What are their proper names?
And where can I find their intended dimensions?
As near as I can tell, a "regular" banana plug fits a 0.15 inch jack.
What might be a "miniature" banana plug fits a 0.12 inch jack.
What might be a "subminiature" banana plug fits an 0.10 inch jack. Such as on the Triplett 310 multimeter.
And there are apparently "oversize" banana plugs that fit an 0.25 inch hole.
Can anyone verify the proper names and exact sizes?
Bananaplus are either 4mm or 2mm as far as I know.
Rene
There are four sizes you are likely to meet. Normally called 2mm, 4mm,
0.1" & 1/8". The 4mm, would be your '0.15"' one, with the hole slightly larger than you are measuring. The 1/8", would be your '0.12"' one. The 0.1" variety, has the socket 2.64mm in diameter (0.104"). This is commonly called 'mini banana', and will be what is on the Triplett meter. The 2mm variety tends to be used only on stuff from places like Germany, while the 1/8" version, was common on British kit, perhaps 40 years ago, and I haven't seen this on sale in recent times. There are quite a few odd 'custom' varieties around. For instance, here in the UK, there are Fluke meters, with non standard ones, that were supplied to (back in the old days), BT.Best Wishes
I wonder why did they call them banana plugs ? I mean theyr not banana shaped, theyr not yellow, well ok maybe some of them are
"colin"
...... Phil
I have a few in inventory and would have to resort to measuring them, but that probably wouldn't help you very much.(?)
I can tell you this: For dual plugs, there are definitely different hole spacings. The "familiar" Pamona-type dual plug has about 1" space post-to-post, but there's another size that's about 150% that spacing. I suspect this could be for a higher current banana plug (as they so seem to be "beefier"), but I can't swear to it.
ITT-Pamona (or some spelling like that), might be a good place to Google for the datasheets, and hence size info. I think Tyco also makes them these days.., and probably a hundred Chinese outfits whose names I can't pronounce, let alone spell.
EF Johnson also used to make these back in the 80's. Not sure if they still do, but might also be worth Googleing.
-mpm
As for exact name: I believe the receptable end is called a "5-way binding post". (even though, I can come up with a lot more ways than that to connect to it! Ha!!)
-mpm
I call that the other plug. I pull out my old DEC patch cord sets, come in different colors, and I use the plugs from these when necessary. Thats all I know.
greg
The giant ones:
You are full of it. The (standard) Pomona banana pair spacing is 0.75 inches, *NOT* one inch!! This 3/4 spacing is seen on many DVMs and curve tracers (includes scope plugins).
Use DigiKey, and get the datasheet for the Pomona 1269; *NO* dimensions are one inch!
Right you are - 3/4 inch has been the banana pair spacing standard since I remember, maybe 50 years ago. Living in Europe, I wandered, why the pairs of electrical contacts, on all test equipment and even the public power network were spaced 19 mm and not the nice round 20 or so. Then on moving to the US it hit me - 19mm is 3/4 inch! (well, ignore the 0.05mm). So who started it - Edison?, Westinghouse?...
Rich
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