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Card Edge Connector
Industrial, IT Datacom
Consumer hardware moved to M.2 years ago. Industrial hardware has not fully followed, and for good reason. Mini PCIe 52-pin card-edge sockets are still being designed into panel PCs, factory gateways, single-board computers, digital signage controllers, edge-AI boxes, and ruggedized HMIs. The card edge tolerates hand-swaps from field service technicians, the driver stack is mature across Linux, WinCE, and QNX, and a product with a 5–7 year field life does not need to redesign its wireless or storage bay just to chase the latest connector generation.
That is exactly the customer segment this connector family is built for: builds that need a known-good Mini PCIe slot, in a known thickness, on a predictable supply chain.
The two part numbers on this page share contact geometry, plating, and electrical ratings. The only mechanical difference is the body's vertical clearance above the host PCB. That one number decides whether your enclosure can carry a full-mini card, a half-mini card, or both — and it cascades into chassis stack-up, antenna keep-out, and assembly-line SKU count.
Use 5.2 H when the module needs extra headroom — full-length wireless cards, GPS receivers with ground-plane requirements, 4G/5G modules with tall RF shields, or any card-side component that rises more than roughly 3 mm above the card PCB. The 5.2 H body nests both full-mini (48.05 mm reference) and half-mini (23.90 mm reference) card outlines from a single connector footprint, which simplifies SKU management on the assembly line (see image #1 for the 5.2 H connector body and image #3 for the card-edge geometry it accepts).
Use 4.0 H in slim fanless enclosures, panel PCs, and compact gateways where the keep-out below the card is only 3.5–4 mm. The lower profile drops the module's center of gravity closer to the host board, which reduces the lever-arm stress on the solder joints in installations that see cabinet-door vibration across years of operation. Refer to image #5 for the 4.0 H body geometry.
Both heights share the same horizontal datum, the same card-edge alignment window, and the same SMT land-pattern convention. One BOM line can carry both options if your flex region allows a height step at the connector.
Application scenario | Recommended mating height | Part number |
|---|---|---|
Full-mini wireless / 4G / 5G with tall RF parts | 5.2 mm | BR0521A01K1BR |
Half-mini card in slim fanless chassis | 4.0 mm | BR0521A02K1BR |
Dual-outline host (full + half card support on same layout) | 5.2 mm | BR0521A01K1BR |
Vibration-prone in-cabinet gateway, low profile | 4.0 mm | BR0521A02K1BR |
GPS or LTE module with antenna keep-out above the card | 5.2 mm | BR0521A01K1BR |
The 52 contacts are stamped from copper-alloy brass at 0.15 mm stock. A 30 µ" minimum nickel under-plate with gold flash on the contact area is enough to hold stable contact resistance through the rated 50 mating cycles without inflating unit cost — useful for industrial designs that do not need the long-term corrosion margin of thicker gold.
The latch is also brass, at 0.50 mm thickness. Mechanically the connector is specified at 2.3 kgf Max insertion and 2.3 kgf Max withdrawal, with a 0.1 kgf minimum withdrawal. A card will not fall out under its own weight, and it does not need a tool to remove.
The 300 V AC RMS dielectric-withstand rating and the 500 MΩ insulation resistance at 500 V DC translate to real margin on a 50 V signal interface. That margin shows up most often when Mini PCIe power rails sit next to isolated 24 V signals, RS-485 buses, or LVDS pairs on the same host board. The field ESD returns that bite hardest are almost always blamed on a connector that did not have this kind of headroom in the first place.
Both heights follow the standard Mini PCIe card-edge socket footprint. The reference PCB thickness is 1.20 ± 0.05 mm, with through-holes for retention pegs and a defined keep-out under the card hold-down area. Image #2 shows the recommended PCB pattern for the 5.2 H version; image #6 shows the equivalent for the 4.0 H version.
Solder-pad plating — Match the gold-flash contact area with ENIG or immersion tin on the SMT pads. OSP finishes work for prototypes but shorten shelf life in storage.
Retention-hole reinforcement — The 2.30 mm Ø through-holes take M2 retention screws. Plated through-holes rated for ≥1 N pull-out are typically fine; if the host will see repeated module insertions, add an annular ring or a grommet.
Card-edge bevel — A 0.20 mm chamfer on the PCB card edge at the connector mouth prevents contact-tip damage during angled card insertion. Skip the chamfer and you will see higher contact-resistance drift after a few hundred field swaps.
The housing is LCP with 30 % glass fiber, UL 94 V-0 rated — required for many industrial and medical-enclosure listings. The black housing (K1) is the standard offering; white (L1) is available on request for medical or test-instrument applications where you need visual contrast against the card edge.
Both variants ship on tape-and-reel — 800 pcs per reel for 5.2 H and 700 pcs per reel for 4.0 H — with anti-static cover tape, desiccant packs, and corrugated shipping cartons (images #4 and #7). Every reel carries a date code stamped on the housing — year, week, day, plant, group — so a field failure can be tied back to a specific lot, not a generic batch number. CONSHARE also keeps the raw-material lot traceability for the housing compound and contact strip, which shortens root-cause work when an EMS partner runs into an out-of-the-box anomaly.
Standard lead time — Stocked 5.2 H and 4.0 H reels ship in 2–3 weeks from CONSHARE.
Custom plating — Gold 3 µ", 5 µ", 10 µ", or 15 µ" finishes are available against forecast; budget 4–6 weeks for non-stocked plating.
Project-level customization — Peg length, reels-per-carton count, and halogen-free housing (H environment-protection code instead of the standard G) can be quoted against an ongoing forecast.
Incoming-inspection support — Initial samples ship with measured contact-resistance and withdrawal-force data, useful for vendor-incoming-inspection programs at EMS partners.
No. mSATA uses the same 52-pin position but a different signal map. This connector is for Mini PCIe cards only; the card edge must follow the PCIe Mini Card electromechanical spec. Conflating the two will damage the host or the card.
Yes. The 5.2 H body seats half-mini cards at the same contact row. Half-mini cards stop earlier on the retention screw, so positive retention is unchanged.
Reference card thickness is 1.20 mm. Cards between 0.80 mm and 1.20 mm will still seat, but retention force and contact pressure shift with the thickness — verify on your specific module before locking the BOM.
Yes. Both heights can be ordered with the H environment-protection suffix instead of G (gold flash). Contact CONSHARE for the exact part string and current stock.
The latch is part of the contact geometry, not a field-replaceable part. For designs that do not need positive retention, the same connector still seats the card — the latch simply sits unused against the module's PCB surface.
