GHz.

•XLR – Cannon’s X series, with latch, and female
receptacles in a rubberized compound. An XLR connector
can have two to seven connector pins.
 
	 


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