Cable connectors

Details Cable connectors Cable connectors

1999-11-30

2001-04-24

Riley, Shawn (Department: 2838)

Electricity: conductors and insulators

Anti-inductive structures

Conductor transposition

C361S818000, C361S688000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06222119

ABSTRACT:

This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §§119 and/or 365 to 9804154-4 filed in Sweden on Dec. 1, 1998; the entire content of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to the technical field of cable connectors and in particular it relates to a device for environmentally protected connection of cables.
2. Related Art
Electronic equipment must often be protected from the ambient environment in order to function effectively. Negative effects on the function of the equipment include extreme temperatures, moisture, dirt, disruptive electromagnetic disturbance (EMC) and mechanical disturbance. The protection of the equipment usually consists of completely encapsuling the equipment. One problem with encapsuling is that the protection is often inadequate in the interface of the electronic equipment to the surroundings: power supply, signal cables etc.
An illustrative example of this problem is connectors for connecting incoming and outgoing cables to radio base stations placed outdoors. These radio base stations are climatized to keep a suitable operating climate for the equipment. The contacts are placed in the interface between two climate zones: the climatized zone inside the radio base station and the outdoor climate. If the surroundings are warmer than the climatized zone, the air will be cooled down at contact with the interface between the climate zones, and moisture in the air will condense, thereby subjecting the contacts to water and moisture, and this is particularly the case in areas having a warm moist climate. Moisture and water on the electrical contact surfaces can result in short-circuits or major disruptions in the flow of signals passing through the contacts.
WO95/28075 describes an EMC-shielding cable connector for circuit boards mounted in a magazine. According to this invention, the end of a cable coming from outside is provided with a box-shaped container which is pushed into a receiving container mounted in a hole in the wall of the magazine. The receiving container is then in electrical contact with both the cable protector and the wall of the magazine, and thus shields the circuit board against EMC. This known design, however, does not deal with the climate protection aspect.
A previously known solution to the problem of environmentally protecting connectors is to use special connectors designed for difficult environmental conditions. The disadvantage of this solution is that these connectors are very expensive.
Other known solutions to the same problem are to fix hoods of various designs and materials around the connector. This solution has a number of problems:
The protector is easily forgotten during installation and service.
Problems of visual inspection since the hood must be removed before beginning inspection.
Difficult to provide a comprehensive protection, and the connector can be subjected to moisture and dirt despite the protector.
Assembly and disassembly of the hood can be relatively time-consuming, making the installation and service costs unnecessarily high.
DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The present invention addresses the problem of how electrical equipment connectors can be securely, robustly and economically environmentally protected, i.e. protected against dust, EMC, moisture, extreme temperatures etc.
A purpose of the present invention is thus to achieve a device for cable connection in such a manner that the connector is securely protected against the effect of varying climate conditions.
Another purpose of the invention is to achieve a device for climatically protected cable connection in such a manner that the climatic protection can hardly be forgotten during installation and service.
An additional purpose of the invention is to achieve a device for cable connection in such a manner that it is relatively simple to make the connection itself, thus reducing installation and service costs.
In short, the invention involves placing the contacts inside a removable cassette provided with installation holes. This cassette can be placed in a space adapted thereto in a cabinet containing electronic equipment. The volume in the cassette is a special environmental zone separate from both the volume outside the protective shell of the cabinet and the rest of the volume inside the shell. At the interface to the outer environmental zone, the cables pass through an environmental seal while the contacts to the inner connections are at the interface to the inner climatic zone. In conjunction with the climate inside the shell, a good equalization between the environmental zones can be obtained for the equipment and the cassette.
Since the climatic protection is integrated with the cassette, which can be both opened and removed, installation and service will be simple since the cassette can be moved aside to a place where the work is relatively simple to perform.
Since the cassette is also made so that it is EMC-shielding, the electronic equipment will be in a volume which is both climatically and EMC-protected, at the same time as the contacts are climate-protected.


REFERENCES:
patent: 4828507 (1989-05-01), Nagase et al.
patent: 5227581 (1993-07-01), Riviere et al.
patent: 5638259 (1997-06-01), McCarthy et al.
patent: 6018125 (2000-01-01), Collins et al.
patent: WO 95/28075 (1995-10-01), None

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