DEMO — fictional range. Local brief only, NOT SENT. No personal data is collected or transmitted.
BUYING
What a quotation needs in order to be a quotation.
Most connector enquiries stall because the buyer has a part number and no joint. This is the list worth completing before the first message.
- Both halves
- Because a connector is specified as a pair, not as a part
- The current and voltage
- Per contact, and how many contacts carry current at once
- The ambient temperature
- Inside the enclosure, not the room
- The wire
- Size and insulation, because both decide the crimp and the entry
- The environment
- Vibration, moisture and any corrosive atmosphere
- Mating cycles
- Because that decides the plating thickness
- The keying
- Because two similar connectors on one panel will be mated wrongly
- The standard
- Which approval the joint has to meet, and who confirms it
Why both halves come first.
Because the joint is the product. Specifying one half and sourcing the other elsewhere produces a pair that has never been tested together, and the rating on the datasheet belongs to neither.
The most useful sentence in an enquiry.
"All contacts carry current at once, the enclosure runs at 60 degrees, and the harness is mated about fifty times." It tells the supplier which derating applies, and it is the sentence most enquiries leave out.
Why written beats verbal.
The expensive conversations in a programme are the ones about what was agreed. A brief that exists only in a meeting leaves every disputed detail open.