Socket inserts & contact clips

The clips that grip the plug pins. This is the part a customer complains about when a socket stops holding — which makes it the part where the material choice matters most.

Request a quote Why phosphor bronze

Brass socket contact clips that grip the plug pins

Brass contact strips and busbars fitted inside a power strip housing

Formed brass contact clips after the secondary forming operation

What we stamp

Contact types

An insert does three jobs at once: it touches the pin, it presses on the pin, and it carries the current away. The geometry sets the first and the third. The alloy sets the second — and that is the one that decides whether the socket still holds in year three.

Live, neutral and earth contact clips
Two-pole and three-pole contact assemblies
Spring contacts and multi-contact inserts
Contacts joined on strip for automatic insertion
Shuttered and child-protected socket contacts
Double-contact and twin-leaf geometries
Contacts pre-formed for a specific plug profile

Contact pressure and the working deflection are read off your drawing. On the first-article sample we check spring-back and fit, because two parts can measure identically and still grip differently once they have been inserted a few hundred times.

Phosphor bronze contact clips formed for a socket assembly

Materials

Why this is the one part where brass is often wrong

Every other brass part in a socket is judged on geometry. This one is judged on what happens to the metal after ten thousand insertions — and that is a property of the alloy, not the drawing.

Grade	Behaviour in a contact clip	Use it when
Phosphor bronze C5191 / C5210	Higher elastic limit and much better resistance to stress relaxation: the clip keeps pressing on the pin instead of taking a set and going slack. This is the usual choice for a live contact.	The contact is spring-loaded and has to keep its grip over the life of the socket. Most applications.
H65 brass CuZn35	Good conductivity and good corrosion resistance, but it relaxes: under a permanent deflection it slowly stops pushing back.	The contact is held in place by the housing rather than by its own spring, and the fit is controlled by the plastic.
H62 brass CuZn38	The most economical and the easiest to form, with the least spring of the three.	Non-spring internal links, or a contact where a separate spring element does the work.
Plating nickel / tin	Nickel resists wear and corrosion on the contact face; tin is used where the joint is soldered rather than wiped.	High insertion counts, humid or coastal markets, or a customer specification you have to match.

Grip is measured, not assumed. Send the drawing and we will come back with a material recommendation, the deflection we can hold, and which dimensions we will measure and report per batch — rather than a generic contact force that will not reproduce on your line.

Read the full comparison: H62 vs H65 vs phosphor bronze

To quote

What we need from you

Drawing — 2D (PDF / DXF) or 3D (STEP), or a clear photo of the sample with a ruler in frame
Plug standard — BS1363, Schuko, NEMA 5-15, AS/NZS 3112, Type L, or your own profile
Material — phosphor bronze, H65, or “whatever you recommend for the grip”
Critical dimensions — the gap, the deflection, the insertion axis
Quantity — trial quantity and expected annual volume
Packing — loose, or on strip for automatic insertion

Good to know

Common questions

Why does a socket lose its grip over time?

Almost always stress relaxation in the contact clip. The clip is permanently deflected, and over thousands of insertion cycles the metal stops pushing back — so the contact area shrinks, resistance rises and the joint runs warmer. The fix is at the material specification, not at the moulding.

Phosphor bronze or brass for the contact?

If the clip has to spring, phosphor bronze. Full stop. Brass is cheaper and forms more easily, but it will not hold a permanent deflection the way phosphor bronze does. If the contact is not spring-loaded in your design, brass is a perfectly reasonable and cheaper choice — and we will say so rather than upsell you.

Can you match the grip of the part we use now?

Send a sample and we will measure it, including how it behaves after repeated insertion, then quote against that. Comparing grip honestly is the only way to switch contact suppliers without discovering the difference in the field.

Also in the range