Police and security patrol vehicles are adopting new and emerging technologies from both the military and automotive worlds. This unique market combines defense-grade signal integrity demands with automotive-grade ruggedization requirements, often in the same harness. Police and security patrol cars have become mobile electronics platforms, with huge investments in recent years outfitting these fleet vehiclesRead More

Upcoming industry events, as well as recent award, partnership, promotion, personnel, facility, distribution, standards, association, and certification news from across the connector industry. September 2026 Connector Industry News September 2026 Connector Industry News > Event News DigiKey’s annual Back to School Giveaway, which gives U.S. university students a chance to win a $1,000 DigiKey shoppingRead More

A first mate-last break (FMLB) connector is an electrical connector engineered so the ground contact connects before any other pins when mating and disconnects after all other pins when unmating. According to Mill-Max, this ensures that the ground path is established before any other power or signal connections are made, eliminating stray currents that canRead More

Upcoming industry events, as well as recent award, partnership, promotion, personnel, facility, distribution, standards, association, and certification news from across the connector industry. August 2026 Connector Industry News August 2026 Connector Industry News > Event News DigiKey and Arduino have launched the Dream Lab Challenge to award a custom lab with professional-grade test equipment to theRead More

A manual service disconnect (MSD) connector is a removable, touch-safe high-voltage connector used to manually break the electrical circuit of an electric or hybrid vehicle’s battery pack. It meets the performance requirements of SAE/USCAR-2 and its high-voltage supplement, USCAR-37. Technicians, first responders, and tow operators pull the MSD before servicing a 60–800V system so thatRead More

A cable tie (also called zip tie, wire tie, or tie-wrap) is a simple engineered fastener commonly used in electronics. It consists of a strap with a row of teeth (a ratchet) on one face and a small housing at one end. When the tail is threaded through the housing, or head, and pulled snug,Read More

There’s a frustrating pattern familiar for anyone who has operated or worked on commercial trucks, agricultural machinery, or construction equipment: a fault appears, the vehicle goes into the shop, technicians run diagnostics and find nothing. The fault code is gone, and the connection looks fine. The vehicle goes back into service, and within days orRead More

Upcoming industry events, as well as recent award, partnership, promotion, personnel, facility, distribution, standards, association, and certification news from across the connector industry. July 2026 Connector Industry News July 2026 Connector Industry News > Award News Sager Electronics was named Distributor of the Year for 2025 by EAO, 2025 Americas Distributor of the Year by RECOMRead More

Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 is the EU’s comprehensive batteries regulation, covering safety, ease of use, labeling, and sustainability for batteries and the products they power. Battery connectors are part of the compliance picture. Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 is the EU’s comprehensive batteries regulation, covering sustainability, safety, labeling, and end-of-life management for all battery categories, including consumer, electricRead More

As the automotive industry moves rapidly toward software‑defined vehicles (SDVs), attention often centers on large‑scale architectural change. Centralized computing, zonal controllers, and high‑speed vehicle networks are widely recognized as foundational to this transition. These shifts are essential—but they do not tell the full story. By Mike Spaccarotella, Product Manager, TE Connectivity, Automotive A less visibleRead More

Pressure-balanced oil-filled (PBOF) interconnects are specialized electrical and fiber optic connectors and cable assemblies designed to survive and operate reliably in extreme, high-pressure deep-sea or subsea environments. Flexible elastomeric tubing (the conduit for electric wires and fiber optic lines) filled with a compensating fluid, such as a non-conductive silicone oil (a dielectric and pressure compensator),Read More

An LGA (land grid array) socket is a zero-insertion-force or low-insertion-force CPU interconnect in which the electrical contacts reside in the socket on the motherboard rather than on the processor package itself. LGA sockets are the dominant CPU interface in desktop, server, and workstation platforms. The socket format allows OEMs to design boards for multipleRead More