Electrical connectors – Electromagnetic or electrostatic shield – Shielding individually surrounding or interposed between...
Reexamination Certificate
1999-02-11
2002-05-28
Paumen, Gary (Department: 2833)
Electrical connectors
Electromagnetic or electrostatic shield
Shielding individually surrounding or interposed between...
Reexamination Certificate
active
06394841
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electrical connectors having shield plates.
2. Description of the Related Art
Japanese patent application Kokai No. 8-279380 discloses a connector of this type. This connector comprises a plurality of shield plates on a pair of longitudinal sides of an insulative housing and a plurality of reinforcing plates made of metal on a pair of ends of the housing. The shield plates are longer than the housing and both ends thereof project beyond the housing in the longitudinal direction of the housing. The projecting ends of the shield plate are bent toward ends of the housing and contact the reinforcing plates for electrical connection to the reinforcing plates. Each reinforcing plate is provided with a fixing leg to firmly fix the connector to a circuit board.
There are a plurality of elongated windows provided along an upper end of the shield plate. A beam portion is formed between both ends of the window and the upper end of the shield plate. The beam portion is flexible in the direction of a thickness of the shield plate. A contact section or a dimple is provided in the middle of the beam portion to make spring contact with the shield plate of a mating connector.
The connector described above is provided with a large number of contact elements which are arranged with a certain pitch in the longitudinal direction of the housing. This pitch becomes smaller as the number of contact elements arranged in the housing increases. A plurality of ground legs are provided in the longitudinal direction of the shield plate at appropriate intervals. The ground legs are arranged such that each leg falls between two adjacent contact elements. Accordingly, the interval between the ground leg and the adjacent contact elements is very small. According to the above patent 8-279380, the ends of the shield plate are bent toward the ends of the housing and contact the reinforcing plates. Therefore, the bent position of the shield plate controls the relative position of the shield plate in the longitudinal direction of the housing. Accordingly, if the bent position is not accurate, there is an error in the position of the ground legs, which may cause the ground legs to be excessively close to or in contact with the contact elements. The error of the bent position is easily produced since the bending is usually done by pressing.
Some connectors have a structure similar to the above connector but a different number of contact elements in accordance with user's choice. The housings of these connectors have the same structure in the cross-section perpendicular to the longitudinal direction but different dimensions in the longitudinal direction. A housing having more contact elements is long and a housing having less contact elements is short. The shield plate is cut to a length corresponding to the length of the housing and bent at positions of its ends. Consequently, a different shield plate needs a different press dice.
As described above, the contact section or a dimple provided on the shield plate is located in the middle of the beam portion formed between the both ends of the window and the upper ends of the shield plate. The contact section is brought into spring contact with the shield section of a mating connector. Such spring property is provided by only the spring property of the beam portion and not satisfactory.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide an electrical connector having shield plates, wherein the positions of the shield plates are very accurate in the longitudinal direction in relation to the positions of the contact elements, and the same press die is used for the shield plates regardless of a number of contact elements or a length of the housing.
It is another object of this invention to provide an electrical connector, wherein the contact section of the shield plate is so flexible that it is possible to connect the shield plate to the shield section of a mating connector.
An electrical connector according to the invention comprises an insulative housing of a rectangular parallelepiped having a plurality of contact elements aligned in the housing and a pair of shield plates provided on a pair of longitudinal sides of the housing.
To achieve the first object of the invention, the electrical connector comprises a pair of shield plates provided on opposite sides of the housing and a pair of reinforcing plates at opposite ends of the housing, wherein ends of the reinforcing plates and ends of the shield plates contact each other.
According to the first embodiment of this invention to achieve the first object, the shield plate are positioned within the length of the housing and the reinforcing plate comprises a main part provided at an end of the housing and an auxiliary part bent such that the bent part is in parallel with the shield plate and overlaps an end of the shield plate, thereby making spring contact with the shield plate.
The another object of this invention is achieved by a second embodiment of this invention, wherein the shield plate comprises a contact tongue having at least one flexible portion near the base of the contact tongue such that the shield plate is sufficiently flexible to make spring contact with the contact section of a mating connector.
According to the first embodiment, the shield plate is positioned within the length of the housing in the longitudinal direction and has no end portion bent toward the end of the housing to prevent movement of the shield plate in the longitudinal direction. Accordingly, the position of the shield plate in the longitudinal direction is controlled only by engagement of an engaging part or a cut portion of the shield plate with a projection provided on the housing. A relative position of the engaging part and the ground section of the shield plate is very accurate since the both are produced by the same press-punching process. The accuracy of relative positions of the ground section and the contact element is determined by the relative positions of the contact element and the engaging section. The relative positions of the contact element and the engaging section are very accurate since the accommodation groove and the projection described above are formed by the same molding process. Accordingly, the relative positions of the ground section and the contact element are determined very accurately since the shield plate has no end portion bent toward the end of the housing.
As described above, the shield plate according to the first embodiment has no end portion bent toward the end of the housing so that it is possible to cut the shield plate to a length corresponding to the length of the housing which is determined by the number of the contact elements included therein. In other words, if a long semi-finished material is prepared, any size of shield plate is available by cutting the semi-finished material to a necessary length corresponding the length of the housing.
According to the second embodiment, the contact tongue is flexible since it has a U-shaped flexible portion. In addition, there is an additional flexible portion provided near the base of the contact tongue so that the contact tongue is very flexible to make spring contact with the shield section of a mating connector.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4687263 (1987-08-01), Cosmos
patent: 5035631 (1991-07-01), Piorunneck
patent: 5626500 (1997-05-01), Yoshimura
patent: 5697799 (1997-12-01), Consoli
patent: 5921814 (1999-07-01), Maruyama
patent: 6042398 (2000-03-01), Wu et al.
patent: 0774806 (1997-05-01), None
patent: 0793312 (1997-09-01), None
patent: 0 808 520 (1997-11-01), None
patent: 61-9789 (1986-01-01), None
patent: 08222324 (1996-08-01), None
patent: 8-279380 (1996-10-01), None
patent: 9-17511 (1997-01-01), None
patent: WO 9624969 (1996-08-01), None
patent: WO 9628006 (1996-09-01), None
Hirose Electric Co. Ltd.
Kanesaka & Takeuchi
McCamey Ann
Paumen Gary
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