Receptacles Make KeySwitch Hot Swapping Effortless
Mill-Max Receptacles have long been an excellent solution for making PCB components pluggable, removable, and replaceable. Mill-Max has recently developed a new series of open bottom, low profile, solder mount receptacles specifically designed to make your mechanical key switches hot-swappable. The new 3305-X is designed to be soldered into a .060” (1,50mm) minimum mounting hole, with an ultra-thin retention shoulder so plugged-in components sit nearly flush to the board surface. The open bottom design is meant to accommodate varying lead lengths making this a very versatile receptacle.
The 3305-X series offers three length options of .105” (2,67mm), .130” (3,30mm), and .155” (3,94mm), all with an above-board height of .010” (0,25mm), providing the low profile desired for optimal switch height and functioning. And while these receptacles are compact in size, high-quality materials make these easy-to-use parts both reliable and long-lasting. Like all Mill-Max receptacles, the 3305-X series utilizes a beryllium copper contact clip to make dependable, low resistance connections with mated leads and maintain those high-quality connections after thousands of cycles (plug/unplug). The 3305-X accepts round leads of .025”-.037” (0,635-0,940mm) in diameter as well as square and rectangular leads (.019" - .026” square) – typical of the leads found on most keyboard switches.
The introduction of the 3305-X series and this style of receptacle means that repairing, upgrading, or customizing keyboards – once tedious and time-consuming endeavors – have become viable options by eliminating the painstaking task of de-soldering then re-soldering an entire keyboard - a process which could take 90 minutes or more each time, depending on the user’s skill level. Conversely, after the one-time process of installing Mill-Max 3305-Xreceptacles, all the key switches can be replaced in just a few minutes, many times over, allowing users of all skill levels to join the hot-swap keyboard movement.
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