Manufacturing a thin but long multi tiered 50-pin cartridge/cable connector

[fcb]

I thought about USB-C but it isn't great. 10 pins too few (I need *at the very least* 34), not enough penetration depth to support a heavy cable, and existing cables are not straight-thru analog DC coupled connections - they're active and have reduced lead counts. Finding cables would be a nightmare for users. Much better off making a special purpose cable here...

Requires abit of work, but make a guiding mechanism (block of nylon, tufnol, whatever with stainless pins on one side, bused holes on the other) - this has a pair of connectors securely mounted in or on it.

[cheater]

I thought about USB-C but it isn't great. 10 pins too few (I need *at the very least* 34), not enough penetration depth to support a heavy cable, and existing cables are not straight-thru analog DC coupled connections - they're active and have reduced lead counts. Finding cables would be a nightmare for users. Much better off making a special purpose cable here...

Requires abit of work, but make a guiding mechanism (block of nylon, tufnol, whatever with stainless pins on one side, bused holes on the other) - this has a pair of connectors securely mounted in or on it.

Having a problem figuring out what you mean. What are bused holes? Are you thinking of something similar to a d-sub connector?

[fcb]

*bushed - sorry

If you make a surround with locating features (such as a couple of guide pins) that keeps a pair of USB-C connectors aligned as you mate to another another pair.  Wurth have a collection of USB-C plugs and sockets that might be suitable.

Another option might be Hirose 3800 series.  Rated at 20,000 mating cycles.

[cheater]

*bushed - sorry

If you make a surround with locating features (such as a couple of guide pins) that keeps a pair of USB-C connectors aligned as you mate to another another pair.  Wurth have a collection of USB-C plugs and sockets that might be suitable.

Another option might be Hirose 3800 series.  Rated at 20,000 mating cycles.

Oh, sorry, I should've noticed you meant bushed.

I like where you're going with the usb-c idea, but the issue remains that I would have to make the cables myself, at which point they're entirely proprietary anyways. Hirose 3800 are flimsy and pretty terrible and nothing I would call a good experience. And again hard to find cables for them.

The issue with all the connectors being mentioned here is that they're two-dimensional: all the pins are in the plane of the front panel, and they get squeezed together. Instead I'm thinking of something that works more like a card, like a SIM card or SmartMedia card for example, where pins are all laid out in the 3rd dimension (not in the plane of the front panel). Think of a front panel that accepts a SM card. the pins aren't laid out flat in the plane of the front panel - in addition to being laid out width-wise (which is a direction that's in the plane of the front panel) they're laid out depth-wise (which is a direction perpendicular to the front panel).

The Amphenol C702 10M008 325 4 is rated for 0.5M mating cycles. And it's built very flimsily, but I'll easily trust that it can hold that. Nothing's stopping anyone from producing something like this but more rugged and with more pins... maybe that's the kind of design I should be going for.

Something like those belly-shaped leaf pins at the port side, and a pcb at the plug side. The pcb is surrounded by a piece of C-folded steel shroud, shaped kind of like USB-B. Basically like it's U-shaped, but additionally folded around the pcb to hold it. And the steel shroud could have a conical nose in order to self-orient. The C-shape would prevent it from getting warped even when abused. Question remains how to hold the pcb in it without hurting the PCB. Some sort of plastic layer between the PCB and the steel maybe. Something very stable that won't become brittle even after 50 years would be useful. The simple design would make it possible to re-manufacture this by third parties. The shroud could also double as cable strain relief (thick cable after all).