Ever seen a gold plated cable connector?

normally cable tv connectors are not gold plated unless clipped from those crazy priced monster cables.

those look plated to me, if you look at the threads at the top of the one to the right you can see yellow brass thats been exposed, if i had to bet id say they are gold plated

Sometimes it's difficult to tell on these types of connectors, exactly what they are made of. There are a few ways you can tell however.

If you know where the connector came from, it could give you an idea if the connector is gold plated. For example, if the connector was used in anything that required RF to pass through it, and is gold in color, it could be gold plated. The reason that gold is used in RF connectors, like in a cell phone antenna, is to protect the radio frequencies from interference. It's commonly called RF Shielding. Sometimes in high end electronics you will see blocks of Al with gold plating for this reason.

If the connectors have a "toned" color to them, purples or reds present, it's probably Beryllium Copper. Here are some pictures of connecters made of Beryllium Copper:







Here is a picture of a gold plated connector. Also notice that the legs are not intended to be soldered to a board, but rather to keep the connector against the board. Usually, gold plated connectors will not be soldered to a board, it's the wire inside that is, the legs are to keep the connector level:



If a gold plated connector is secured to a PC Board or metal base, it's most often times screwed onto it, these connectors look like this:



In applications where the gold plating is contained in a cable connector, it's usually only the parts that actually pass the electricity/frequencies through like this type of connector:



Sometimes the cable connectors are anodized, they may have gold plated pins inside, but the outside is not gold plated. These are fairly common and also fairly easy to tell the difference between them and connectors that are gold plated. Here is what they might look like:



Light alloyed metals are usually not gold plated, so if the connector is light in the palm of your hand, meaning that it is made of light metals, it's probably not gold plated. Although Aluminum is commonly plated in gold for RF applications to protect electronics from RF frequencies, this is almost never the case with connectors.

Also, you can take a pocket knife or razor blade, and very carefully score the connector to see if there is plating over some other metal. When gold is 22k or above it likes to smear, and will come away from the base metal fairly easy. If you see a bright shiny metal under the plating, and it's a different color, it's most likely gold plating, specially if it curls.

These connectors look gold plated to me, the scoring that was mentioned by jghilino is one reason:

Originally Posted by jghilino

those look plated to me, if you look at the threads at the top of the one to the right you can see yellow brass thats been exposed, if i had to bet id say they are gold plated

But also the fact that what actually was soldered, and anchored the connector to whatever it was connected to was the center:



And the fact that these connectors do not have any purple/blue/red colors like the Beryllium Copper pictures above!

Scott