Saving money (and time!) with HYPER’s wiring system – Vacuum Feedthroughs

Due to the very cold nature of our work, we find ourselves needing to design (and redesign) vacuum chambers on a regular basis. In order to do useful research, this usually means trying to pass electrical signals through a high vacuum seal, which as you may expect, takes time and money. However, we’ve come up with a few tricks to reduce our time and dollar expenditures.

First, we reduce the cost of our vacuum feedthrough components. An example of a prebuilt solution is $551 for 7 connection pins, but we can build a 26 pin passthrough for around $120. To reduce the cost of the hermetic connecter itself, we use a very common military hermetic specification, the MIL-DTL-26482 Series I MS3113 (Male) with matching a female connector MS3116F16-26S. The cheapest we’ve found this so far is through Detoronics. We will also order a KF blank through Ideal Vacuum Products or McMaster-Carr. By soldering the connector together, we save a significant amount of money.

Secondly, and most importantly, when we set up a vacuum feedthrough, we never solder connections directly to the hermetic connector. By putting a second, non-hermetic connector between sensors and the passthrough, we can avoid having to replace the expensive vacuum feedthrough, and instead just replace the inexpensive standard plug. For this second connector, the HYPER lab uses another inexpensive common connector, the 25 pin D-sub.

Instructions and pinout as follows:

Needed: 2 female 25 pin D-sub connectors, 1 MS3113M16-26S, 1 MS3116F16-26S, 1 KF blank (we usually use KF40, KF25 if a more compact application is required.)

25 pin D-sub to MS3113/MS3116F16-26S to 25 pin D-sub

1. Attach MIL-DTL-26482 Series I to KF flange, as shown in the post above.
2. Starting at Pin 25, follow pinout to connect D-sub to Hermetic

   

   

   1. Pin 25 – Pin c
   2. Pin 24 – Pin b
   3. Pin 23 – Pin a
   4. Pin 22 – Pin Z
   5. Pin 21 – Pin Y
   6. Pin 20 – Pin X
   7. Pin 19 – Pin W
   8. Pin 18 – Pin V
   9. Pin 17 – Pin U
   10. Pin 16 – Pin T
   11. Pin 15 – Pin S
   12. Pin 14 – Pin R
   13. Pin 13 – Pin P
   14. Pin 12 – Pin N
   15. Pin 11 – Pin M
   16. Pin 10 – Pin L
   17. Pin 9 – Pin K
   18. Pin 8 – Pin J
   19. Pin 7 – Pin H
   20. Pin 6 – Pin G
   21. Pin 5 – Pin F
   22. Pin 4 – Pin E
   23. Pin 3 – Pin D
   24. Pin 2 – Pin C
   25. Pin 1 – Pin B

Note: Pin A on the hermetic connector should be free.

3. Starting again at Pin 25, connect the D-Sub to the other side of the hermetic using the same pinout.