Electrical wire connectors are used to join two wires or devices in an electric circuit. The connectors have two parts, one plug or male-end and the other the jack or female-end. Electrical connectors are electro-mechanical device that may connect wire or cable to electrical terminal or two cables or wires. Electrical connectors vary with physical construction, pin out, size, and resistance to contact, pressure, water and other contaminants.

Cable Connectors

Types of Electrical Connectors

• Plug and Socket connectors

These are the most common type of connectors that are used often in circuits. Such connectors are made up of pin contacts which form the male plug and socket contacts or the female receptacle. Plugs have more than one pin which can slot in its mating socket. The connection can complete the circuit when it is tight enough.

• Terminal Blocks

Terminal blocks or boards are used to connect individual wires without joining ends. These blocks are available for varieties of sizes of wires and these are quite flexible. The terminal block can be used to tuck the wires with rings or can be made by removing the insulation from the side. By using printed circuit board mounted terminal blocks, wires can be connected to circuit soldered to board.

• Blade connectors

Such connectors are a kind of single wire connection which uses flat conductive blade to fit into the holder. Blade is an important part of the connector. The receptacle is put into the blade to complete the connection. The wires are attached to both the connectors and receptacle of the blade.

• Binding Posts

These kinds of connectors are generally found in electronic test equipments. These have screws and clamps that connect the wire to a post to complete the connection. Many such binding posts have banana connector plug on the ends.

• Insulation displacement connectors

Insulation displacement connectors are an answer to the waste of time and effort taken to strip insulation form wires to connect them.  These connectors have fork shaped opening where insulated wires are put and cut through the insulation to connect with the conductor within.

• Ring and spade terminal

There are ring terminals and spade terminals that make the electric contact by mechanically passing the screw or bolt through them.

Electrical Wire Connectors

Cable connectors

• Audio

There are audio cable connectors like 3.5 mm, XLR and such, which are used to connect the MP3 players, home theatre system and even audio mixing board.

• Video

Coaxial, BNC and VGA are some kinds of video connectors which can deliver video signals to television, computer and projectors.

• USB

The USB or Universal Serial Bus connectors connect several circuits to carry power supply and data. There are several kinds of USB connectors but most commonly these are used is the USB A plug with USB sockets.

• Fiber optics

There are fiber optics connectors to transmit data via light signals to attain fast speed like connectors like ST, SC and LC.

• Modular

Modular connectors are used in telephone connections, microphone cables, data networks and low speed serial connections.

• Power connectors

These connectors allow electronic devices to power outlets. The power connectors have safety ground connection along with power conductors which help protect people from contact to conductors.

• 8P8C connectors

The eight positions, eight conductors connector is a kind of modular connector with eight positions each with a conductor. These kinds of connectors are found generally in Ethernet and on CAT5 cables.

• DC connectors

It is an electrical connector for direct current power supply in many electronic devices.

• DIN connectors

These are used for specialized equipment like MIDI, keyboards and others.

• Digital Video connectors

For high quality video and audio signals on television and laptops, these kinds of connectors can be used. HDMI and Display Post are some examples of such connectors.

So, these are above types of electrical wire connectors. Moreover, visit here to learn more all the various electrical connectors.