Electrical connector for mounting on a bottom side of a...

Details Electrical connector for mounting on a bottom side of a... Electrical connector for mounting on a bottom side of a...

2000-12-21

2001-11-13

Sircus, Brian (Department: 2839)

Electrical connectors

Electromagnetic or electrostatic shield

Shielding individually surrounding or interposed between...

Reexamination Certificate

active

06315610

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an electrical connector, and particularly to an electrical connector mounted on a bottom side of a printed circuit board.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Electrical connectors mounted on a printed circuit board (PCB) are well known in the art. IEEE 1394 electrical connectors include a shielding case having a mating orientation key formed on a mating sleeve of the shielding case for securing correct polarity of a mating complementary connector. The key is formed on a lower side of the mating sleeve and has an inwardly indented surface. A detent lock is formed on the shielding case protruding into a housing of the connector in opposition to the key on the mating sleeve. The key and the detent lock cooperate to secure the complementary connector in the electrical connector. The shielding case also forms a pair of metal feet on a side opposite to that forming the detent lock and adjacent to the key for mounting the electrical connector to the PCB. Under special circumstances, the electrical connectors may be required to be mounted on a bottom side of the PCB. Referring to
FIG. 6
, a conventional IEEE 1394 electrical connector
500
is mounted on a top side of a PCB
200
. Note that a mating orientation key
510
is positioned on a lowermost panel of a mating sleeve (not labeled). An identical electrical connector
600
is shown mounted on a bottom side of the PCB
200
with a key
610
now being positioned on an uppermost panel of a mating sleeve (not labeled). A complementary connector (not shown) which is mated right-side-up with the electrical connector
500
must be turned upside-down to properly mate with the electrical connector
600
. An incorrect mating between the electrical connector
600
and the complementary connector may damage either or both of the connectors.
Heretofore, to avoid the aforementioned mismating action, the key
610
of the electrical connector
600
mounted on the bottom side of the PCB
200
was provided on a bottom panel of the mating sleeve so that a mating orientation of the complementary connector remained unchanged. A detent lock
611
of the connector
600
was correspondingly moved to an upper side of the shielding case but was now separated from the shielding case because of the limitation imposed by the location of the metal feet
612
. However, with the ever-increasing transmission speeds of applications, along with the consequent higher quality required from electrical connectors, such a configuration is often impractical and is neither cost nor quality effective.
Hence, an improved electrical connector is required to overcome the aforementioned problems.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A first object of the present invention is to provide an improved electrical connector mountable to a bottom side of a printed circuit board with the direction of insertion of a complementary connector unchanged.
A second object of the present invention is to provide an improved electrical connector mountable to a bottom side of a printed circuit board with a detent lock and a pair of metal feet all made from a single piece of metal sheet.
To achieve the aforementioned objects, an electrical connector mountable on the bottom side of a printed circuit board comprises a dielectric housing, a plurality of terminals received in the housing and a shielding case enclosing the dielectric housing. The shielding case includes a front section, a rear section and a covering section. The front section includes a mating sleeve with an inwardly protruding key on a bottom panel thereof. The covering section is formed from one piece of metal sheet and comprises a pair of side walls, a transverse top wall interconnecting the side walls, two metal feet projecting upwardly from an upper edge of each side wall for securing the connector to a PCB, and a detent lock formed in a middle of the transverse top wall and bending inwardly and rearwardly. The detent lock is received in a corresponding slot of the dielectric housing for providing a mating retention.


REFERENCES:
patent: 4878858 (1989-11-01), Dechelette
patent: 5035652 (1991-07-01), Shibano
patent: 5637015 (1997-06-01), Tan et al.
patent: 5738544 (1998-04-01), Davis

Affiliated with

Also associated with

Rating

Electrical connector for mounting on a bottom side of a... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.

If you have personal experience with Electrical connector for mounting on a bottom side of a..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Electrical connector for mounting on a bottom side of a... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2588963