SIMM/edge-card socket for CFAG12232?

[PeterH]

We've just received a couple of the CFAG12232D parts.

We hadn't been sure what approach would be suitable for mounting/connecting them, but now we can look at them up close and actually touch them, and our crude first ideas don't seem likely to work.

They have what look like alignment slots cut in the top edge of the PCB, and while the 18-pin connector could have a very small pin header soldered into it (or individual wires, if we were insane) it seems fairly clear it's really an edge-card connector designed to plug into something like a typical SIMM socket (where the pins are contacted top and bottom simultaneously by the socket). But does such a part exist?

It looks like the CFAG240128 parts have the same basic sort of connector, minus the alignment slots.

How do people connect these things in their products?

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[cosmicvoid]

While I've never used these displays, judging from the picture, it looks like a SIMM or edge connector would not work due to the components mounted near the edge of the board.

The only prefab connection method I've seen that looks practical is these flat-flex cable assemblies:
http://dkc3.digikey.com/PDF/T073/P0067.pdf

I can't be sure, but it seems like the mating header for the female cable ends might be the ones in fig. 5 or 6, here:
http://dkc3.digikey.com/PDF/T073/P0241.pdf

It looks like the only size available, from this vendor, in both parts is the 20 pin version, which ought to work by snipping a few pins. Otherwise, you might have to be insane and solder wires to the board.

 

[PeterH]

Thanks cosmicvoid, interesting option. I hadn't really thought of using a cable.

And as pin 18 is actually "NC", one could get by with only the 17-pin cable (since they don't make an 18-pin one) if a matching PCB-side connection could be found. Unfortunately, to use this approach we'd still be soldering lots of connections, and a cable connection poses none of the usual advantages for us so the extra cost is undesirable. If we can avoid soldering directly to the LCD board we'd like to.

You're right that a typical SIMM socket would collide with those parts on the underside, but it still looks as though someone designed these parts with such a connector in mind, as they went to the effort of making them into edge-card contacts instead of how many of the other LCDs are designed.

 

[Heffo]

I believe the two notches in the PCB around the terminals are for the alignment of some kind of plastic clip-in retention mechanism. I am using a similar set of notches on a 12x2 character LCD like that.