Electricity: conductors and insulators – Conduits – cables or conductors – Combined
Reexamination Certificate
2002-01-31
2003-03-11
Dinkins, Anthony (Department: 2831)
Electricity: conductors and insulators
Conduits, cables or conductors
Combined
C174S112000, C439S502000, C439S488000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06531657
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to adapter wire harnesses for installing any non-original equipment manufacturer, or aftermarket, autosound component into different vehicles.
2. Description of the Related Art
Vehicle owners often seek to replace or upgrade the OEM audio system provided by a vehicle manufacturer with an aftermarket autosound component. The terms “autosound component” and “radio” are used herein in their ordinary and broadest sense, and include AM/FM stereo radios, with built-in or head-end controls for tape cassette decks, CD players, DVD players, power amplifiers, cellular phones, security alarms, global positioning systems and any other electronic driver information, convenience or entertainment circuits found on automobiles and like vehicles. The term “autosound component” also conventionally includes loudspeaker systems, power amplifiers auxiliary to the preamplifier or amplifier within a radio and any type of 12 volt electronic components used as part of an electronic driver information, convenience or entertainment system within a vehicle. The term “aftermarket” includes any component that is non-original with respect to the OEM audio system, or which requires an adapter wire harness to be mated with an OEM wiring harness. An aftermarket installation invariably includes the problem that the OEM wiring harness connector found on the vehicle will not mate directly with the terminals on the new autosound component.
Adapter wire harnesses for installing aftermarket autosound components such as upgraded radios typically consist of two separate pieces. A radio-end connector is specific to mating with terminals on the back of the aftermarket autosound component, and has extending color-coded conductor wires. A vehicle harness-end connector is specific to mating with terminals on the OEM vehicle harness and has extending color-coded conductor wires. The installer chooses a radio-specific piece and a vehicle harness-specific piece and then solders or mechanically connects the free ends of each wire coming out from each connector. Hopefully, the wire color codes are compatible exactly between each piece, so that simply making all single, like-color wire end connections will create each required circuit connection. However, correct circuits cannot be assumed in every radio/vehicle application simply by matching wire colors, and the installer must check a schematic circuit diagram or other reference for the specific OEM wiring harness to be sure of making the proper connections.
One attempt to avoid the uncertainty involved in using such prior art two-piece harness pairs has been a series of one-piece adapter wire harnesses, specific to each radio/vehicle combination likely to be desired by a consumer. Examples of prior art two piece and one-piece adapter wire harnesses are those available from Metra Electronics Corporation, of Holly Hill, Florida, the assignee of the present application, under the respective trade designations, TurboWire™ and Smart Cable®.
SWADE (U.S. Pat. No. 5,971,799) describes a Y-shaped harness for interconnecting an OEM vehicle radio and an add-on, aftermarket autosound component. Each of the three connectors is specific to a particular set of autosound component terminals or a specific vehicle harness, and the inventory required to accommodate permutations or combinations of those three variables would be even more burdensome than the inventory required to accommodate two variables. Hence, while such an approach would eliminate the need to hardwire a new component, the harness itself is merely a variant upon the common one-piece wiring harness with two specific connectors, as described above.
PETER et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 6,107,696) describes a circuitry for voltage supplies to various automotive components, wherein a central control unit has various ports into which function modules can be inserted. Such a system merely illustrates the prior art approach of a common bus, with common interconnect housings, so that individual functions can communicate with a controlling device. By contrast, the present invention permits selective matching of a new autosound component with an existing vehicle harness, without requiring any external switching or like control circuitry.
KATAOKA et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 6,040,760) describes a system for selectively installing and addressing various automotive autosound components, wherein multiple operating switches are used to recognize and control the particular component inserted into the system. Such a system likewise merely illustrates the prior art approach of a common bus, with slots in a console having a common interface to accept insertion of one or more individual autosound components. The desired autosound functions then are selected with a controlling device.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a simplified inventory of adapter wire harness combinations stocked by distributors and end user installers of aftermarket autosound components. There are at least eleven popular radio-end terminal configurations currently in use, involving aftermarket autosound components manufactured under the trademarks Panasonic®, Alpine®, Sony®, Pioneer®, Aiwa®, Audiovox®, Blaupunkt®, Clarion®, Jensen®, JVC® and Kenwood®. There are at least thirteen popular OEM wiring harness terminal configurations, with seven particularly popular configurations being those found on vehicles from General-Motors Corporation, Ford Motor Corporation, Jeep® (DaimlerChrysler), Honda Mazda, Toyota, and Nissan. An installer would need an inventory of forty, one-piece wiring harness, in order to fit even any one of four popular radio types to any one of ten OEM vehicle wiring harness types. However, an installer would need an inventory of only fourteen wiring harness pieces according to the present invention, in order to fit any one of four radio types to any one of ten OEM vehicle wiring harness types. There also is a need in the art for a way to eliminate installation failures due to inadvertent wire color mismatching or poor contacts during the labor-intensive step of soldering or crimping the wire free ends, when using a two piece harness during installation of a new, aftermarket autosound component. Likewise, there is a need in the art for a way to avoid mistakes, when a single wire, or a pair of wires, must be interconnected in a non-standard fashion. For example, the blue wire from a Pioneer radio must be connected in parallel to both the blue and blue/white stripe wires on any vehicle harness, in order for that Pioneer radio to send a signal that will be able to actuate both a power antenna circuit and an amp-turn-on circuit in any vehicle supporting both functions. The present invention allows the wiring scheme of such a radio-end piece to be adjusted permanently at time of manufacture, so that the correct circuit connections will always be made through the intermediate interconnect, without need for an installer to do anything but mechanically interconnect two mating housings.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention addresses the foregoing needs in the art by providing a new type of two piece harness system that significantly reduces inventory problems, eliminates failures due to incorrect wire matching and saves installation time. The improvement comprises an interchangeable two piece, releasable, intermediate interconnect system having a fixed wiring scheme. Any first housing of an interconnect is coupled by a first set of wires permanently to an autosound component-specific connector and any second housing of a mating interconnect is coupled by a second set of wires permanently to a vehicle wiring harness-specific connector.
In a first aspect of the present invention, the first piece includes a set of wires sufficient to accommodate all circuit functions supported by each terminal pin on a specific aftermarket autosound component. The second piece accommodates all circuit functions supported by any OEM radio model that originally could have been coupled to the ve
Jones, Jr. William H.
Lauer William E.
LeLasher, III John J.
Schaefer David D.
Dinkins Anthony
Fitzpatrick ,Cella, Harper & Scinto
Lee Jinhee J
Metra Electronics Corporation
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