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Signal connector can carry 4 amps of current constantly?

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Since 1 pin is rated for 1A max I would rather use at least 5 pins to carry the 4A. Not only as a safety margin, but there is no way to tell how the currents will be balanced, and in the case of 1A through each pin the pins will be overstressed with any imbalance. So 6 would be even better if you want to keep your products reliable.
 
Hello there,

Trying to pass 1 amp of current through a 1 amp rated connector means the application is most likely doomed to early failure. Trying to pass 4 amps through 4 such connectors means it will most likely fail way too soon.

Usually the connectors are rated in terms of 1 connector suspended in mid air with a current passing through it. The current rating is whatever current causes somewhere around a 30 degree rise in temperature in the connector. The connector is cooled mostly by the surrounding air which gets to the metal of the contacts easily.

In the real life application however, the connector always appears inside some sort of plastic housing. This of course means the connector will get hotter and therefore fail sooner if operated at the max current.

Because of this, a good rule of thumb is limit the current to 70 percent of the rated current. If you have thicker wires the wires can conduct heat way from the connector so you can go higher. If you have a lot of contacts in one housing you must go lower. If the wire is real thin you should go lower too.

For 4 amps then 4/0.7=5.7 so 6 pins would be the min, but if you want to really be sure go with a 50 percent factor which leads to 8 pins for 4 amps.

What else helps is if each pin has it's own wire that is the entire length of the cable run. So if you have a 4 foot cable say 18 gauge that breaks out into 6 wires of 22 gauge each at the end where each wire is only 3 inches long that will not be as good as if the entire cable was made up of 6 wires of 22 gauge each, because the wire helps to distribute the current between contacts better by introducing some series resistance for each contact.
 
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