DIN41612 connectors, am I getting stupid, or...?

[Jacques]

I design a really simple extender board to use in racks with backplanes populated with DIN41612 female connectors.
So I need a DIN41612 type C male connector and a type R female connector, both right-angled and 96 contacts.
Looking at the PCB footprints library I found what I need, but… both type C and R have their pins numbered the same, i.e. pin a1 is at the very same place, meaning that if I were to connect a male type C with a female type R, the pin a1 of the male would be connected to the pin a32 of the female.
I’ve checked the ERNI website, and they labelled their pins identically.
So, is it an industry standard ? an error ? a cut-and-place-symptom ?
No big fuzz, actually, but I find this disturbing to say the least.
The fact that the footprint DIN41612_R_3x32_Male_Horizontal_THT in library is a male one is not important, both male and female have exactly the same footprint. Still the ERNI documentation shows the disturbing labels. Type R stands for Reversed, and they’re not reversing anything.
Jacques from Brussels

[davidsrsb]

At one stage in the 80s, every other design I did had problems with DIN 41612 pin numbering.
I would end up sat there with samples to figure out what plugged into what

[Anders_Wallin]

FWIW the 2x32 pin ‘AC’ footprints seem to work for me.
the plugin-board has a RA male connector, if viewed from the front of the 19" plugin-rack the connector goes on the right side of the board.
the backplane has a straight female connector.

if you google for “schroff design guide” you will probably find their suggestions for dimensions and placement of the connectors.

HTH,
AW

[Jacques]

Yup, Anders, but the connectors you are using there are both of C type.
The R type that one uses for an extender board should be… Reversed.

Yes, David, I’ve recovered an old design of me made in Autotrax (LoL) from '78 that uses an R type, to check for this and as those designs were perfectly working, I’m now sure that the pinout of the R type is mirrored from the C type. Of course, in the vast majority of the designs, it is of no real importance… as long as you know what you’re doing.

J from B