The few pacemakers I have seen, more than ten years ago, used titanium setscrews tightened onto titanium ferrules welded to trifilar titanium pacing wires. The connectors were total custom, not sold commercially. The power connections were inside the seal welded titanium case with the battery.
I think some units use transcutaneous paired induction coils to reprogram the core, and maybe recharge the batteries, but I am not intimately familiar with those details. I suggested the idea because induction coils can be sealed fairly well, and can transfer energy over limited distances without exposing metal to a chemically active environment.
They can also potentially be engaged and disengaged with little skill. One of the major design challenges that the pacemaker manufacturer bragged about was production of a snap- action torque wrench that could be used to tighten the setscrews by a person with gloved hands and little mechanical skill. By which I certainly don't mean that surgeons can't do wonderful things with their hands, but most of them don't work on engines and such, and don't know when a screw is 'tight enough but not too tight' by feel.
Many, maybe most, modern automotive connectors are weathertight and have no exposed metal parts, so they'd probably work okay for a while, in say, a dog. I'm sure the materials used are not certified biocompatible, and I'm also sure the manufacturers would not be interested in a low-volume high-liability application such as you propose. I.e., there are ideas out there that you could probably adapt without challenge, but when/if things go wrong, you're on your own.
While I have been away from medical electronics, things may have changed. Maybe someone is producing the connectors you need already, but I am not aware of any.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
