Hermetic vs. Environmental Connectors: Which is Right for Your Application?

Connectors are used in electronic devices to establish connections between components and cables, ensuring smooth signal transmission. Although designed to ensure efficiency and performance of components, these connectors may need additional protection in challenging work environments. This is where environmental and hermetic connectors gain prominence. Both these types are designed to protect components against contaminants and stressors, with their role varying greatly across applications. This post analyzes the differences between these connectors, and their applications, and offers tips on the selection.

Understanding Environmentally Sealed Connectors and Hermetic Sealed Connectors

Environmentally sealed and hermetically sealed connectors are both harsh environment connectors, which is why they are similar in many ways. However, they differ in terms of purpose.
 

• Environmentally Sealed Connectors: These connectors are generally made from fluoropolymers such as ethylene-propylene rubber and are designed to protect components against moisture, dust, and many other environmental factors. They use O-rings, gaskets, and other sealing materials to create a tight fit. They are used in low-temperature applications, applications that require repeated unmating and mating, or in ones that do not require an absolute sealing. The seal is typically rated for ingress protection, commonly measured on an IP rating scale for liquids and dust.

• Hermetic Sealed Connectors: These connectors create an absolute seal preventing, any liquid or gas from entering or exiting the hermetically sealed enclosure. The hermetic sealing process helps create a complete watertight and airtight barrier. Hermetic sealing solutions are designed to operate in extreme and hazardous location environments. They can withstand high pressures, whether unmated or mated. They are widely employed in applications where even the slightest infiltration of external elements can result in failures, such as in critical devices used for medical, underwater, marine, and space exploration applications. Hermetics are typically measured in terms of a vacuum or positive pressure rating. This can be accomplished using a helium leak mass spectrometer to ensure the smallest of elements do not pass through the hermetic seal.

Key Features of Environmentally Sealed Connectors and Hermetically Sealed Systems

The following pointers will help you understand the critical features of environmentally sealed connectors and hermetically sealed systems.
 

Environmentally Sealed Connectors

• Applications: Environmentally sealed connectors are ideal for applications exposed to snow, rain, or moisture-laden environments. They can withstand dirt, dust, airborne particles, as well as mild shocks and vibrations. They are used in the following applications.
  • Automotive
  • Marine
  • Outdoor electronics like industrial controls and signage
  • Consumer electronics like rugged smartphones
• Available in Various Ingress Protection Ratings: These connectors are available in various ingress protection (IP) ratings that define their protection level. Hence, it is always recommended to choose the IP rating as per your requirement.
• Cost-Effective: These sealed connectors use regular gaskets, rings, and other materials to create a fit, which makes them more affordable than hermetically sealed systems.

Hermetically Sealed Systems

• Applications: Hermetic sealed connectors prevent the exchange of gases between the inner and outer sides of the connector. These connectors can withstand temperature extremes, high pressures, and harsh chemicals. They are used in the following applications:
  • Military and aerospace equipment
  • Medical devices
  • High-performance lasers
  • Oil and gas
  • Semiconductor processing equipment
  • Sensitive electronics
• Durability: Hermetically sealed enclosures are made from durable materials, such as glass, ceramics, and stainless steel. This enables them to withstand harsh environments in demanding applications.
• Precision Engineering: The hermetic sealing process demands precision engineering and stringent quality control to achieve superior results. This process involves a precise ceramic or glass-to-metal bonding process, which is critical for hermetic sealing.
• Low Outgassing Rates: Outgassing can be a key concern in many vacuum applications. Hermetic connectors are designed to assure low outgassing rates, making them an ideal choice for sensitive applications.
• Customization: Unlike many environmental connectors, hermetically sealed solutions can be easily customized to meet your application requirements. They can be customized in various sizes and shapes to accommodate pin configurations, wire gauges, and connector types.
• Shielding from Electromagnetic Induction: EMI is a big concern in many mission-critical applications across the medical, aerospace and military industries. Hermetically sealed systems can easily address these concerns. They protect sensitive electronic components from EMI that could degrade their performance.
• Long-term Reliability: As said before, these sealed enclosures are designed following stringent engineering practices, which adds to their precision and helps them maintain integrity for long periods. This makes them suitable for applications where replacement or maintenance is difficult.

How to Choose the Right Connector for Your Application

Although choosing the right connector boils down to your individual application requirements, the following are a few factors that would help you make informed decisions.

• Assess the Operating Conditions: Where do you plan to use the connector? If your application involves challenging factors, such as temperature extremes, shocks, and vibrations, then hermetically sealed enclosures are the perfect solution. If your application only encounters mild dust, moisture, and low physical stress, then environmentally sealed connectors are the best choice.
• Understand the Sensitivity of Applications: Do you plan to use them in mission-critical applications? Some applications may involve critical life-support systems, hazardous chemicals, sensitive electronic equipment for navigation and decision-making, and so on. Hermetically sealed packages are considered the best bet for these applications.
• Address the Cost Implications: Environmentally sealed connectors are the perfect choice for prototypes; applications that do not require extreme sealing; and applications developed on a low budget. However, hermetic sealing solutions work best for applications that demand high precision and accuracy and are usually developed without budget constraints.

Douglas Electrical Components: Your Trusted Hermetic Sealing Technology Partner

Douglas Electrical Components offers environmentally sealed connectors and conductors; however, our hermetic connectors and wire seals differentiate us from our competitors. We can provide hermetically sealed packages that meet your standard requirements involving generic connector options, such as D-sub connectors, coaxial feedthroughs, USB connectors, M-12 connectors, or custom requirements such as MIL-spec configurations. Hermetic connectors are commonly designed in pressurized environments, adding design flexibility and interconnect capability during installation and maintenance.
 
Our hermetic sealing technology has been extensively employed in applications across industries, such as aerospace, military and defense, space simulation, x-ray systems, automotive, and instrumentation and control systems for over 40 years now. Feel free to contact us today, if you have been considering an experienced and trusted hermetical sealing technology partner for your next project. Our experts are eager to work with you and deliver the best hermetic sealing solutions to meet your requirements.