Hermetic MDM pass-throughs

Prior to doing the hard work of meeting with in-house specialists for what the standard practice is for vacuum pass-throughs, I have done a lot of research for what's available commercially for Micro-D Miniature pass-throughs because it would be great to have our test cables be straight through all the way from inside to outside the chamber.

I have pored over Glenair's website and have found no indication, unexpectedly, that they sell pass-throughs at all. They sell hermetic connectors as listed in this search result but only single-sided connectors with a variety of termiations. https://www.glenair.com/micro_d/h.htm

Glenair's hermetic connectors look beautiful, as seen in this datasheet: https://cdn.glenair.com/micro_d/pdf/h/general_information.pdf

And here's more info in the hermetic connector selection guide (no mention of the existence of passthroughs though): https://cdn.glenair.com/micro_d/pdf/h/product_selection_guide.pdf

Here's the entire catalog for Glenair hermetic connectors. It contains not one mention of passthroughs or feedthroughs: http://cdn.glenair.com/catalogs/hermetic_connectors.pdf

Googling for MDM passthroughs gets repeated hits to a handful of companies that specialize in vacuum products. These companies are actually pretty exciting because they will sell us the complete flange fully built up with the passthroughs.

This company Hositrad even seems to have the same kind of flange that Dave is using in his design, and they have a catalog of standard part numbers for flanges with MDM passthroughs. Distressingly, they seem to be located in Germany though, and their prices are all in Euros! http://www.hositrad.com/vacuum-products/electrical-feedthroughs/

Here's Hositrad's catalog for their MDM passthroughs and flanges. Distressingly they don't seem to sell either a 37 or 69 pin passthrough though: http://www.hositrad.com/docs/upload/137.pdf

Here's their online shop for the flanges, which matches the catalog page nicely. There are a few drawings given for their products in the subpages: http://webshop.hositrad.com/va/6598/Multipin-Connector-MicroD-Type,-ISO-KF-Flange.html

This company MDC Vacuum Products sell things for dollars, but their site has some distressing inconsistencies. This page seems to be for MDM passthrough flanges as indicated by the presence of a 51 pin connector size, but the text and photos all reference plain D-subminiature connectors. https://www.mdcvacuum.com/DisplayProductContent.aspx?d=MDC&p=i.1.5.4.2

Here's another page for MDC which is the result of clicking a link for MDM passthroughs but shows Dsubs. This is so intriguing because it shows multiple connectors on the same flange! https://www.mdcvacuum.com/DisplayProductContent.aspx?d=MDC&p=i.1.5.4.1

This company, MPF, is located in South Carolina, and seems to sell a variety of MDM feedthroughs, one per flange. Again no 37 or 69 pin option. They also sell weldable connectors that look exactly like ones from a different website. In general this site seems amateurish, small and a little hard to trust, but maybe they're great. http://mpfpi.com/stock-products/multipin/micro-d.aspx

Ceramtek is a company that keeps coming up in google searches for MDM passthroughs, and their products look like ones that are being used in other peoples' products, but oddly their site seems to only have Dsub passthroughs. I can't find the promised MDM passthroughs. The search tool on their site is of course useless: http://shop.ceramtec.us/catalog07/view_subsubsection.cfm?SectionID=36&SubsectionID=236&SubSubsectionID=214

The problem with Ceramtec is all the more puzzling because they are referred by this otherwise very nice article about hermetic and passthrough connectors: http://www.vtcmag.com/showcase/index_1207.html

Found another manufacturer, SRI Hermetics, located in Florida, makes weldable pass-throughs similar to what Ceramtec was rumored to make. They seem to be a small shop though, as indicated by their wide-open customization promises. Here's their Micro-D page: http://www.srihermetics.com/product_micro_d.aspx

Here is SRI Hermetics' offerings of MicroDs welded onto standard flanges: http://www.srihermetics.com/product_vacuum_products.aspx

Dave has sent me several links which have had a disappointingly low relevance, except for one.

Apparently Pave electronics is commonly used by his team, and this list of standard products is full of lovely surprises, including a 37 pin MDM pass through. I recently realized, sadly, that it doesn't include a 69 MDM passthrough, but maybe it is something that they can make or sell custom. http://www.pavetechnologyco.com/design/dsub_productindex.html

This page hints that they make 69-pin sizes even though they don't appear on the catalog listing. This is clearly a small shop, probably with a huge lead time for fabrication. http://www.pavetechnologyco.com/design/dsub_productindex.html

Somebody told Dave that Airborne makes MDM passthroughs, which seems like misinformation since I've only ever seem them sell backplane connectors. Their site is a nightmare and their search tool is completely broken, but I stumbled across the astonishing discovery that they seem to sell crimp-pin MDM connectors: http://www.airborn.com/products/connectors/m-series/81-cable-connector-with-integrated-shield-termination-(crimped-wire)-(receptacle)-

Similarly somebody told Dave about a company called Ometics which doesn't seem to have any passthroughs (although it's impossible to tell because their search tool is also broken), but seems like a great source for connector savers here: http://www.omnetics.com/Micro-D/