mating cycle

The number of mating cycles is an important characteristic value for plugs and connectors, not only in RF technology and microwave technology, but also in optical transmission technology and RF measurement technology.

A mating cycle consists of one insertion and one extraction process. When connectors are mated and unmated frequently, their mechanical tolerances change slightly, and so do the transmission parameters. Frequent plugging and unplugging of connectors changes the contact resistance, insertion loss and return loss.

Particularly with FO connectors and high-precision RF connectors, the mating cycles must be taken into account. These can be several hundred for precision connectors, a few thousand for FO connectors and several tens of thousands for audio connectors.