 Every single week Lady Aida Adafruit and Digikey brings you the great search. It's Lady Aida using all of her engineering capacity capability and ability and more to Use the Digikey search engine on Digikey to find the part she's looking for and she shows you how to do it That's right. So what's this week? All right. So this week I am making my coral TPU USB stick and I wanted to plug right into a mother board So I can get like that sweet sweet USB current without having a cable in between also. It's nice and compact I just like to plug in and I want to show a couple different USB type a connectors USB a connectors like we did de 9s. I think last week or the week before Which I called DB 9s incorrectly. There's so many weird variations of USB connectors it's really good to know about them and page through them because There's some standard ones, but there's a lot of variations a lot of Variability in the market that could help solve a problem like I was prepping for the great search I found some characters. I'm like, I didn't even know this was available. That's pretty cool So it's gonna my computer and we'll show what we're what we're doing So I want a connector that's basically this one which I've used in a couple designs. It's a USB type a Plug, so it plugs right into a computer If you have a Mac, you know modern Mac you probably have USB type C Well, maybe in the future do USB C type plugs, but for now, I really like these USB a plugs They're extremely common. They're you know, it's it's a very like USB key USB disk drive Self-explanatory usage You don't need a cable. It's just plug right in so One thing to note, of course, is you this is for USB to only the device I'm using is USB to only there's data plus data minus ground and power So they're you know, it's different if you want to have There are versions for a USB type 3. Sorry USB 3.0 type a But we're gonna be looking for a type a USB 2.0 So many Versions of USB. Okay, so on to digikey and then we're gonna just type in USB connector Because that's a good place to start Why didn't I type in type a because like whenever I have something where it's it's going to be very quick to Select it. I actually usually just leave it off and I go straight to the category and then I filter within the category So there's a lot of very you know There's weird categories and adapters and connectors again USB is kind of like a catch-off for so many different powering data Transmission schemes you're gonna whenever you look for USB stuff. There's gonna be a lot of categories available like a speaker. That's USB Okay, so we're gonna start with of course only active because we're Specking for a design and something that's normally stocking and then USB it's interesting USB DVI and HDMI connectors are all in the same category and I kind of understand why it's like This plug and socket style, you know cable connector, however That means that we really we want to quickly pare down what we want from within this category So what's nice is that this is well nicely divided. There's micro a a b mini USB a a b and c so we want let's just at least pick out the a's so we can minimize what we're looking at and Yeah, like I definitely recommend, you know, they did you key used to have like a paper catalog? I don't even think it exists anymore. I think they've stopped sending it because it was just so they couldn't keep up One of the nice things about the catalog is you could page through it and look at the photos and get an idea of like Like did you know that such a thing existed this like combo a c connector? I didn't not until I just moused over it So sometimes when you go into a category, you know, I sometimes I go straight to the product I want but sometimes I like to go to the category and then just kind of like mosey around Like we can't do that in stores right now if you go to a store like they're like getting get out There's a line outside for this cheese But online you can look at the images as long as you want For example, this kind of cool 3.0 like Like launch mount connector is cool. And then there's stacked style. This is kind of neat You know USB a on top see on the bottom. This is like a USB mullet. I guess I don't know too fur This is like a nice strong like sealed jack This is neat. This is a USB socket that goes up and This is the 3.0 version There's like all sorts of like right angle non-right angle, but anyways you want the plug So let's go down here and then pick plug because we want something that plugs into a computer And you'll see that really quickly reduces the number of entries Next up We want it to be this is actually something that's interesting. So there's this Panel out through hole surface mount right angle Surface mount right angle through hole and through hole right angle and you're like, okay Like why does it say surface mount and through hole and then surface mount through hole? So let's select all three and I'll show you that's something to watch out for another thing is Because I'm only using USB 2.0. I'm not using USB 3. I'm gonna pick number of contacts for because again, I don't need all the other Super speed contacts. I just need power ground data plus data minus And I don't want any sort of stacked things. So this is going to give me only the USB 2.0 So When you're getting these connectors and this is something that I've learned very quickly is if you want to go with the like the the Surface mount and through hole headers I was talking about earlier in desk of Lady Eda Surface mount headers are and surface mount connectors are easier to Manufacturing the process because you can pick and place them and so whether you're you know matter what quantity you're Manufacturing or even if you're doing small large or whatever To reduce your manufacturing complexity and cost Not total bomb cost the manufacturing process cost you want to pick surface mount usually if you have surface mount components And you have surface mount connectors. They all can go through one process at one time and it's like kind of easier But if you are looking at your total bomb cost and manufacturing cost Through hole connectors are going to usually be cheaper than surface mount And if you have a through hole process then the mechanical strength will be higher with through hole components That said there's this like mix and match type connector. So this connector is Through hole through hole. So you see that there's like the four legs coming down those are Through hole because they're like they go into the PCB and then you see that there's like the mechanical connector Side pieces and those are through hole. So this has to be selective soldered. You're not going to be able to surface mount Place this however, there's also let's look at the surface mount only so Surface mount right angle. There's a couple options This is actually Not this is actually a true surface mount. Hold on Maybe because I only picked let me try the surface mount through hole. See if I can get him to come up. I Actually just think for the type a they don't have it but For example this connector and let's go to the 360 so I can show you Because the angle is always tough. So this one is combo This one is it has surface mount pads Right, they go straight out and then they have this through hole mechanical connection and For this connector, you probably I I don't think they even make a version That's pure surface mount that has that the mechanical connections splayed out However, you'll see that for USB type a micro B and micro and mini a sorry mini B micro B and You'll see it for the socket version of the type a connector, but not the plug version and For those you'll need like really big pads for the mechanical connection and there's usually four of them and It's kind of iffy like I definitely seen More connector failures due to surface mount USB connectors and any other connector like it's they get Really wrenched like people are like plugging it and twisting it And so if you're going to do a surface mount connector for your USB Try to at least get it be 5050 like have the mechanical part the mechanical tabs be through hole and The pads be surface mount and you can process this in a surface mount Pick in place line. You just put like a lot of solder around the connector So I'll actually show that on the overhead with my micro B So let's go to the overhead clicking. I have this handy anyways So on this micro B connector, you can see that the pads the five pads on the center there are surface mount but then The mechanical connection these four pads I make four really large through a whole pads and you see they're like mechanically quite large and then when they're pasted over in the silkscreen, you know that sorry the the The paste deposition process a lot of past gets put on them so that when they get soldered through the Oven You see you get a lot of paste and you get a lot of mechanical strength So these are not Selective soldered or hand soldered. There's just so much paste left from when it was silk screened on that it creates a very strong mechanical connection and Phil is my Mechanical tester I give him the connector and I give him a cable and I say try as hard as you can to break it off And he eventually does but usually the whole PCB delaminates, which is what you want That's just something to watch for if you do Surface mount surface mount instead of surface mount through hole connectors if you're doing surface mount surface mount You have to have some enclosure or other mechanical thing That's going to hold the connector flat against the PCB Or it'll just wrench right off that happens all the time and then the the product is destroyed because you can't rework a ripped off SMT connector like that So That said alright, so sorry. We got distracted there. So that said in this particular case. I'm not going with a surface mount USB type a I might change my mind But for right now I'm gonna probably stick to the through hole through hole like both parts are through hole So I'm going to select Just that one And there's not a lot of options here But there are a few so you can see they you know, they basically all have this style where there's this You know Tube pads connecting and then what's interesting is actually there's this notch that Holds up against the PCB that gives it a little bit more mechanical strength as well That's another thing where you know, you can't pick in place this particular connector You really do have to hand place it and then select if solder it But there's a couple options another thing I do recommend watching out for with USB connectors is There's many sort of stand like they're obviously it's standardized for the plug And then the contacts and the mechanical connection are are usually very close But you'd be surprised what looks to be identical like these all look identical The location of that mounting tab and its size It can be slightly different between different connectors And so when you think of these is like oh, I need to find make sure have some alternates in case The one I'm using is out of stock Really make sure you get samples of all the ones that you think are alternates and like mechanically try them in a board Because many times I have you know received like oh, this is an alternate or it'll be suggested You know of this you can use this connector instead of that one Or somebody will you know, we once worked on a board where somebody Used a connector and it wasn't available at digkey and they just looked at the photo and were like Oh, this looks like the closest one and we bought a thousand of them And it turned out that the legs that were the mechanical strength, you know connection We're just like one millimeter farther apart than they should have been and so we had to like Delay all our manufacturing until we found the matching parts. So it's definitely something that has Bit me a couple times also look at the mounting nubs Sometimes there's little bumps on the bottom to help locate the connector Sometimes they're there. Sometimes they're not sometimes there are certain. This is a part sometimes are closer or farther So these things even if the connector itself is standardized Those things will vary from part number to part number That said Thankfully, you know, these I've used this part so I have a Version available and you can see there's a couple options like this one from CNC tech has like 25 thousand available The KTR ended up Using because it's got a low price and it worked quite well and it has this nice goth plastic is This one the CUI devices up to a h1th. I like CUI and I Do recommend when you get connectors what I like is this 360 view Can really save you a lot of effort and confusion looking at like for example You can see here You can see here. There are these two mounting nubs. There's barely maybe can zoom in So you see that there's these two mounting nubs So watch out for those make sure your design accounts for these mounting nubs They add mechanical stability. They're very handy, but if they don't match the holes in your PCB You're not gonna fit they're not gonna work and your whole line is gonna be delayed very sad so only thing to watch for is that make sure you download the day sheet and check your PCB layout package against all nubs mounting holes Cutouts, etc. So that is my tips and tricks for usba connectors. That's great search this week. Yes