Electrical connectors – With coupling movement-actuating means or retaining means in... – Retaining means
Patent
1998-04-20
2000-09-12
Nguyen, Khiem
Electrical connectors
With coupling movement-actuating means or retaining means in...
Retaining means
439247, H01R 13627
Patent
active
061169404
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
With respect to the International Application as published on May 15, 1997:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to structures that can be incorporated into an electrical connector in order to mechanically connect the connector to a complementary component. The structure is particularly applicable to board-to-board connectors, but not limited thereto.
2. Summary of the Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 5,324,206 discloses an electrical connector comprising a pressure table floatably coupled to the connector housing and resiliently biased therefrom. This pressure table is operative to bias a flexible circuit against the surface of a mating circuit board.
In electrical connectors, it is necessary to establish not only an electrical connection between the complementary contacts which may be housed in a terminal block or upon a printed circuit board; but also, to interconnect mechanically the mating connector components to ensure that the electrical connection is not defeated. This has been accomplished in the prior art in a number of manners, such as fasteners similar to screws or clips, resilient latch arms on one of the connectors that cooperate with lugs on the other connector, or external devices that function to hold the two together. These structures typically work well where there is a fairly large range of tolerance with respect to where the electrical interconnection may occur over the distance of mating the two connector components together. This would be the case where one of the contacts is a pin contact an the other contact is a receptacle contact having spring arms to form a wiping interconnection with the pin, as anywhere along the pin would form a satisfactory connection. In addition, an interconnection of this type requires that a fairly large load must be brought to bear on the mating connector in order to engage whatever latching structure is being used. These two considerations create a problem where there is either not enough linear travel available to establish the desired interconnection or the mating components are not capable of bearing the amount of force necessary to establish the interconnection. An example might be where a daughter card is to be mated with a mother board and for whatever reason the standard edge card connector is not satisfactory.
These short comings are met by providing an electrical connector according to claim 1 for mating with a complementary component having a mating face and a plurality of complementary contact members. An embodiment of the connector comprising a terminal block having a front face and a plurality of contact receiving regions therein for receiving contacts that mate with the complementary contacts, a housing block wherein the terminal block is disposed and a connector coupler operatively associated with said terminal block for engaging an anchor fixed on the complementary component in order to mechanically couple the connector and complementary component; the connector being characterized in that: the connector is mounted upon the board such that the structure may float in the direction of mating and the terminal block is resiliently biased by a resilient member relative the housing bock such that when the connector coupler is engaged with the anchor, the front face of the terminal block together with the mating face for the complementary component.
This makes this connector coupler device especially useful where it is desired to form the interconnection between a contact pad and a spring contact, such as that used in an interposer. This feature further isolates those forces necessary to hold the electrical connector with the complementary component from the forces associated with the contacting members. Finally, a connector of this type is especially useful for board-to-board interconnections where contact pads may be used instead of contact pins. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,895,521 (incorporated herein by reference for all purposes) a co-axial connection module is disclosed that is particularly suite for
REFERENCES:
patent: 4895521 (1990-01-01), Grabbe
patent: 5041003 (1991-08-01), Smith et al.
patent: 5228861 (1993-07-01), Grabbe
patent: 5324206 (1994-06-01), Conroy-Wass
Bertens Aloysius Antonius
Broeksteeg Johannes Marcelus
De Blieck Roland Tristan
Nguyen Khiem
The Whitaker Corporation
LandOfFree
Coupler for electrical connectors does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Coupler for electrical connectors, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Coupler for electrical connectors will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-90488