Author Topic: Unused Ports on RF Test Equipment  (Read 1476 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline German_EETopic starter

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 2399
  • Country: de
Unused Ports on RF Test Equipment
« on: October 07, 2017, 08:42:22 pm »
Those unused ports on your test equipment (or when the equipment is not in use). Do you:

a) Use those little yellow or black plastic covers?

or

b) Use 50 ohm terminators all over the place?
Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.

Warren Buffett
 

Offline dave_k

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 285
  • Country: au
Re: Unused Ports on RF Test Equipment
« Reply #1 on: October 07, 2017, 09:51:27 pm »
Use the plastic covers - it's much kinder to the threads on the connector.
 
The following users thanked this post: CNe7532294

Offline DaJMasta

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 2289
  • Country: us
    • medpants.com
Re: Unused Ports on RF Test Equipment
« Reply #2 on: October 08, 2017, 01:09:27 am »
I use little plastic covers to just keep stuff out of the ones that I don't use regularly (external triggers and monitoring outputs and whatnot), then cover all the high speed RF ports, even if somewhat regularly used.  Terminators for things that are outputting, are high frequency, and are active... but there's usually not too many of those.  Plus terminators are expensive and there's the aforementioned wear issue, especially if you're actually using the connection regularly.

I think my plastic covers are clear plastic or dipped red rubber, though  ;)
 

Offline ChuckDarwin

  • Regular Contributor
  • *
  • Posts: 57
  • Country: gu
Re: Unused Ports on RF Test Equipment
« Reply #3 on: October 08, 2017, 01:56:30 am »
Plastic for dust, unless it requires special termination or otherwise susceptible to outside interference--not much in my case.  Some metal caps on rarely used ports, just because I have them. 
I find the the hard plastic top hats easier to use and longer wearing than the rubbery caps, particularly with SMA.

 

Offline bjcuizon

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 284
  • Country: nz
  • RF and Analog Electronics Enthusiast
Re: Unused Ports on RF Test Equipment
« Reply #4 on: October 08, 2017, 02:57:42 am »
The plastic ones are okay for protecting the connectors with dust just like what the others said. There are also metal dust caps (as in its the connector itself without the pin) which chain can be screwed into a hole in the instrument to avoid losing it. They may be used if you want the port open.
« Last Edit: October 08, 2017, 03:00:42 am by bjcuizon »
Don't mess with an Electronics Engineer, it Megahertz!
 
The following users thanked this post: CNe7532294


Share me

Digg  Facebook  SlashDot  Delicious  Technorati  Twitter  Google  Yahoo
Smf