What do you call this type of component? (identifying a USB 3.0 connector)

Question

It's what connects the wires to the PCB. Is it a header? A housing? I tried searching for "down angled USB header surface mount" but couldn't find something close to it.

Answer 1

• These type of connectors are generally called "strips", where the version with pins ("male") is called header strip. The version with sockets ("female") is called socket strip
• Depending on the number of rows, they are referred to as single row or double row. (Triple etc exist in rare cases.)
• Single row connectors may be referred to as 1xN or just "N pin", where N is the number of pins. double row may be referred to as 2xN.
• Connectors that are bent 90 degrees are called right angle.
• The center to center distance between pins is called pitch. This is usually the most important parameter to narrow down the search.
• The connector in your picture is not surface mount (SMD/SMT). It is a through-hole (TH) connector, since it is soldered in holes, not against a surface. Some connectors may also be through-hole reflow (THR), which looks exactly the same but the plastics are suitable to endure a reflow solder process & such connectors typically also come with a removable "pad" where the placement machine can grab and lift the component.
• Pin length and gold plating are other options you might have to specify.

It's a bit hard to tell the specifics from the pic. This looks like single row(?). I think the pitch is 2,54mm/0.1'' which is the most common one, but it could also be 2,0mm which is also very common. If there's some manner of plastic mechanics underneath the pins (I can't tell), then it's some board-to-wire version likely specific to a certain manufacturer.

Assuming I'm right so far, you are looking at a 5 pin 2,54mm right angle header strip, through-hole mount. One example of that would be Samtec TSW-105-08-F-S-RA.

Answer 2

It's a rectangular connector if you want to find something like this go on digikey or mouser and start narrowing down the search terms. I would start searching for 2x5 conductors ( or 1x5 can't tell from the pic but guessing that USB 3.0 has 9 conductors it's going to need more than five so 2x5) connector with 0.1" pitch (again just estimating but USB connector is 12 mm and that connector is slightly bigger so 0.1 pitch would be about right measure it just to be sure).

Edit:

With the better picture it appears that it's a 0.1 inch 2x5 header that's right angle (not a connector). It looks like whoever made this soldered the wires right to the header and then soldered the right angle connector to the board.

You also would not want to use said connector for USB 3.0 signals because it most likely destroys the signal integrity of the high speed 3.0 signals, I think it would be difficult for a header like that to carry signals in the +100MHz range, because it's inductance is in the nH range, and the 90Ω impedance needed by the differential pair would not work with that header