Assembly of an electrical connector and a pick-up cap

Details Assembly of an electrical connector and a pick-up cap Assembly of an electrical connector and a pick-up cap

2001-12-28

2003-03-18

Paumen, Gary (Department: 2833)

Electrical connectors

With contact preventer or retractable cover part

C439S940000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06533592

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a connector and a cap for picking up the connector by a vacuum suction device, and particularly to means for joining the cap and the connector together and providing a larger smooth area for the vacuum suction device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Some electrical connectors are too small to be picked up by a clip when they are mounted onto a printed circuit board (PCB). Such connectors include mini board-to-board connector, CPU socket and so on. Vacuum pump is an ideal tool for picking up and moving such connectors. The connectors each must provide a smooth area to which suction force is applied for picking up the connectors. Some connectors do not have required the smooth area, so auxiliary devices, for example, caps, attachable to the connectors for providing smooth area are widely used. The caps must securely engage with the connectors, otherwise the connectors may fall apart from the caps when they are picked up and moved to the PCBs. On the other hand, the smooth area must be large enough to induce or create sufficient suction force so that the connector together with the cap may not fall. The caps must be conveniently removed from the connectors after the connectors are securely mounted onto corresponding PCBs.
Referring to
FIG. 6
, a ball grid array (BGA) socket
4
and a cap
3
attached onto the BGA socket
4
are illustrated. The cap
3
defines four openings
31
adjacent corners thereof for facilitating transmitting heat. Near the center of the cap
3
, there are three notches
32
located at comers of a triangle. Under each notch
32
, there is a latch (not labeled) engaging with the connector
4
for joining the cap
3
with the connector
4
. The notches
32
are defined for facilitating disengaging the latches from the connector
4
after the connector is properly mounted onto a printed circuit board (PCB). Surrounded by the three notches
32
, there is a smooth area, designated by a circle “A”, that a vacuum pump adheres to for picking up the cap
3
together with the connector
4
. The circle “A” is limited by the locations of the notches
32
and has a largest diameter “d
2
” which is about 14.46 mm. So, the largest acreage of the smooth area is about 164.14 mm
2
. This invention is trying to provide a cap providing a larger area for a vacuum pump to pick up the cap and a connector that the cap is attached to.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An objective of the present invention is to provide an assembly of an electrical connector and a cap attached onto the connector for facilitating a vacuum pump to pick up and move the connector to desired position, wherein the cap provides a large smooth area for the pump securely picking up the cap and the connector.
To obtain the above objective, a connector includes an insulative member and a number of contacts retained in the insulative member. The insulative member defines a rectangular opening at a center thereof. An auxiliary cap engageable with the connector provides a smooth area to which a vacuum suction device may be applied for picking up the connector. The cap has two latches downwardly extending to reside at engage two diagonal corners of the rectangular opening of the insulative member thereby retaining the cap to the connector. The cap may provide a larger smooth area than the conventional cap because of the locations of the latches at diagonal corners of the rectangular opening of the insulative member.


REFERENCES:
patent: 5688133 (1997-11-01), Ikesugi et al.
patent: 6142798 (2000-11-01), Tran et al.
patent: 6146155 (2000-11-01), Boling et al.
patent: 6155848 (2000-12-01), Lin

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