Harwin Pogo Pin vs. Promax: Connector Comparison Guide

Harwin pogo pins turn up on plenty of shortlists, for good reason. The company has built connectors in the UK for decades, has a long record in high-reliability interconnects, and keeps its parts in distributor stock across the US and Europe.

Promax earns their place for a different reason. Promax Pogo Pin designs and builds custom pins in its own Dongguan factory, shaping each one around the buyer’s product and application, and shipping it directly.

Buyers end up comparing the two because both make spring-loaded contacts for the same kinds of products, but they get those parts to you in opposite ways. Choosing the wrong route can cost you a housing redesign, a failed supplier audit, or distributor margin on every unit you ship.

So before weighing Harwin vs. Promax, settle a simpler question: does your project need a catalog part bought through distribution or a pin built around your own product? That one choice drives your samples, your plating options, your lead time, and your paperwork.

Where Do these Harwin and Promax Facts Come from?

Buyers weigh these two names together often enough that a side-by-side comparison earns its place. They sell spring-loaded contacts in very different ways, so a datasheet alone won’t settle the choice.

Every Harwin detail here comes from its published product data, its UK company filings, or named trade press, and every Promax detail comes from our verified records. Where Harwin doesn’t publish a commercial term, the tables say Contact for details rather than guessing.

Six dimensions carry the comparison: manufacturing base, samples and minimums, plating and materials, lead time, certifications and agreements, and project fit.

Harwin vs. Promax at a Glance

In a Harwin pogo pin vs. Promax comparison, the pin matters less than the way each company sells it.

Harwin is a Portsmouth interconnect manufacturer whose pogo pins are one family within a wide catalog, bought mostly through distributors. Promax Pogo Pin is a Dongguan factory that builds spring-loaded contacts to your drawing and ships them directly.

Harwin suits a build where a standard part already fits, and Promax suits a build where the pin has to be shaped around the product and application.

The table below compares Harwin and Promax on ownership, buying route, origin, current range, certifications, samples, and IP terms.

Table 1. Harwin vs. Promax at a glance. Any Harwin term the company does not publish reads Contact for details.

Category	Harwin	Promax
Founded	1952	2014
Headquarters	Farlington, Portsmouth, UK	Dongguan, Guangdong, China, plus a US office in Gary, Indiana
Ownership	Family-owned public limited company	Independent
How buyers order	Mainly through authorized distributors, with regional sales offices	Direct from the factory
Where the pogo pins are made	Product data for P70 pins lists China as the country of origin. Confirm per part number	Owns a factory in Dongguan
Place of pogo pins in the business	Harwin pogo pin connectors are one family within a wide interconnect catalog	Core business, alongside magnetic connectors and test probes
Published pogo pin current range	1A or 2A per contact across the EZi pogo pin range	Custom configurations up to 40A and 120V
Quality certifications	EN 9100 / AS9100D. Others: Contact for details	ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001, IECQ QC080000
Patents	Contact for details	22+ in pogo pin technology
Samples	Online sample ordering. Terms: Contact for details	Free samples, no prototype minimum
Lead time	Distributor stock or a quoted factory lead time. Contact for details	Published per stage; see the lead time section below
NDA and NNN agreements	Contact for details	Signed on request
Notable clients	Contact for details. Harwin names space, avionics, and subsea sectors	Including Huawei, Xiaomi, and Amphenol, company-stated
Best for	Standard SMT pins from local stock and aerospace supply chains	Custom geometries, higher current, and direct factory pricing

Where are Harwin and Promax Pogo Pins Actually Made?

The two companies are built differently, and the rest of this comparison follows from that. One runs a broad catalog through a distributor network, and the other runs your drawing through its own production line.

Harwin’s Portsmouth base and distribution network

Harwin has manufactured connectors in Portsmouth for decades, and it’s still a family-owned business. The Farlington site holds the head office and the bulk of the manufacturing. Sales and support offices cover the USA, Germany, France, and Singapore, and the Companies House record confirms the legal entity.

Growth is visible on the ground. The company employs more than 350 people and is expanding the Farlington site to add roughly 50% more capacity, according to Invest Portsmouth.

Most engineers never deal with that factory directly, though. They buy a Harwin pogo pin connector through an authorized distributor, and that route is a real strength. Stock you can order today and an existing vendor account remove friction that a new factory relationship adds.

Promax’s direct factory in Dongguan

At Promax Pogo Pin, we work from a single site in Dongguan, where design, machining, plating, and assembly sit under one roof. The plant covers 15,000 m² and employs more than 300 people, including over 20 engineers.

We sell direct, which means the engineer who reviews your drawing is part of the team that will make the pin. Nothing in our range is sourced from another manufacturer and rebadged.

Because pogo pins are our core business rather than one family in a wider catalog, the range goes further. We build SMT, through-hole, high-current, double-ended, right-angle, bending-type, and solder cup configurations, with custom pins rated up to 40A and 120V. That work is backed by more than 22 patents in pogo pin technology.

Why the origin line on a datasheet matters

One detail is worth checking against your own part numbers. Harwin’s published product data for its P70 pogo pins lists China as the country of origin on the part numbers we checked.

This is normal practice for a globally distributed catalog brand, and it says nothing negative about quality. It does mean a headquarters address tells you less than the origin line on each datasheet.

Where origin affects customs treatment or a contract clause, ask every supplier for that line per part number.

How Quickly Can You Get Samples and a First Production Lot?

The sample stage is where a program finds out whether a part works on the real board. Both companies make it easy to start, though they start from different places.

Ordering Harwin parts in small quantities

Harwin product pages carry an Order Sample option, so a first piece is straightforward to request. Sample terms and costs aren’t published, so ask Harwin directly before you budget for qualification.

Distributor minimums vary by listing, and the same part can carry different break quantities at different distributors. Check the listing for the exact part number you plan to order.

Harwin doesn’t publish minimum order quantity (MOQ) thresholds for custom pins either, so that’s a direct conversation with their team.

Free samples built to your drawing

At Promax, we ship free samples for qualification, with no minimum at the prototype stage. Production minimums depend on the pin design and the tooling behind it. A pin that runs on existing tooling usually starts lower than a fully custom barrel.

If the part is still taking shape, our guide to designing a custom pogo pin covers where those choices get made. In our experience, the most useful sample is one tested in the real housing, at the working height the product holds. Fit problems surface there that no datasheet predicts.

What Sits on the Contact Surface, and Who Decides it?

Plating choice decides how a contact ages, and that decides whether it survives the product’s duty cycle. Base metal and spring material sit underneath that decision and shape what the plating can do.

What Harwin publishes for its P70 pins

Harwin publishes a clear specification for the EZi range, which makes its pins easy to design against. The plunger and barrel are brass with a gold finish, and the spring is stainless steel. The range launched in 2016 with wearables and portable devices in mind, according to Electronics Weekly’s launch coverage. Custom finishes aren’t published, so ask Harwin directly.

The companion contact pads are the part worth noticing. They’re gold-finished Beryllium Copper, supplied in circular, rectangular, and obround shapes. Some board finishes wear quickly when a pin presses on them thousands of times. A pad soldered in place gives the pin a hard, gold-plated surface to land on instead, and the table below lists the dimensions available.

How Promax sets the plating stack

We set base metal, spring material, and plating from the drawing rather than from a catalog page. Gold, Nickel, and Palladium-Nickel are the usual choices, and we can specify other finishes where an application calls for them. Which one earns its cost depends on the duty cycle and the environment.

Gold suits contacts that mate often or carry low-level signals, because it resists oxidation and keeps contact resistance stable. Nickel is a harder, lower-cost finish for less demanding duty, and it also sits under Gold as a barrier layer. Palladium-Nickel falls between the two, giving good wear resistance at a lower cost than thick Gold, usually with a thin Gold layer on top.

Thickness is set on the drawing to match your cycle target rather than picked from a fixed menu. Thicker Gold buys wear life and costs more, so a desk dock and a sealed outdoor product need different answers. We also match the pin’s finish to the pad it lands on, since mismatched finishes wear unevenly. Before you choose a finish, it’s worth reading how the contact interface wears.

Why precision comes from the whole line

Precision in a connector belongs to the whole line rather than to any single step. Machining, spring selection, plating control, assembly alignment, and inspection all have to hold together across thousands of parts.

Our mass production yield sits above 99%, and that number describes the whole chain rather than one pin. What a single pin holds still depends on its design, material, finished size, and the process capability behind it.

That’s why we quote achievable tolerances against your drawing. Ask any supplier what varies batch to batch, because that answer tells you more than one dimension on a datasheet.

The following table compares what each company publishes on base metal, finish, mating surface, size, formats, temperature, and packaging.

Table 2. Contact surface and materials. Harwin figures taken from the current EZi pogo pins and contact pads datasheet, verified 01/10/2026.

Element	Harwin EZi range, published data	Promax, verified records	What it decides for you
Base metal	Brass plunger and barrel, stainless steel spring	Selected by application	Conductivity, machinability, and unit cost
Contact finish	Gold on plunger and barrel	Gold or Nickel, specified per application	Wear life and corrosion behavior
Mating surface	Beryllium Copper contact pads with a gold finish, 0.1 mm to 0.5 mm thick, in circular, rectangular, and obround shapes	Pad and mating format designed with the pin	How well the contact face survives repeated mating
Size range	Free height 2.4 mm to 8.2 mm, working height 1.85 mm to 7.2 mm	Diameter and length set by the drawing	Z-height and board space
Multi-way formats	Single-contact pins only in the current range. Ganged arrays are not published	Housed arrays to the design and magnetic connectors in 1–22 pin configurations	Assembly time and alignment
Operating temperature	-40°C to +85°C on pins, -40°C to +180°C on contact pads	Specified against the environment	Whether the part survives its enclosure
Packaging	Tape and reel on most parts, some supplied loose	Confirm at quote	Fit with pick-and-place assembly
Custom finishes	Contact for details	Specified from the drawing stage	How early the materials conversation starts

How Long from Purchase Order to Parts in Hand?

Lead time is usually the first question a buyer asks because the launch date is already fixed. The two companies answer it from very different positions.

When the part is already on a shelf

Harwin timing depends on the distributor holding the part. A standard pin sitting in stock ships as fast as that distributor can pick and pack it, and no custom factory beats that.

Anything outside stock follows the factory lead time quoted on the day of order. Harwin doesn’t publish a fixed window for that or for custom work, so ask for a dated quote before you build a schedule around it.

When the part is built to your drawing

At Promax, we hold an interval for each stage of a custom build. Engineering feedback comes back within 1–3 days, samples follow in about two weeks, and mass production runs 3–4 weeks once samples are approved.

Those intervals reflect normal capacity rather than best-case estimates. A complex barrel or an unusual plating stack can stretch them, and we’d rather say so than quote one lead time figure for every job.

Does Your Program Need AS9100, IECQ, or an NNN Agreement?

A missing certification can stop a supplier qualification form from being signed, whatever the pin does on the bench. The paperwork question often arrives before the technical one, so it’s worth checking early.

Harwin’s aerospace quality credentials

Harwin holds EN 9100 and AS9100D certification. For a reader outside aerospace, that means its quality system has been audited against the aviation, space, and defense standard rather than a general one.

Programs carrying an aerospace flow-down often need that at the supplier level, and Harwin meets it without a workaround. Other Harwin certifications aren’t published, so ask Harwin directly.

The Promax certification set

Our certifications cover four separate systems, and each answers a different question on a supplier qualification form. ISO 9001 shows that our quality management is documented and externally audited. ISO 14001 covers environmental management, and ISO 45001 covers workplace health and safety.

IECQ QC080000, issued under the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) quality assessment scheme, covers how a factory controls hazardous substances. That’s the certificate your compliance team will look for when a product has to meet RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) rules or a customer’s material declarations. It shows those controls run through our whole supply chain, not just through a single test report.

We share certificate numbers, issuing bodies, and scope on request, so your team can check each one against the issuer’s register rather than relying on a logo.

Protecting a drawing before it leaves your desk

A custom pin starts with your drawing, so the agreement covering it matters as much as the quote. We sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) on request. Where a program needs more, we also sign a non-disclosure, non-use, and non-circumvention (NNN) agreement.

The difference matters. An NDA stops a supplier from sharing your drawing with anyone else. An NNN goes further: the supplier can’t build your part for its own account, and it can’t go around you to sell to your customers. For a pin designed around your product, those extra terms protect the design itself, not just the paperwork.

Because we design and build in one factory, your drawing doesn’t pass to a subcontractor or a second site. The company that signs the agreement is the same one that machines, plates, and assembles the part.

Harwin doesn’t publish a policy on either agreement, so raise it with their team before you send a drawing. One question is worth asking any supplier, us included: does the agreement name the entity actually cutting the part? When a brand uses outside factories, an agreement signed with the brand may not bind the factory that makes your pin.

When to Choose Harwin

Three situations make Harwin the stronger call, and they’re worth naming plainly. Aerospace, avionics, and defense programs with an AS9100 flow-down come first. Harwin already meets that standard at the supplier level, and no amount of custom capability substitutes for it.

Second is a system already built on Harwin hi-rel board-to-board connectors. One vendor, one quality file, and one distributor account cover more of the bill of materials.

Third is a prototype needing a standard Surface Mount Technology (SMT) pin from local stock. Parts can land before a custom drawing is even finished.

When to Choose Promax

Promax is the stronger call in four situations, and the clearest is when no catalog part matches. When the pitch, geometry, or current rating has no standard equivalent, you’re buying a design service rather than a part.

The second is a design still in motion. If your housing, stroke, or pad layout is still changing, each revision comes straight to the engineers who will make the part. There’s no distributor relaying changes back and forth, so questions get answered faster, and fewer details get lost along the way.

Volume is the third. A distributor adds a markup to every pin it sells, which barely matters on a prototype run but adds up across tens of thousands of units. Buying directly from the factory removes that markup from every unit you ship.

The fourth is IP protection. A drawing under an NNN agreement is simpler to manage when the factory that builds the part is the one that signs. Our engineers have delivered more than 8,000 custom designs since 2014, so an unusual request is ordinary work here, and design issues get caught through our DFM reviews before any tooling is cut.

Which Builds Belong with Harwin, and Which With Promax?

Matching your build to a project profile is quicker than comparing feature lists. The two H3s below explain each side, and Table 3 sums them up.

Where Harwin is the stronger call

Three project profiles land on Harwin without a compromise. An avionics or space subsystem carrying an AS9100 flow-down gets its certification requirement met at the supplier level.

A system already running Harwin hi-rel board-to-board connectors keeps one vendor and one quality file across the bill of materials. A prototype needing a standard pin from local stock skips tooling and gets parts on the bench quickly.

Where Promax is the stronger call

Four profiles favor the custom factory route. A sealed charging contact for a wearable needs pad geometry and sealing designed around the enclosure, which is where our sealed pogo pin connectors come in.

A dock carrying more current than catalog pins allow depends on barrel size, material, and process. High-volume consumer builds gain from direct pricing, and drawings under an NNN agreement go straight to the factory that builds the part.

The following is a pogo pin connector comparison by project profile. Find the row closest to your build, then use the “Why” column to check that the reasoning holds for your project.

Table 3. Pogo pin connector comparison by project fit. The “Why” column carries the reasoning, not just the verdict.

Project profile	Better structural fit	Why
Avionics or space subsystem with AS9100 flow-down	Harwin	The certification requirement is met at the supplier level
The system is already built on Harwin hi-rel board-to-board connectors	Harwin	One vendor, one quality file, and one distributor account
Prototype needing a standard SMT pin from local stock	Harwin	No tooling and parts can arrive before a custom drawing is approved
Sealed charging contact for a wearable or handheld	Promax	Sealing and pad geometry have to be designed around the enclosure
Dock or cradle carrying more current than catalog pins allow	Promax	Current capacity depends on barrel size, material, and process
High-volume consumer device	Promax	Direct factory pricing removes distributor margin from every unit
Drawing covered by an NNN agreement	Promax	The drawing goes straight to the factory that builds the part

Catalog Part or Custom Build?

The fork in the road is simple enough to state: a catalog part bought through distribution suits a design that’s settled, and a pin built to a drawing suits a design that’s still changing or needs something no catalog part offers. Most engineers know which side their project sits on by this point.

If your project needs a custom pin, send Promax Pogo Pin your drawing or your footprint limits. Our engineers will come back with a DFM review and a sample plan.

Harwin Pogo Pin vs. Promax FAQs

Is Promax a Harwin distributor or reseller?

Promax isn’t a Harwin distributor or reseller. We manufacture our own pogo pins in our Dongguan factory and resell no other brand’s parts. A seller listing Harwin part numbers alongside other brands is a distributor, not a manufacturer.

Can a Promax pin fit a board laid out for a Harwin P70?

A Promax pin can sometimes fit a board laid out for a Harwin P70, if the pad pattern, working height, and location peg all align. Ask for a drawing against your existing footprint, then confirm fit with samples in the real housing.

Will Harwin contact pads work with another maker’s pins?

Harwin contact pads are described by Harwin as mating with any spring-loaded contact. Check that the pin and pad finishes suit each other, since mismatched finishes wear at different rates over the duty cycle.

How many mating cycles should a charging contact be rated for?

A charging contact should be rated for its daily connections multiplied by the product’s service life, plus margin for handling. Promax standard configurations are rated for 100,000+ cycles, depending on the configuration. Specify the number you need.

Can I dual-source a pogo pin from Harwin and Promax?

You can dual-source a simple pogo pin from Harwin and Promax, once both parts pass your own qualification. Treat the second source as a new part number, with its own first-article inspection rather than a transfer of earlier results.

Do both companies make test probes?

Both companies make test probes. Harwin lists Automated Test Equipment (ATE) probes within its EZi range. Promax builds test probes alongside its pogo pins and spring-loaded connectors, under the same quality system.

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