collecteur de courant terminal

10:57 Oct 18, 2013 

Of course, no-one is saying that 'electrical contacts' doesn't exist as a viable term — but I sincerely do not believe it is the best solution here.

'contact' often suggests either something that is designed to 'make contact' (or not) — as in a switch, relay, etc. This is clearly not the context here.
Otherwise, it often describes a transitional element intended to transfer an electrical connection from one medium to another (often still, with the idea of potential disconnectability) — like a battery contact, etc.
Here, however, I see the use of 'collecteur' as indicating that it is the way the various elements are ultimately joined together before reaching the 'outside world'. Naturally, one could argue that this has the same 'transitional' character as the use of 'contact' — but I'm not convinced that is the best way of conveying the whole of the notion involved here with the term 'collecteur' — a kind of 'manifold' or 'header', though in micro-electronic terms, I prefer the idea of 'bus'.

10:48 Oct 18, 2013 

Only teasing! But I have to acknowledge that increasingly these days, I come out with terms that seem to have turned into 'golden oldies'.

Ernst is of course excellent and contains many 'traditional' terms; but I suspect isn't equally strong across all areas as you go deeper into specialist language.

On a more general note, I do find it interesting that there are words I have known and used all my working life, yet do not seem to appear in web-accessible resources, and sometimes even in paper ones. Now I certainly haven't 'invented' these terms, nor am I (I hope!) as yet gaga enough to have remembered incorrectly. Nor do I think the usages I have come across were isolated or purely personal; so it remains something of a mystery. I believe there is a certain period (most of my lifetime!) which is not yet old enough to have historical interest, nor be out of copyright, but neither is it current enough to have made it onto the web in its own right.

10:48 Oct 18, 2013 

Sorry but for once I disagree. These are electrical contacts. My colleagues in the "Electrical Contracts Group at the University would agree with me". Google the Holm Conference on Electrical Contacts"

10:34 Oct 18, 2013 

This was certainly not intended as an "ad hominem" slight! I was just casting about for a possible explanation for its absence from all the sources I mentioned... including Ernst, where I probably expect to find traditional (your word) technical terms.

14:07 Oct 15, 2013 

I think 'land' is indeed a more specialist, technical word — and I think 'traditional' would be less hurtful than 'old-fashioned' ;-)

'pad' is a perfectly acceptable alternative, at least for some uses: you do indeed solder a component to the pads provided for that purpose; however, I have an inkling that 'land' is used for certain other areas of a PCB which might possibly not be able to be called 'pads'; however, this is straying of the topic... I was really just concerned to rectify the misunderstanding that 'plot' would be 'element', at least in this kind of context.

11:33 Oct 15, 2013 

yes, I was wondering what the best word to use here is... "borne" and "contact" also occur in this document. So I was intending to use "pad" for "plot". I've just done searches in Ernst dictionary, Proz, GDT, Terminal and (for what it's worth on this occasion) Linguee... "land" never comes up. However it's easy to google "land pcb" and find examples. Could it be that "land" is a bit obscure? specialist? even old-fashioned?