Electrical connectors – With coupling separator – Nonconducting pusher
Reexamination Certificate
1998-12-01
2001-06-19
Nguyen, Khiem (Department: 2839)
Electrical connectors
With coupling separator
Nonconducting pusher
C439S160000, C361S754000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06247946
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an electrical connector and, in particular, to a card connector used for connection of a printed circuit board with a card, such as an IC card, a smart card, a PCMCIA card and an expansion card for an intelligent terminal such as a personal computer, a PDA (personal digital assistant), or a digital camera.
A known card connector, which is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Utility Model Unexamined Publication No. 55258/1993 (JP-U-5 55258) is an one-piece type and comprises a U-shaped insulator. The U-shaped insulator has a pair of guides opposite to each other to form a slot for receiving a card therein. The card has a mating connector and is inserted into the slot through an open front end of the U-shaped insulator. Those guides are provided with guide groove to be of U-shaped cross section, and are located opposite to each other. Pin contacts are mounted on the U-shaped insulator at a rear end portion opposite to the open front end and are brought into contact with the mating connector in the card inserted into the slot. The connector further included an ejector mechanism to eject the card from connection with the contacts. The ejector mechanism comprises an ejector rod slidably mounted on a side of the U-shaped insulator and a lever pivotally mounted on an upper surface of the rear end portion of the U-shaped insulator. The lever has a connected portion at one end thereof connected one end of the ejector rod and an engaging portion at the opposite end thereof for engaging with an edge of a card inserted into the slot. When the ejector rod is moved rearward, the lever is rotated and frontward pushes the card held in the slot to eject the card.
In this known connector, the U-shaped insulator has a pivot integrally formed into one body. The lever has a small hole in which the pivot is inserted. Then, a top end of the pivot is deformed mechanically or thermally to rotatably fix the lever onto the pivot. Therefore, a special jig is necessary for assembling the lever onto the U-shaped insulator. Furthermore, the connector does not have sufficient mechanical strength.
Further, a card supporting member or a frame for supporting the card comprises the opposite guides of substantially U-shaped cross section and, is small in the rigidity. Therefore, when the ejector rod mounted on one of the opposite guides is operated to eject the card in the slot, the frame is deformed. In consequence, the card cannot be easily removed from the slot. Furthermore, the card connector it self is relatively large and heavy. This makes it impossible to mount the card connector onto a printed circuit board by use of an automatic mounting machine.
Another known card connector is a two-piece type and comprises a base portion and an ejector portion. The base portion comprises a U-shaped insulator having the similar opposite guides and a plurality of contacts fixedly mounted at a rear portion thereof. The ejector portion comprises parts for the ejector mechanism such as the ejector rod and the lever, and a support supporting the ejector mechanism. The base portion is previously mounted onto the printed circuit board and then the ejector portion is mounted and assembled onto the base portion. Since the base portion is comparatively small in weight, it is possible to mount the card connector onto the printed circuit board by use of the automatic mounting machine.
However, the two-piece card connector still has a problem that the mounting operation by use of the automatic mounting machine is difficult because the base portion is relatively large in size and weight.
In the two-piece card connector, the lever is also pivoted at a pivot position onto the support and, therefore, comprises two lever portions at both sides of the pivot position, first one having the connected portion at the end connected to the ejector lever while the other or second one having the engaging portion at the opposite end for engaging with the card. If the second lever portion is formed relatively long, a force acts to urge the front side thereof in contact with the card upward, while the rear side not in contact with the card is urged downward. Consequently, the second lever portion is deformed. This may make it difficult to use the connector.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide a card connector of a two-piece type which can be easily mounted on a printed circuit board with an automatic mounting machine.
It is another object of the invention to provide a card connector of a two-piece type which has a rigidity for holding a card stable therein.
It is another object to provide a card connector of a two-piece type wherein a lever of an ejector mechanism has a high rigidity without increase of size of the card connector.
The present invention is applicable to a card connector for electrically connecting a card including a mating connector having a plurality of mating contacts to a printed circuit board.
According to the present invention, the card connector comprises: a connector portion comprising a base insulator having a front surface, an upper surface, a bottom surface and a rear surface, and a plurality of contacts fixed to the base insulator, each of the plurality of contacts comprising a contact portion protruding from the front surface to be brought into contact with the corresponding one of the mating contacts and a terminal portion protruding from one of the bottom surface and the rear surface for making an electrical connection with the printed circuit board; a frame portion mounted onto the connector portion and having an upper wall, a lower wall, and opposite side walls to form a rectangular cylinder for receiving the card therein, the upper wall having a rear extension portion extending rearward to overlie the upper surface of the base insulator when the frame portion is assembled onto the connector portion; and an ejector mechanism assembled on the frame portion for ejecting the card from an electrical connection between the connector portion and the mating connector, the ejector mechanism comprising an ejector rod slidably mounted and guided onto one of the side walls of the frame portion and a lever pivotally mounted by a pivot onto the rear extension portion of the upper wall, the lever having an end as a card engaging end for engaging with the card received in the frame portion and an opposite end connected to the ejector rod, the lever being pivotally moved in response to movement of the ejector rod to thereby push the card frontward.
In one embodiment of the card connector, the upper wall has a lower surface and the lever is made of a plate and pivotally mounted onto the lower surface so as to be rotatable in the plane of the plate. The lever plate comprises a plate portion extending between the pivoted portion and the opposite portion and the remaining plate portion extending between the pivoted portion and the card engaging portion. The lever plate has a bent front side comprising a first generally linear front side along the plate portion and a second generally linear front side along the remaining plate portion so that the remaining plate portion has a projecting part frontward projecting from an extension line of the first generally linear front side.
In one embodiment of the card connector, if the card having a side surface in which a key groove is formed, one of the opposite side walls of the frame portion has an inner key corresponding to the key groove so as to prevent the card from being inserted into the frame portion in an erroneous orientation.
In the card connector of the present invention, the ejector mechanism is previously assembled onto the frame portion. The frame portion having the ejector mechanism is mounted on the connector portion after the connector portion is mounted onto the printed circuit board.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5492481 (1996-02-01), Lewis
patent: 5619660 (1997-04-01), Scheer et al.
patent: 5667396 (1997-09-01), Pan et al.
patent: 6059588 (2000-05-01), Tung et al.
Kamata Kazushi
Nakamura Keisuke
Japan Aviation Electronics Industry Limited
Laff, Whitesel & Saret, Ltd.
Nguyen Khiem
Whitesel J. Warren
Zarroli Michael C.
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