37-Position Right-Angle D-Sub Plug for Board-Edge I/O
The Amphenol 6E17C037PAJ121 is a 37-position D-Sub plug from the 6E17 series, terminated through-hole at a right angle. The 37 positions match the standard DC (4) shell size layout, so the footprint is a known quantity for anyone who has laid out a 37-pin D-Sub before. The shell is steel with nickel plating, which gives the EMI shielding a continuous low-impedance path to the chassis ground through the grounding indents on the shell face.
Board Lock and Grounding Indents
Two features on this plug that matter during assembly: the board locks and the grounding indents. The board locks are metal retention legs that snap into plated through-holes on the PCB and hold the connector in place during wave soldering — without them the right-angle plug can tilt under the weight of the cable harness and the solder joints end up uneven. The grounding indents are dimples on the shell face that contact the mating receptacle shell before the signal pins engage, bleeding shield current to ground and reducing the risk of ESD damage to the downstream electronics.