The Molex 0446610001 is a shielded, right-angle modular jack from the 44661 series, terminated with 8p8c (RJ45, Ethernet) contacts. It is designed for through-hole soldering onto a PCB, with the 90° orientation placing the cable entry parallel to the board — the standard layout for network interface cards, switches, routers, and industrial Ethernet ports. The Cat5e rating means this jack is certified to support 1000BASE-T (Gigabit Ethernet) channels over 100-meter links, meeting the insertion loss, return loss, and near-end crosstalk limits defined in TIA/EIA-568-B.2.
Shielding and Board Retention
The board lock is a pair of through-hole retention tabs that anchor the jack during soldering and resist the shear force from repeated plug insertions and cable strain. Without the board lock, the solder joints on the signal pins alone would fatigue over the connector's service life.
Pin Configuration and Mating
The 8p8c (RJ45) contact arrangement follows the standard T568A or T568B pinout — pins 1 through 8 map to the four twisted pairs in a Cat5e cable. The jack mates with any 8p8c RJ45 plug that meets IEC 60603-7, including shielded and unshielded variants. The tab direction is down, meaning the plug's latch engages on the underside of the jack when mounted in the standard orientation. The single-row, single-port layout keeps the PCB footprint compact — one jack per port, no shared magnetics on the connector itself.