PCB Terminal Socket April 2002

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To address the continually evolving needs of the telecom industry, Autosplice, Inc. developed a new PCB Terminal Socket that is designed to optimize the manufacture of standard surge protector assemblies used extensively in telecom environments.

Surge protector blocks act as "circuit breakers" providing the interface between individual subscribers' copper loop lines and the rest of the telecom infrastructure. With the unprecedented growth in new lines to meet the demand for voice, data, fax, DSL, etc., the supplier says these surge-protected termination points for subscriber-line interfaces are rapidly proliferating and also moving out from the traditional central offices into compact stand-alone collector arrays in individual neighborhoods. As a result, the telecom industry has encountered a growing need to reduce the cost and complexity of conventional assembly methods used for creating surge protector assemblies.

Traditionally, the connection method for plugging subscriber loops into surge protectors has involved the use of relatively expensive "tulip"-type receptacles with the tail ends protruding through the board to create a wire-wrap array for wiring into the overall telecom infrastructure, according to the supplier. After reviewing the specific telecom application requirements and working closely with leading telecom manufacturers, the supplier proposed a reportedly more robust and cost-effective alternative that was based upon an adaptation of an existing Autosplice PCB terminal socket design used within the power utilities industries.

The new PCB terminal socket design has reportedly undergone extensive testing to ensure compliance with BellCore specifications. Test results have demonstrated that the new Autosplice design meets or exceeds all applicable BellCore requirements for reliability, conductivity, retention-force, etc. In addition, the cost of the PCB terminal sockets are significantly less because they are able to eliminate the gold-plating required to achieve adequate conductivity in conventional wire-wrap designs, according to the company. In a broader sense, because the new socket is designed for facilitating direct PCB connection, overall costs and complexity reportedly can ultimately be reduced through migration to PCB-based rather than traditional wire-wrapped designs.