EYE on NPI: EYE ON NPI - Amphenol's EMC Cable Glands

Adafruit Industries

This week's EYE ON NPI is gland-tascular it's Amphenol's EMC Cable Glands (https://www.digikey.com/en/product-highlight/a/amphenol-ltw/emc-cable-glands) a two-in-one product that provides electrical connectivity for shielding as well as waterproofing for harsh and wet environments. Amphenol has 3 variants available, that will cover from 7 to 17mm cable diameters, and will provide IP68 protection when properly installed. Once makers finish their prototypes on the bench, it's time to turn a bunch of breakouts and breadboards into a finished PCB. That will clean up the loose jumper wires, but it still isn't ready for customer usage. For that we need an enclosure - something we chatted about in the last EYE ON NPI (https://blog.adafruit.com/2024/11/21/eye-on-npi-wurth-elektronik-smd-spacers-eyeonnpi-digikey-digikey-adafruit/). Most enclosures for electronic devices that you'll encounter as a consumer are injection molded or maybe bent-metal, both are durable and fully custom, but have high setup costs which makes them only practical if you are planning on selling over 10,000 pieces. As an industrial designer, you may have to design for max lifetime of 500 pieces. In this case, it may be better to use an off-the-shelf enclosure such as those available from DigiKey (https://www.digikey.com/en/products/category/boxes-enclosures-racks/27). These come in basic rectangular shapes, with mounting holes, and plastic/glass panels. But one problem is that if you want to attach external cabling like USB, Ethernet, CAN, or power, you need to cut perfect slots. Also, those connectors wont be weatherproof. Thus, cable glands! (https://www.digikey.com/en/products/filter/cable-and-cord-grips) Cable glands are like four cable management (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_management) solutions in one: they provide strain relief, they allow clean cabling into an enclosure, they are weather or waterproof, and for the EMC series, they also provide ground shielding connectivity to an enclosure. Assembly and is pretty simple (https://learn.adafruit.com/air-quality-sensor-silo-house/assembly). First, drill a hole to match the datasheet template. Insert the first piece with the round gland part facing out. Lightly attach the mounting nut to keep it in place. Thread the cable through and tighten until the inner rubber gasket makes a seal against the cable. If properly installed, you'll get IP68 (https://www.iec.ch/ip-ratings) protection against dust and water. The only thing you have to check for is that the gland specification matches the outer diameter of the cable: too small and you'll crack the gland when tightening it, too large and the gland wont make a proper seal. There's three variants of the EMC Cable Glands (https://www.digikey.com/en/product-highlight/a/amphenol-ltw/emc-cable-glands), and all three are in stock right now for immediate shipment! If you don't need metal shielding, DigiKey stocks a wide variety of other cable glands from Amphenol (https://www.digikey.com/short/7w8vq5jj) for any size cable and enclosure. Order your glands today from DigiKey and they'll ship instantly so that you can start ruggedizing your next enclosure by tomorrow afternoon. See on DigiKey at https://www.digikey.com/short/7ddhh2dt