Three in One Connector Cam Lock Cabinet G-K4501

The G-K4501 Three In One Connector In Thirty-Three Photographed Positions

Thirty-three frames were shot for this three in one connector and the first one shows the whole system in a single view: cam housings with a cross slot in the face, connecting bolts of several lengths with a threaded end and a collar head, and ribbed nylon pre-inserted nuts. Laid out together they look like a kit, and that is what a three in one connector is. The three parts are not alternatives to each other; they are three parts of one joint, and a joint only works when all three are present and matched.

The name describes the parts. A three in one connector joins two panels with a cam housing sunk into one panel, a connecting bolt driven into the edge of the second panel, and a pre-inserted nut that gives the bolt something to bite into. One quarter turn of the cam draws the bolt and closes the joint. That is the whole idea, and everything on this page is a detail of it: the slot, the collar, the thread, the ribbing on the nut and the lengths the frames mark.

The frames were shot square at 750 pixels as one set and each of them carries its own printed specification block, which is unusual for a hardware batch and useful. It means the figure on a frame is the figure for that part rather than a general claim, so the copy here quotes only what the frames print and leaves anything else to the drawing issued with a quotation.

Three Parts, One Joint

The connector cam housing is the part a buyer recognises. Its face carries a cross slot so that a Phillips driver or a flat blade will both turn it, and inside the connector a spiral catches the collar of the bolt as the housing rotates. The frames show housings with heads from one centimetre to one and a half centimetres across; the smaller ones suit thin panels and the larger ones give the driver more to bite on a heavy board. A cam housing that is too small for the panel is the usual reason a connector strips its bore on site.

The connecting bolt of the connector is the part that decides the joint's depth. One end is threaded for the pre-inserted nut, the middle is a smooth shank that passes through the panel it joins, and the head carries a collar that the cam grabs. The frames show bolts from three and a half centimetres to eight and a half centimetres, which is the range that covers everything from a thin drawer box to a wardrobe side panel. The length is not decoration: a connector bolt that is too short never reaches the cam, and a bolt that is too long bottoms out in the nut before the joint closes.

The pre-inserted nut of the connector is the part that is easiest to overlook and hardest to substitute. It is a ribbed nylon body pressed into the edge of the panel, and the frames show it at about one centimetre across and half a centimetre deep. The ribbing on the connector nut is what stops it turning when the bolt is driven home; a smooth nut in the same hole will spin, and a connector with a spinning nut cannot be tightened at all. Nylon is used in the connector because it gives slightly, which is what keeps the joint tight after a season of a cabinet being opened and shut.

How The Cam Lock Connector Pulls A Joint Tight

The second frame is the system with its parts set out and named, and it is the frame to read the names from. The long pieces with a thread at one end are the connecting bolts, the round pieces with a cross slot are the cam housings, and the small white ribbed pieces at the right are the pre-inserted nuts. A buyer new to panel furniture often calls the whole thing a cam lock connector, which is fair, because the cam is the part that does the locking; the trade more often says three in one connector when the kit is being bought as a set.

The sequence on site is short. The connector housing is pressed into its bore in the first panel and turned so its slot faces the joint. The nut is pressed into the edge of the second panel and the connector bolt is driven through it by hand until the collar stands proud. The two panels are brought together and the driver turns the housing a quarter turn; the spiral inside the connector housing rides up the collar, and because the collar cannot move, the bolt is drawn in instead. The connector joint closes and stops.

What makes this a cam lock connector rather than a screw is that the drawing force is generated inside the joint. Nothing is driven from the outside face, so both panel faces stay clean. That is the reason panel furniture is built this way: a connector gives a joint that is invisible when the cabinet is assembled and can still be taken apart, which a glued dowel or a confirmat screw cannot do without damage. The same connector is the standard joint across flat pack wardrobes, office screens, drawer boxes and kitchen carcasses.

The third frame is the connector assembled, and it shows why the three parts cannot be bought apart. The bolt runs through the nut, the collar sits inside the connector housing, and the housing is turned until the spiral holds it. Take any one of the three away and the other two are scrap: a connector housing with no bolt is a plug, a bolt with no nut is a pin, and a nut with no bolt is a spacer. A cam lock connector is a set by construction rather than by packaging, which is the single most useful thing to know when a drawer of loose panel fittings has to be sorted.

The frame also shows the two things that most often go wrong. The first is the collar sitting too deep in the connector housing, which happens when the bolt is short for the panel and the connector never reaches the spiral; the joint looks closed and opens under load. The second is the connector housing standing proud of the panel face, which happens when the bore is shallow for the housing; the connector still turns, but the panel cannot sit flat against the one it is joined to. Both faults are visible on the bench and invisible in a finished cabinet, which is why the checks further down this page are worth doing on a sample rather than in production.

Choosing A Connector For A Panel Thickness

A connector is chosen by panel thickness first and by load second, and the order of those two is not negotiable. The connector cam housing needs a bore as deep as the housing body, so a thin panel takes the small connector housing and a thick panel takes the large one. The connector bolt then has to be long enough to reach the cam through the joining panel and through the nut, which is why a connector size is quoted as a pair rather than as a single number. The connector nut is the last of the three and the least flexible: a connector nut that is too deep for the board splits it on the press, and a connector nut that is too shallow never grips.

Load comes second because a connector is not a structural part. A connector holds a carcass together and it holds a drawer box square, and it does that well because the load on a connector joint is a pull along the panel rather than a weight on the joint. Where a joint carries a shelf that will be loaded, the connector is backed up by a bracket or by a row of dowels. Where a joint only has to stay closed, one connector is enough and a second connector is spare capacity.

The practical way to choose is to take the panel thickness, pick the connector housing that fits it, and then pick the connector bolt that reaches from that housing through the joining panel. The connector nut follows from the connector bolt thread. Three numbers, one connector set, and the frames in this batch print all three per member so the choice can be checked against a picture rather than a catalogue line.

Where A Cam Lock Connector Is Used

A cam lock connector belongs wherever two boards meet at a right angle and one of the two faces shows. The commonest place is a wardrobe carcass: a side panel to a top panel, a side to a base, and a side to a fixed shelf. Every one of those joints is a connector joint on a flat pack unit, and every one of them has to come apart again when the wardrobe is moved. The second commonest place is a drawer box, where four corners are four connectors and the box is expected to stay square.

Office furniture uses the connector for screens and worktop supports, because a connector joint can be added after the frame is built, which a welded frame cannot. Kitchen carcasses use the connector at the corners of a base unit, where the outside of the panel is a finished face and a screw head would be a defect. Shop fittings use the connector because a display unit is assembled on site and dismantled when the display changes, and a connector is the only joint that tolerates both.

The same connector is bought as furniture connecting fittings when the order is a mixed box rather than a single size, and that is worth knowing because the two names lead to different catalogues. A cam lock connector is usually sold as a set with the cam, the bolt and the nut counted together; furniture connecting fittings are often sold as an assortment by length and diameter, which is what a repair shop or a small cabinet maker wants. The parts are the same parts. The difference is how the connector is counted when it is packed.

Counting And Packing A Connector Order

A connector is counted in sets, and a set is one cam housing, one connecting bolt and one pre-inserted nut. That sounds obvious until a carton arrives short of one component, and the reason it happens is that the three parts are made on different machines and only meet at packing. The order should therefore state the connector set count, the connector size mix and the connector components separately, so that a shortage shows up on the packing list before the carton is sealed rather than on a customer site.

The connector size mix is the other thing worth writing down. A wardrobe order may need a long connector at the carcass joints and a short connector at the drawer box, and a single connector size will not do both. Where a connector mix is quoted, it is quoted as a proportion of the order, and the packing list shows the connector count per size. That is also the sheet to check a sample against: weigh one connector from each size and compare it with the frame that prints the same weight, because the frames in this batch print a weight per member.

Finally, a connector is a part that benefits from a carton that is counted twice. The connector is small, the connector is light, and a connector that is one short stops a line. Packing is therefore quoted per carton with the connector count marked on the outside, and a mixed carton carries the connector sizes it holds. Nothing in that is unusual for panel furniture hardware; it is simply easier to agree before production than after.

The Sizes The Frames Mark

The size table is where a three in one connector order is usually lost. Because the family is sold under one model number, a buyer can send a quantity and a colour and still receive connectors that are wrong for the panel, because the bolt length and the housing depth are what decide fit rather than the model number. The frames in this batch print both the length and the weight of each member, which is the fastest way to match a sample: weigh the sample, read the frame with the same weight, and the length follows.

Reading a frame is simple once the layout is known. Every frame in this batch carries the same block: the specification line at the top right, the gram weight under it, and the material under that. The callout with the arrow is the length of the part in the picture and the thinner callout is the diameter of the thread or the head. Nothing on a frame is a range; each frame is one member, which is why the family takes thirty-three frames rather than six.

Telling A Three In One Connector From Other Fittings

A cam lock connector is one of four ways to join two panels, and the four are not interchangeable. A cam lock connector is the only one of them that can be tightened from one face and still come apart. A confirmat screw is driven straight through the face of one panel into the edge of the other; it is fast and strong, and it leaves a head showing. A dowel is glued and cannot be undone. A corner bracket is fixed on the inside and needs both panels to be reachable.

That difference decides the job. Where the outside face has to stay clean, which is every visible cabinet side panel, the connector is the answer and the confirmat screw is not. Where the joint has to come apart again, which is every flat pack move, the connector is again the answer. Where the joint has to carry a heavy shelf and nobody will ever look at it, a bracket with four screws is stronger and cheaper, and the connector is the wrong part for the job rather than a lesser one.

In the hand the parts are unmistakable. A connector cam housing has a cross slot and a hole through the side that the bolt enters; a nut is white or off-white and ribbed; a bolt is a long pin with a thread at one end and a collar behind the head. A drawer of mixed panel fittings will hold cams of several diameters, and the one thing worth checking before an order is that the connector cam, the connector bolt and the connector nut are a set. A connector cam bought to a different standard will not hold a connector bolt bought to another, even when both are the same diameter.

Questions A Buyer Asks About This Connector

These are the questions that come back most often on a three in one connector, and each answer points at a part of the system or at a frame.

• What is in a set? One cam housing, one connecting bolt and one pre-inserted nut, which is the three of three in one.
• What sizes are there? Bolts from 3.5 cm to 8.5 cm and cam heads from 1 cm to 1.5 cm across, as the frames print.
• What is the connector made of? Metal for the housing and the bolt, nylon for the nut, as printed on each frame.
• How is it fixed? The housing is pressed into a bore, the nut into the panel edge, and a quarter turn of the cam closes the joint.
• Can it be undone? Yes, which is the main reason panel furniture uses a connector instead of a glued dowel.
• Does the head show? No, the cam housing sits flush in the panel face and the slot is the only mark left.
• What driver does it take? A Phillips or a flat blade, because the face carries a cross slot.
• Will one connector hold a joint? One connector per joint is usual; long joints take two or three at even spacing.
• What about the thread size? It is printed per frame; send the sample weight and the frame number and it can be matched.
• What is the load rating? Not stated in this batch; where a joint carries a shelf, a bracket is the stronger part.

Checks Before A Connector Goes Into A Panel

A connector is a small part in a joint nobody inspects later, so the checks are the ones that decide whether the cabinet stays tight after a year of use.

• Bore depth checked against the cam housing depth, so the housing sits flush rather than proud.
• Bore diameter checked against the housing body, because a loose housing turns without drawing the bolt.
• Panel edge checked for the nut, which has to be a press fit rather than a drop in.
• Bolt length offered up before driving, so the collar stands proud of the panel face and not below it.
• Thread checked in the nut by hand first, because a cross threaded nut is scrap before it is in the panel.
• Cam slot aligned with the joint before the panels come together, or the driver cannot reach it afterwards.
• Quarter turn only, since a connector is drawn to a stop and forcing it past that strips the housing bore.
• Joint re-checked a week later, because a nut that was not pressed square shows up as a joint that has opened.

Who Supplies This Three In One Connector

This three in one connector is supplied by Guangzhou Gorgeous Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., a furniture and architectural hardware business whose range covers hinges, drawer slides, handles, stays, legs, castors, locks, brackets and the connecting parts that hold panel furniture together, including cam lock connectors, connecting bolts and pre-inserted nuts. The company works to export orders: quantity, size mix, thread, packing, carton marking and shipping documents are agreed before production rather than after it, and the specification written on the order is the specification the tooling works from. The cam diameter, the bolt length and the nut are all part of that specification, and they are agreed as a set because a connector that is agreed part by part is a connector that arrives unmatched.

Ordering

Send the model number G-K4501 with the size mix you need, the number of sets, the thread you want and the destination port, and confirm the cam diameter and the bolt length against the drawing at the same time. Samples are available before a production order so that a connector can be pressed into a real panel edge and turned with the driver that will be used on the line, which is the fastest way for both sides to agree that the housing sits flush and that the joint closes on a quarter turn. The drawing, the packing list and whatever test documentation we hold for G-K4501 are issued on request, and delivery and payment terms are agreed order by order on the proforma rather than assumed from a previous order.