Devices and Connectors > Connectors > Modular Connectors

Aerospace Modular Connectors

Aerospace modular connectors are special connector types mainly used in the aerospace industry and in standards such as D38999, but can also be applied in other industries.

The distinguishing difference from regular modular connectors is that the connector contains cavities (Figure 46), which can take a large-gauge wire or an insert (twinax or quadrax insert, sometimes known as a twinax pin or quadrax pin). The insert (Figure 47) occupies the cavity and provides terminations for two or four lower-gauge wires respectively.

Figure 46: Aerospace Modular Connector and Blocked Cavities Example

Figure 47: Modular Insert Examples

Aerospace modular connectors are added to a diagram as regular modular connectors, but with special behavior triggered by the fact that a modular insert in a position will block a pin on the parent connector; effectively by being inserted where that pin can go.

Modular connector (Parent) — a connector with multiple cavities (Positions) which can house a single wire or one of many possible modular inserts.
Modular insert — for example, quadrax, triax, twinax which provide 4, 3, 2 terminations respectively.

The structure of aerospace modular connectors is displayed on the connector graphics on the diagram, and in the Design Browser Window.

On the diagram, aerospace modular connectors are represented as regular plugs / receptacles, with graphics showing the inserts as sub-connectors. A sub-connector is graphically drawn at a fraction of the grid-spacing as the parent to avoid overlapping the adjacent pin names.

You can control the layering order of the modular hierarchy graphics using the z-order settings.

Caution

The Move Connector action, available on connectors attached to a device, is unavailable on attached modular connectors.

You can style pin names using queries in the Style Sets Dialog to display the hierarchy level separated with colons ":" to indicate pins within inserts.

For example: :

Figure 48: Connector with Two Modular Inserts Example

To view styling composite text against modular connector pins using queries:

In the Design Browser window, inserts are listed in a tree structure, following the hierarchy of connector > modular insert > pin.

Figure 49: Modular Connector Hierarchy

The modular insert name, displayed to the right of the icon, is comprised as follows:

Position in the connector.
Blocked connector cavity shown in parentheses and italics.
Part name following the colon.

Figure 50: Modular Insert Naming Convention

The following harness connector graphics are displayed for aerospace modular connectors, pre-configured (connector arrangement) with modular inserts and mapped pins, if you press Ctrl when adding a plug:

The connectors, modular inserts, and pins are displayed on the diagram.
The pin names display the blocked cavity and pin numbers separated by a colon “:” to match the structure of the aerospace modular connector.

Note

If you add a pre-configure connector without pressing Ctrl, the connector is created without the pre-configured inserts and pins displayed. You can right-click the connector and select Add Pin to show the complete configuration on the diagram. See also Adding a Modular Connector.

See also the Capital Component Manager User Guide or the Capital Harness Designer User Guide for additional information on modular and aerospace modular connectors.

Parent Topic:

Modular Connectors