Hello,
I've used SMB connectors and like them OK. How do they compare to MCX? I'm making a board that uses a dozen of PCB mount sockets, and in my experience SMB sometimes require quite high forces for plugging/unplugging. In one case this destroyed a (commercially-made) PCB.
This is for a laboratory app but the cables won't be plugged frequently. Maybe (hopefully) not more often than 50 times during the lifetime of the thing.
robert
Both are nice connectors. SMBs have moderately high mating force and tend to be kind of inconsistant depending on who makes the various bits. We've broken a couple of SMBs (out of tens of thousands used) but never damaged a pc board.
MCXs are much smoother and more consistant, a bit loose for my tastes, as they can be very easy to pull out.
MCXs are theoretically better at high frequencies, but we recently tested a cable that was SMA-SMB-SMB-SMA and we figure the SMBs added under 15 ps to the risetime.
MMCX's are nasty... such huge detent forces that they are hard to un-mate.
If you aren't concerned about vibration/accidental pullout, go with MCX. Cisco and others use MCXs in systems, so there are tons of cheap MCX cable assemblies on ebay.
John
MCX seems pretty snug to me. I was removing a RA MCX cable from an RA SMT MCX socket and I pulled the socket off the board. The solder at all four corner grounds and the center signal all cracked. Yay ROHS! I'm glad I didn't have to try to put that connector back on the board.
Yeah, I've heard bad things about them, too.
Sounds good. Also they're made by several companies, and they're among the least expensive of all those subminiature coax connectors.
Thanks for the advice,
robert
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