ODU single contacts

Click2Contact

ODU’s single contacts, based on the ODU Springtac and ODU-Lamella design, are suitable for high-power applications. ODU manufactures three types of single contacts: slotted, lamella and Springtac.

The slotted contact is used extensively in all standard connector designs. It is limited in the number of mating cycles to 1000 and contact force. In its simplest form (without additional springs) it is generally used only in connectors with contacts of less than 3 mm in diameter. It offers good performance in contact resistance and current load.

The lamella (louvred) contact has important advantages over the slotted contact. For example, insertion and withdrawal forces are less, contact resistance is less, number of mating cycles is about ten times higher at 100,000 giving better contact reliability. With the use of contact lubricants, further improvements are possible. The ODU Lamella contact has contact lubricant applied by the factory.

The spring wire contact has all the advantages of the lamella contact in addition to: extreme contact reliability due to independent spring wires and long spring path of the spring wires compensates for higher alignment tolerances, especially important in spring wire pins for test leads; very high number of mating cycles when designed with optimum normal force and high-quality surface finish. No contact lubricant is needed; can be as small as .76 mm pin diameter and still have 15 independent spring wires.

The above technical advantages can only be realised with significant manufacturing know-how. The cost level for the three contact types is about 1:2:3 for slotted/lamella/spring wire contacts.