Re-assignable DB9 Connectors?

[tooki]

A few years ago I compiled a cross-reference guide for the contacts and tooling; I could dig it up if you need.

A little pro tip for you, after some back and forth with one of the manufacturers about the difference between two seemingly-identical series of housings: some have metal contact retention clips, others do not. The ones with the clip can be used with both machined and stamped contacts, while the kind without the metal clips must be used with machined contacts.

Since I like machined contacts better anyway, I just buy the M32029/64-369 and M32029/63-368 and use them with whatever housings I want.

There are dedicated insertion/extraction tools for these, from $$$ tools from DMC all the way to disposable plastic ones that cost a dollar; all of these are defined in mil specs and so they’re widely available and the plastic ones are very cheap.

Thanks! Yeah, I think I want the military-style contacts (e.g. M32029/64-369 and M32029/63-368) because that pretty much guarantees inter-operability all the way down to the contact and tooling level.

Honestly, mating compatibility wouldn’t even be on my list of worries — d-sub connectors have been around since the 1950s IIRC, and they use very simple #20 (1.04mm diameter) pins and sockets, probably billions of the connectors have been made over the years. Even the cheap manufacturers know how to do these well enough that they mate fine.

But I totally agree with you on compatibility of housings, contacts, and tooling: the mil-spec contacts make life easier. (And oddly, for d-sub specifically, the dimensionally-identical commercial contacts often cost more than the mil-spec ones!) The vast majority of d-sub housings out there work with the mil-spec contacts. On the other hand, I don’t buy actual mil-spec housings because they’re way too expensive and I don’t need traceability.

 
(There is one style, used mostly in some older ITT Cannon designs, that is different.)

Another one is the common reference to ethernet cable ends as rj45 but they are actually Mod8 (8P8C). rj45 is an obsolete wiring standard.

I purchased a set of male and females from amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CBJYXZGJ?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_6&th=1

Whoa! These look great, at least for low-speed applications. We also make some of our translator modules with 8P8C  connectors:

and those kits would make adapting to DB9 even easier.

Do you know if the DB9 contacts are M32029/64-369 and M32029/63-368 or at least similar?

I'm glad it's an arbitrarily assignable kit, because there aren't really any standard pin assignments for using Category cable for non-Ethernet and non-RS232 applications.

Those are stamped contacts, so by definition they’re not M32029/64-369 and M32029/63-368, which are specific designs for machined contacts.

However, those look like bog-standard stamped d-sub contacts, so as I explained long ago, the housings should accept the mil-spec machined contacts, too.

I'm glad it's an arbitrarily assignable kit, because there aren't really any standard pin assignments for using Category cable for non-Ethernet and non-RS232 applications.

Well that’s literally the entire point of those kits: to let the user make custom adapters.

(That style does have limitations, though: you can’t easily bridge contacts (for example, if a pinout requires shorting two pins on the d-sub, or connecting a pin on the 8P8C side to two d-sub pins, etc) or add any components. There do exist versions that use a little PCB inside, which you then solder wires and/or components onto to make the adapter. More flexible, but much slower to assemble.)

Of course, for the signal speeds you’re using, I would make a custom adapter, using a nicely designed PCB with the 8P8C and d-sub connectors directly on it. I’m not sure those 500MHz signals would be happy through the jumble of wires inside those cheap adapters.

Yup. We ran 500 MHz TTL through two lengths of RG-174 connected in the middle with 38999 pin and socket contacts, and it still (barely) made TTL thresholds:
…

We tried the true coaxial inserts as well, and were somewhat surprised that the results were not noticeably better.
…

That is very interesting! I would have expected the coax inserts to at least be better.

P.S. Please consider attaching images to the forum post itself, rather than embedding images from an external server. Those have a habit of going away at some point down the line, removing important context from the forum thread.

[tooki]

I just got around to looking at OP’s website. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some of their products in use in the laser labs I support.

But man, I wouldn’t have the balls to charge those prices — $23 for a 2-pin twisted-pair header cable, $29 for a pack of 10 zip ties… 

I get it that the core products aren’t mass-market products with large numbers of customers, but damn… no wonder my predecessors in the department built so much similar stuff (clock dividers, pulse transmitters, etc.) themselves!

Different strokes for different folks. We sell primarily to aerospace, and it's an every day experience for us to get a 30 page purchase order, with all its attendant clauses for Quality, and Buy American, and Specialty Metals, and cyber security and parts traceability . . . for a $95 part. 

And now that buyer has to make a decision as to whether to add a $23 cable to that order to me, or generate another 30 page PO to buy it for $2.00 somewhere else. We don't make any money on this sale in any case; we're not efficient at all at selling $20 anythings. We provide the small accessories as a convenience so that they can buy the meaningful stuff.

Oof, yeah, I hear you.