Attribute Schema Library
Attribute schemaelectronic components

Connectors Attributes

Connectors join two circuits mechanically and electrically: headers, receptacles, housings, crimp contacts, circulars, backshells. Buyers are design engineers picking a mate for a board footprint, contract manufacturers buying to a BOM line, and MRO buyers replacing a part that failed in a machine. All three arrive knowing a pitch, a position count and a gender, and filter on those before reading a word of copy.

A connector is rarely one SKU. A 3-circuit interconnect is a housing, a strip of crimp contacts, a header and a crimp tool: four records that only work together, with the relationship living in a selection guide PDF rather than the catalog.

The spec that decides the sale sits in a series datasheet, not the part page — durability in mating cycles, gold thickness in microinches, the derating curve behind the current rating. And one series explodes into thousands of MPNs across pitch, positions, rows, plating and packaging, with suppliers spelling every axis differently: 2.54mm, .100", 100 mil and 2,54 mm all arrive in the same feed.

Core

Every SKU needs these. Without them the record is not a product, it is a row.

Manufacturer Part Number (MPN)
identifier
S3B-PH-K-S(LF)(SN)

The only reliable key in this category. Buyers search the exact string off a BOM line or off the part itself, including suffixes.

GTIN-13 / UPC
identifier
4547648042789

Required for marketplace listing and for matching against customer punchout catalogs. Often absent on cut-tape and bulk pack.

Connector Type
enum
Receptacle

First filter on every parametric rail. Separates the housing shape from the contact gender, which suppliers routinely conflate.

Contact Type (Gender)
enum
Female Socket

A plug can carry sockets and a receptacle can carry pins. Gender must be stored independently of connector type or mates go wrong.

Number of Positions
number
3

Circuit count. Combined with pitch and rows it defines the footprint. Buyers filter this before anything else.

Pitch - Mating
number · mm
2.00 mm (0.079 in)

Centerline spacing between adjacent contacts. Wrong pitch means the part will not mate, full stop. Must be numeric to filter.

Number of Rows
number
2

A 10-position part can be 1x10 or 2x5. Without rows, position count alone cannot identify the footprint.

Mounting Type
enum
Through Hole, Right Angle

Through hole, surface mount, right angle, panel mount, free hanging. Drives the board footprint and the assembly process.

Termination
enum
Crimp

How the wire or board attaches: crimp, solder, press-fit, IDC, screw clamp. Determines what tooling the buyer also needs.

Operating Temperature Range
range · °C
-40 °C to +105 °C

Gates automotive, outdoor and under-hood use. Must be a numeric range so a buyer needing 125 °C can exclude 105 °C parts.

Differentiating

What buyers actually compare on. This is where catalogs win or lose the filter.

Current Rating per Contact
number · A
3 A per contact at 25 °C

Signal parts sit at 1-3 A; power contacts run to 40 A and above. The main filter for anyone sizing a power path.

Voltage Rating
number · V
250 VAC

Drives creepage and clearance decisions and separates low-voltage signal parts from mains-rated interconnect.

Contact Finish - Mating
enum
Gold

Gold, tin, silver or gold flash on the mating surface. Governs durability, contact resistance and whether it can mate with tin.

Contact Finish Thickness - Mating
number · µin
30 µin (0.76 µm) gold over nickel

Gold flash and 30 µin gold are both 'gold' and differ by orders of magnitude in mating cycles. Store thickness separately.

Wire Gauge Range (Accepted)
range · AWG
24-28 AWG

Crimp contacts accept a narrow band. Order the wrong contact for 22 AWG wire and the crimp fails pull test.

Compliance & identifiers

Standards, regulatory data, and the identifiers channels reject you for missing.

RoHS Status
enum
RoHS3 Compliant (EU 2015/863)

Channel-required and buyer-filtered. Legacy leaded variants still ship for military and aerospace and must be distinguishable.

UL 94 Flammability Rating
enum
UL94 V-0

Housing material rating. Enclosure and appliance builders filter on V-0 and will not consider an unrated part.

Country of Origin
enum
Japan (JP)

Drives HTS classification, tariff exposure and defense-program sourcing rules. Buyers increasingly filter on it directly.

The fields that aren't in the schema at all

What most connectors catalogs are missing.

The table above is the schema most catalogs already have. These are the attributes that usually aren't in it — each one surfaced by a signal from the live market rather than by an audit of what's already there. This is what Anglera's Schema Foundry does on a real catalog, in this category.

Supplier signal
+ Mates With / Mating Part Number

Manufacturer selection guides pair every housing with a specific contact and a specific header family. Catalogs list those three SKUs as unrelated records with no relationship field between them.

Customer orders a housing without the crimp contacts, receives an empty shell, and returns the order. The attach that should have been three lines is one.

Supplier signal
+ Mating Cycles (Durability)

Datasheets state durability plainly as '30 cycles min' or '5,000 cycles'. Distributor records rarely carry a field for it, so a buyer specifying a field-serviceable interface cannot filter on it.

Buyer picks a 30-cycle tin part for an interface unplugged weekly. Field failures come back as warranty claims, or the RFQ goes to whoever can filter it.

Search signal
+ Crimp Tool / Applicator Part Number

Buyers type a housing part number plus 'crimp tool' into site search. With no tooling field, the query returns zero results even though the tool is in stock.

Buyer sources the tool from a competitor and moves the connector line with it. Or crimps with the wrong tool and returns the contacts as defective.

Supplier signal
+ Current Rating Basis (per contact vs. all energized)

Datasheet derating curves give a materially lower per-contact amperage when every position is loaded. Catalogs publish the single-contact maximum with no derating field behind it.

Power connector overheats at published rating in a fully populated harness. Failure analysis lands on the distributor's spec, not the manufacturer's.

Supplier signal
+ Ingress Protection Rating and Sealing Condition

Datasheets qualify sealing as 'IP67 when mated and properly installed'. Catalogs that carry an IP field at all store a bare 'IP67' with no mating condition attached.

Part specced into a washdown or outdoor enclosure fails the seal unmated or on an unpopulated cavity. Spec-out on the next revision.

How Schema Foundry finds these

Messy in, governed out.

The same value, spelled every way electronic components suppliers spell it. A filter only works once they agree.

Pitch - Mating
2.54mm0.100"0.1 in100 mil2,54 mm2.5 mm
2.54 mm (0.100 in)

2.5 mm and 2.54 mm are different pitches that will not mate. Decimal commas and 'mil' both collapse into the wrong bucket.

Contact Finish - Mating
GoldAuGold FlashSelective Gold30u" AuTin over Nickel
Gold (thickness stored separately)

Gold flash is a few microinches and mates for tens of cycles. Folding it into 'Gold' hides the durability difference buyers filter on.

Connector Type / Gender
HeaderMalePin HeaderPlugReceptacleSocket
Header + Contact Type: Male Pin

Housing shape and contact gender are two independent axes. Suppliers collapse them into one word, and a plug can carry sockets.

Operating Temperature Range
-40 to +105C-40°C~+105°C-40/+105-40 ... 105 °C-40C~105C
-40 °C to +105 °C

Free text kills numeric range filtering. A buyer needing 125 °C cannot exclude 105 °C parts and sees an unusable result set.

What buyers ask

Every one of these should be answerable from the attributes above. If it isn't, that's a gap.

  • What mates with this housing - which contacts, and which header?
  • Is this 2.5 mm or 2.54 mm pitch? They look identical in the photo.
  • How many times can this be unplugged before the contacts wear out?
  • Is the gold real plating or gold flash, and how many microinches?
  • Can I run 3 A on every contact, or only on one at a time?
  • Does this contact take 22 AWG, or do I need a different part number?
  • Is this rated to -40 °C? The enclosure sits outside.
  • What crimp tool do I need for these contacts?

What channels require

The same SKU, different mandatory fields per destination.

Distributor parametric search (own site)
Connector TypeContact Type (Gender)Number of PositionsPitch - MatingNumber of RowsMounting Type
ECIAauthorized / TrustedParts syndication
Manufacturer Part NumberManufacturer name (exact)Authorized stock quantityPrice breaksDatasheet URLRoHS Status
ECAD library feeds (Ultra Librarian, SnapEDA)
Manufacturer Part NumberPitch - MatingNumber of PositionsNumber of RowsMounting TypePackage drawing / footprint
Amazon Business
GTIN-13 / UPCBrandManufacturer Part NumberCountry of OriginPackage dimensions and weightMain image on white background

Connectors data, in practice

Why isn't pitch enough to tell whether two connectors mate?

Pitch is necessary but nowhere near sufficient. Mating requires matching pitch, row count, row spacing, position count, contact gender, polarization or keying, and latch style — and in practice the same connector family on both sides. Two 2.54 mm single-row 3-position parts from different series will physically touch and still not seat, because shroud, key and latch geometry differ. This is also where the 2.5 mm versus 2.54 mm trap lives: JST XH is 2.5 mm, a standard 0.1 in header is 2.54 mm, and at three positions the cumulative error is small enough that they appear to fit. Store pitch numerically in millimetres with the inch equivalent as a display value, never as free text.

Do we really need contact finish and finish thickness as two fields?

Yes. Contact finish alone is a near-useless filter because 'Gold' covers everything from a few microinches of gold flash to 30 µin of hard gold over nickel. Thickness is the variable that predicts mating cycles and contact resistance stability: gold flash parts are typically rated for tens of cycles, thicker selective gold for hundreds or thousands. Finish also governs mating compatibility — pairing gold against tin accelerates wear on the tin side, so buyers filter on it deliberately. Digi-Key exposes both fields separately (Contact Finish - Mating, Contact Finish Thickness - Mating). Catalogs carrying only the first cannot answer the question buyers are asking.

Is RoHS status enough compliance data for connectors, or do we need UL fields too?

They answer different questions and both get filtered. RoHS and REACH are substance restrictions and travel with the part into the EU market. UL is a safety evaluation: UL 1977 covers component connectors for data, signal, control and power applications, and UL 94 rates the flammability of the housing material — V-0 being the rating enclosure, appliance and industrial-control builders will not design around. A part can be RoHS compliant and carry no UL recognition at all. Store UL 94 rating and UL recognition status as separate fields from RoHS status; buyers building to a UL-listed end product filter on the UL fields first and discard anything blank.

How should the housing, contacts and crimp tool be modelled — one record or several?

Several records with an explicit relationship, not one merged record. A 3-circuit crimp interconnect is genuinely four orderable SKUs: the housing, the contacts (usually tape and reel or cut tape), the mating header, and the hand crimp tool or applicator. Each has its own MPN, price and stock position, so merging them breaks ordering. The fix is a relationship field — Mates With, Requires Contact, Requires Tool — populated from the manufacturer's series selection guide rather than left implicit in a datasheet PDF. This is the highest-value relationship in the category: it turns a one-line order into a complete order, and it prevents the empty-shell return.

More electronic components schemas

CapacitorsRelaysResistorsSemiconductorsSensorsTerminal Blocks

Run this against your own connectors.

Bring the category. We'll show you which of these attributes your catalog is missing — and the ones we find that aren't on this page yet.

Book a demo