Cross Reference

Cross Reference between one manufacturer's product to another manufacturer's equivalent product is a well established procedures used by purchasing personnels and engineers. It is a common practice among engineers to specify multiple vendors for a particular part number so that if the principal vendor fails to meet a delivery schedule, there is a recourse. Mutiple vendors also help purchasing to get the best possible price and provide leverage in negotiation for better delivery terms.

Even though there are many advantages in using mutliple vendors, this is still not as prevalent as one would expect for magnetic products such as inductors, chokes and transformers as compared to ICs, resistors, capacitors, etc. This is mainly because these magnetic parts are typically somewhat custom built or designed to a custom specification. Also, there are some slight differences in characteristics when different types of core materials are used by various manufacturers.

With the expert knowledge that CWS' engineers have, in most cases, we are able to come up with equivalents to another manufacturer's product. This is done by knowing whose core materials, wire types, varnishes or potting compounds that are being used, and what test methodologies are used in production. For example, if the product is an output choke, say from Coilcraft or Gowanda or Coiltronics. All these companies are getting their cores from third party well established core manufacturers. They may have a special size or materials made by paying tooling charges to these manufacturers, but most likely, a standard core is used. By looking at the specifications or the samples, we will know that the core material is made of either gapped ferrites, iron powder, MPP, Sendust (koolmu) or high flux materials. In the whole world, there are only a handful of quality iron powder manufacturers, only 4 to 5 MPP and High flux core manufacturers, etc. By checking the losses or temperature rise, DC bias, and inductances, it is possible to know if the material is MPP, iron powder, etc, and the permeabilities. If a sample is available, it will even be easier as many cores are color coded, or part number printed on them.

Obviously, there will be cases where an exact equivalent is not possible, and in this case, we will advise our customers this fact.

CWS is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers listed in the Cross Reference Table. We provide the same products with faster delivery or lower cost or BOTH. Give us a call and you will find this out yourself.