Electrical component

Electricity: conductors and insulators – Conduits – cables or conductors – Combined

Patent

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Details

29854, 174DIG8, 403 28, 428 349, H02G 1508

Patent

active

054060311

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to electrical components and to their connection and protection from the environment.
In certain instances, for example in automotive applications, where the component will be subject to hostile environments the component will need to be protected from the environment during use in addition to being connected to the appropriate terminals
According to the present invention, there is provided an electrical component that has a plurality of leads extending therefrom, wherein the component is enclosed in an insulating plastics sleeve, and wherein the sleeve has a plurality of dimensionally heat-recoverable end portions that extend over the leads and each end portion encloses a quantity of solder so that each lead can be permanently connected to a conductor by heating the end portions of the sleeve to cause them to recover and the solder to fuse.
Although in the broadest aspect of the invention only the end portions of the sleeve need be heat-recoverable in practice it will be most convenient to employ a heat-recoverable sleeve and recover the central portion thereof into engagement with the component.
Heat-recoverable articles are now widely used in many areas where insulation, sealing and encapsulation are required. Usually these articles recover, on heating, towards an original shape from which they have previously been deformed, but the term "heat-recoverable", as used herein, also includes an article which, on heating, adopts a new configuration, even if it has not been previously deformed.
In their most common form, such articles comprise a heat-shrinkable sleeve made from a polymeric material exhibiting the property of elastic or plastic memory as described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,027,962; 3,086,242 and 3,957,372. As is made clear in, for example U.S. Pat. No. 2,027,962, the original dimensionally heat-stable form may be a transient form in a continuous process in which, for example, an extruded tube is expanded, whilst hot, to a dimensionally heat-unstable form but, in other applications, a preformed dimensionally heat stable article is deformed to a dimensionally heat unstable form in a separate stage.
Any material to which the property of dimensional recoverability may be imported can, be used to form the heat-recoverable sleeve. For example, the sleeve may be formed from a polyolefin, eg. a low, medium or high density polyethylene, an ethylene copolymer, eg. ethylene vinyl acetate, a polyamide, eg. nylon 6 or nylon 11 or 12, or a halogen-containing polymer, especially a Fluoropolymer, eg. polyvinylidene fluoride, ethylene-tetrafluoroethylene copolymer or polytetrafluoroethylene. For most applications the preferred polymer for forming the recoverable sleeve will be polyvinylidene fluoride.
Preferably the sleeve includes a quantity of a fusible plastics material in each end portion that will seal the end portions of the sleeve against ingress of moisture after recovery of the sleeve. The fusible insert may be formed from the same polymer as the sleeve or a different polymer may be employed, normally having a somewhat lower softening point than that of the sleeve. For example, in the case of sleeves made from polyvinylidine fluoride a fusible insert formed from a polyolefin may be employed.
The component according to the invention has the advantage that it is relatively easy to install, simply requiting a quantity of heat to form the electrical connection between the component leads and the terminals to be connected, and to encapsulate and seal the connections.
The component may, instead, be one that has three or more leads. For example, a transistor, a multi-contact electrical connector or a multi-contact switch. However many leads the component has, in certain designs of component the leads may extend from one side of the component. In this case the sleeve may comprise a plurality of tubular portions each of which extends over one of the leads, and a further sleeve portion that extends over the body of the component, one end of the tubular portions being retained in th

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