Connector for portable or hand-held electronic device

Details Connector for portable or hand-held electronic device Connector for portable or hand-held electronic device

2002-01-17

2003-06-17

Paumen, Gary (Department: 2833)

Electrical connectors

With supporting means for coupling part

Flange on coupling part

Reexamination Certificate

active

06579122

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a connector for a portable or hand-held electronic device. More specifically, to a male connector installed in a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) with a U-shaped metal piece tightly retained onto two sides thereof and fixedly installed onto a circuit board horizontally or vertically by the U-shaped metal piece.
2. Prior Art
In the prior art, a male connector (a) and a female connector (b) are connected, as shown in
FIGS. 6 and 7
. A generally portable or hand-held device, such as a PDA, a mobile phone, etc., has inserting ports (a
1
) disposed on two sides of the male connector (a) and an inserting piece (c) with a retaining hole (c
1
) is mounted and situated inside the inserting port (a
1
) of the male connector (a). Two convex blocks (b
1
) corresponding to the male connector (a) are disposed on the female connector (b). The outer side of the convex block (b
1
) is disposed with a retaining member (b
2
) to make the convex block (b
1
) of the female connector (b) insertable into the inserting port (a
1
) of the male connector (a) and to make the retaining member (b
2
) of the convex block (b
1
) retainable into the retaining hole (c
1
) of the inserting piece (c) so as to insert and install the female connector (b) onto the male connector (a).
However, the inserting piece (c) is only disposed on two sides of the male connector (a). The inserting piece (c) are not connected onto a circuit board so that the male connector (a) is fixedly inserted and installed only by the terminals disposed. Therefore, the male connector (a) is subject to wobble, since the inserting piece (c) is of a shape that has to be tightly inserted into the inserting port (a
1
) of the male connector (a). It tends to deflect and disable the retaining member (b
2
) on the lateral side of the convex block (b
1
) of the female connector (b) which needs to be retained into the retaining hole (c
1
) of the inserting piece (c). This results in a disabling of the female connector (b) to be inserted and connected onto the male connector (a).
Furthermore, the male connector (a) is fixedly soldered onto a circuit board (d) only through the terminals thereon and that can only be horizontally or vertically installed onto the circuit board (d). It is unable to change directions according to the different designs of PDA. Therefore, it is necessary to design the male connectors in two different regulations and that increases manufacturing costs.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In view of the shortcomings of the conventional male connector (a) installed on a PDA, the present invention, a connector for a portable or hand-held electronic device, is designed mainly with male and female connectors. Two sides of the male connector are disposed by inserting ports cased by a U-shaped metal piece on the outside thereof. The features of the connector are a narrow sliding groove, a positioning opening and a flat sliding groove which are respectively disposed on the upper and the lower lateral sides of the male connector. A flat inserting opening is disposed at the distal end of the flat sliding groove. Each of the distal ends on the two side rims of the U-shaped metal piece bend inwardly to form a hook piece to be slid and fastened into the narrow sliding grooves on the upper and the lower lateral sides of the male connector. An inserting hook piece and a convex retaining piece are respectively disposed on the upper and the lower sides of the U-shaped metal piece. This allows the inserting hook piece to slide and insert into the flat inserting opening from the flat sliding groove and the convex retaining piece to be retained in the positioning opening. The U-shaped metal piece is tightly assembled on to the male connector. The rear of the U-shaped metal piece bends to form two contact footing pieces to be fixedly soldered to a circuit board and another contact footing piece is disposed on the lateral side of the U-shaped metal piece for fastening the male connector horizontally or vertically onto the circuit board.
The primary objective of the present invention is to provide a male connector to be installed on to a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) and disposed with an U-shaped metal piece tightly retained on two sides thereof to eliminate the U-shaped metal piece from tilting and detaching.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a male connector to be installed on a PDA and having an U-shaped metal piece mounted on two sides thereof for being fixedly installed onto a circuit board horizontally or vertically.
To enable a further understanding of the structural features and the technical contents of the present invention, the brief description of the drawings below is followed by the detailed description of the preferred embodiment.


REFERENCES:
patent: 5961347 (1999-10-01), Hsu
patent: 6083045 (2000-07-01), Chiu
patent: 6231364 (2001-05-01), Liu

Affiliated with

Also associated with

Rating

Connector for portable or hand-held electronic device does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.

If you have personal experience with Connector for portable or hand-held electronic device, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Connector for portable or hand-held electronic device will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-3148224