Now the FFC Cables are widely used in a variety of printer connection between the head and the motherboard, plotters, scanners, copiers, stereos, LCD appliances, fax machines, DVD players and other products, a variety of signal transmission and plate board connections. Conductors size The width and thickness of the conductors

Stiffener Most FFCs have some sort of extra material attached on the opposite side of the exposed length of the cable to facilitate ZIF or LIF connections. Exposure length The length of the electrical contact that has been exposed at the termination of the cable. Other cables (labelled Type 2 or Type D) have the exposed contacts on opposite sides of the cable (so that if the cable is lying flat, one end will have face-up contacts, and the other end will have face-down contacts). Type Some cables (described as Type 1 by Würth Elektronik or Type A by Molex) have the exposed contacts on the same side at each end. Custom Pitch and Multiple Pitch FFC are available upon special request. A single FFC can have different pitches between different conductors on the same cable, however this is uncommon. The pitch typically refers to the distance from the center of one conductor to the center of its neighboring conductor. Specifications Pitch The spacing of the conductors. In addition, because the wires are protected individually and not wrapped many times over by different materials as round cables are, they are lighter in weight and offer greater flexibility. They usually take up less space than round cables, often offering better EMI/RFI suppression and eliminating wire-coupling issues. The stiffener makes the end of the cable slightly thicker.įlexible flat cables are used in place of round cables for easy cable management, especially in high-flex applications. Often, each end of the cable is reinforced with a stiffener to make insertion easier or to provide strain relief.

The cable usually consists of a flat and flexible plastic film base, with multiple flat metallic conductors bonded to one surface. FFCs are usually straight connections without any components.įFC is a miniaturized form of ribbon cable, which is also flat and flexible. Sometimes the term FPC ( flexible printed circuit) is even-somewhat inaccurately-used for any type of FFC, however this is more accurately used to describe etched or printed circuits that incorporate components and are built onto a flexible material.

What does fpc stand for