We’ve shipped our share of standalone hermetic feedthroughs over the years. Increasingly, however, sealed hermetic penetrations leave our plant as a part of a value–added assembly. These turnkey assemblies typically combine our hermetic feedthrough technologies with non-hermetic connectors, printed circuit boards, flex circuits and wire harnesses. Assemblies can also incorporate strain relief, water-blocking overmolds, jacketing, shrink tubing, breakouts, mechanical subassemblies and patch panel wiring.
The growing popularity of value–added assemblies makes perfect sense because they:
- Reduce Cost. Outsourcing value–added cable harness assemblies to the right supplier can save a substantial amount of money compared to internally-manufactured assemblies. On a typical assembly consisting of a back-potted connector and wire harness, we can typically reduce the cost by 25% or more. In more complex assemblies, the cost reduction can approach 50%. These savings result, in no small part, from specialization. We produce value–added assemblies every day, so we’ve invested in technician training, automated assembly systems, specialty tooling and testing equipment. These investments are not easily matched by non-specialists.
- Save Time. Value–added cable harness assemblies can speed time to market. The finished assemblies arrive at your door as a single bill-of-materials item in a fraction of the time it would take for you to source and assemble individual components. We ship many assemblies on a just-in-time (JIT) basis, which helps you keep inventory costs low.
- Improve Quality. Our value–added assemblies undergo an extensive testing regimen before they leave our plant. That regimen obviously includes leak testing of the hermetic connector assembly itself, but it also extends mechanical and dimensional evaluation. Additionally, we offer full electrical testing of the entire assembly. Our line-up of electrical tests includes continuity, hi-pot and insulation resistance testing. By fully-testing the assemblies, we can provide a level of quality assurance that’s difficult and expensive to achieve if you’re not working with hermetic connector assemblies every day. What’s more, many of our QC tests are automated, which eliminates any potential for human error.
Standards-Based Assemblies
Value–added connector assemblies have mostly gained traction in automotive, semiconductor, aerospace and military applications. So compliance with a wide range of quality standards is essential. For example, we produce hermetic connector assemblies in accordance with a wide range of UL, SAE and DoD standards. And for wire harness quality assurance, our assembly technicians have earned the IPC 620 certification.
