TE Connectivity (TE), a world leader in connectivity and sensor solutions, today announced the launch of its new LITEFORCE contact technology. The new technology is designed to address the challenge of the increased physical strain on automotive component manufacturer assembly workers by high pin-count connectors which are increasingly being used in motor vehicles.
Global trends such as sustainability, safety and lifestyle changes continue to drive the demand for connected vehicles, requiring more electronics – including electronic control units (ECU). This is leading to an increasing use of high pin-count connectors whose assembly require greater levels of manual force. This additional physical strain on workers can potentially cause ergonomic discomfort in the workplace and long term worker health issues with the potential resultant lost working time.
The LITEFORCE contact technology was designed to meet the requirements of modern vehicles while meeting these concerns about workers’ health. It can also be used to improve connector performance in terms of current capacity and vibration resistance.
“TE’s LITEFORCE contact technology comprises a wave-shaped contact geometry on the terminal which makes it possible to reduce the contact normal force by up to 50 %, in comparison to a standard sphere-to-flat terminal geometry, without compromising the vibration performance. By applying this to proven automotive terminals, we offer vehicle manufacturers a worker-friendly way of increasing the connector pin-count without increasing the insertion force. It also means that costly mating assist features which to help to engage the connector during assembly can be designed out,” said Michael Leidner, Senior Principle Product Engineer at TE Connectivity.
Alternatively, the new contact technology can be used to increase the vibration resistance of a connector by up to two severity classes. In both cases the current carrying capacity can be improved by up to 25% compared to standard contact technologies.
Our LITEFORCE technology will be available with TE’s MQS, AMP MCP and MCON terminal families.