Bench Talk

Image Source: Mouser Electronics

By Stuart Cording for Mouser Electronics

The European Union’s efforts to push businesses towards more environmentally sustainable practices march forward. To ensure compliance and support the growing number of green investors, businesses are required by the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) to declare their progress in their financial reports starting from 2024. By far the most challenging values for businesses to collect are Scope 3, which cover upstream and downstream Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions resulting from purchased items.^[1] This includes electrical components like connectors. So, can classic heavy-duty connectors like Bulgin’s Standard Buccaneer series evolve to deliver the reliability they are known for in harsh environments while also leaving a smaller GHG footprint behind?

A Trusted, More Sustainable Connector

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” is the engineer’s mantra. Especially in the world’s harshest environments, if you have a trusted solution, the last thing you want to do with it is change it. From industrial plants to maritime and construction applications, connectors ensure power arrives where it is needed. So, with so much else that can go wrong, trust in your cabling and connectors is essential.

And the same applies to connector manufacturers. Years of research and design effort go into developing products that deliver day in, day out and make the lives of those who use them simpler. Additionally, reports of field failures are fed back into development teams, ensuring that updates and revisions to a product series lead to even better-performing products and a name that users can trust.

So, it is rare for any supplier to change the composition of the materials used willingly. However, despite the risks, Bulgin has done just that, ensuring their customers can continue to trust the connectors with their Standard Vitalis Buccaneer series while helping them meet their sustainability targets (Figure 1).

Figure 1: The Standard Vitalis Buccaneer range of waterproof connectors utilises sustainable plastics while delivering the same technical performance. (Source: Mouser Electronics)

Leveraging Biomass Waste for Sustainable Plastics

Manufacturers often struggle to find an alternative to existing plastic formulations. Options that are 100 percent green often fail to withstand the rigorous testing needed to prove decades of continuous performance in harsh environments across a wide temperature range. Furthermore, suitable materials can cause other issues, such as drawing upon resources that impact the food chain, often for communities that can least afford it.

Despite working within such constraints, Bulgin has sourced two new plastic materials. The first is derived primarily from tropical castor oil, which doesn’t compete with the food chain. The second utilises biomass waste and residue. Tested for its suitability for mechanical function while achieving a more sustainable design, the new connector range contains up to 86 percent bio-based content by weight.

This development has led to reductions of up to 8.9kg CO₂e per 100 units of connectors (carbon dioxide equivalent) in their Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) compared to the classic Standard Buccaneer connector series.

Retaining Ingress Protection Ratings

While the plastic formulation for the Standard Vitalis Buccaneer connector has changed, the requirements these connectors must meet haven’t. Dust, dirt, liquids, and moisture remain major challenges, especially when all are present. Although pure water is non-conductive and non-corrosive, real-world conditions dictate that chemicals and particles are always present. Thus, when mixed with accumulated dust and dirt particles, functional issues or even partial conduction can occur.

Thankfully, the circular power connectors in the Standard Vitalis Buccaneer range have been proven to withstand some of the industry’s strictest ingress protection requirements. The 2 to 25 contact range has been IP68 tested when mated in 10m of water for 2 weeks and 100m of water for 12 hours, and also meets EN 60068-2-52 for salt mist (cyclic) Marine Severity Level 1. Use of the available sealing caps (PXV0734 and PXV0733) allows the connectors to maintain the IP68 rating of unmated connectors (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Adding a sealing cap to a Standard Vitalis Buccaneer connector maintains its IP68 rating. (Source: Mouser Electronics)

This feature of the connectors makes them suitable for applications requiring 25 contacts operating at 50V and 1A, through to those needing 2 or 3 contacts operating at 277V and 12A (AC/DC). The range retains its seven body styles—flex cable, inline cable, front and rear panel mounts, PCB mount, bulkhead and flange mount—all with leading earth contact (3-contact version), positive-locking keyways, and a compact design.

The supported cable sizes range from 3.5mm to 9mm, and assembly is kept simple for screw terminal versions that require no special tooling. For those preferring crimped terminals, the crimping tool and insertion/extraction tool used with previous Buccaneer connectors can be reused.

Finally, the series includes the PXV0777 sealed cable joiner, which meets the IP68 and IP69K ratings and EN 60068-2-52 for 3-, 4-, 6-, or 8-way terminal blocks (Figure 3). These are suited for 16A, 250V AC (3-way terminal) or 10A, 250V AC (4-, 6-, and 8-way) use.

Figure 3: The Vitalis Buccaneer series also includes an IP69K-rated sealed cable joiner. (Source: Mouser Electronics)

Low Carbon Footprint Connectors for Harsh Environments

While a single connector is only a small contributor to the bill of materials and equally diminutive on your product’s carbon footprint, its impact soon adds up as quantities rise. By retaining robustness, IP ratings, and the circular design with mating mechanism, the Standard Vitalis Buccaneer series delivers year in and year out, in harsh environments, as it has always done. At the same time, by utilising a new plastic material that doesn’t compete with the food chain or uses biomass waste and residue, Bulgin enables its customers to improve their Scope 3 reporting when implementing the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive.

Sources

[1] https://greenvisionsolutions.de/en/scope-1-2-3-emissions/

Author Bio

Stuart Cording is “The Electronics Reporter”—an engineer turned influencer dedicated to helping the electronics community make sense of today’s complex technologies. With 30 years of experience in semiconductors and embedded systems, he uncovers the stories, insights, and practical know-how that help engineers solve real design challenges. Through articles, podcasts, and videos, Stuart connects innovators, shares technical wisdom, and celebrates the people driving progress in deep tech.