Electrical contact

Details Electrical contact Electrical contact

1999-12-07

2003-06-17

Vu, Hien (Department: 2833)

Electrical connectors

Metallic connector or contact having movable or resilient...

Spring actuated or resilient securing part

Reexamination Certificate

active

06579132

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF INVENTION
1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to an electrical contact for connection to a mating connector.
2. Related Art
An electrical contact is used at a region where it is connected to a terminal of a mating connector, and specifically such an electrical contact is used within a connector, various kinds of connection boxes and so on.
There are occasions when such electrical contacts are used in an environment (for example, in a transportation vehicle such as an automobile) in which vibrations are applied to these electrical contacts. In this case, an electrical contact point portion of the electrical contact, contacted with a mating connector, slightly (finely) slides, and this results in a problem that the contact point is worn, so that the electric resistance of the contact point increases.
This will be described with reference to FIG.
7
.
FIG. 7
shows a connector terminal y having an electrical contact portion
30
(shown in cross-section). An extension portion extends from a front end (facing in a direction of connection with a mating connector) of a bottom portion of a box-shaped portion
31
, and is bent to form a spring portion
32
a
at a front end portion of the box-shaped portion and also to form a contact piece portion
32
disposed within the box-shaped portion
31
. A contact point portion
32
b
of the contact piece portion
32
is adapted to contact a contact piece portion (not shown) of the mating connector to be electrically connected thereto. An upper contact piece portion
33
is provided at a top wall of the box-shaped portion
31
, and is adapted to contact a contact piece portion (not shown) of the mating connector to be electrically connected thereto.
When the terminal &ggr; is subjected to vibrations, the vibration of the box-shaped portion causes a fine sliding movement between the contact piece portion
33
and the contact piece portion of the mating connector. As a result, the contact piece portion of the mating connector vibrates, so that a fine sliding movement also develops between the contact point
32
b
of the contact piece portion
32
and the contact piece portion of the mating connector. As a result of wear of these contact points, the electric resistance increases.
There have been proposed electric connectors which prevent wear due to such fine sliding movement.
One such example is a connector terminal &dgr; shown in FIG.
8
.
The connector terminal &dgr; comprises two parts, that is, a box-shaped portion &dgr;
1
, and a body portion having contact piece portions
40
and a wire connection portion
41
. The two portions are integrally connected together through fixing portions
42
and press-clamping portions
43
by pressing. With this integral construction, vibrations, applied from the exterior, are absorbed by spring portions
44
, and therefore are hardly transmitted to the contact piece portions
40
, so that a fine sliding movement between the contact piece portions
40
and a contact piece portion of a mating connector is prevented. However, this structure comprises the two parts, and besides there is required an apparatus or the like for assembling these parts together, and therefore the production cost is extremely high.
FIG. 9
is a cross-sectional view of a connector terminal &egr; proposed in Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 10-189102.
This terminal is received in a terminal receiving chamber in a connector housing so as to provide an electric connector. This terminal includes an electrical contact portion
50
for connection to a terminal (not shown) of a mating connector, and a wire fixing portion
60
for connection to a wire.
This terminal &egr; is formed by blanking a piece from a flat stock and then by bending it. The appearance of the electrical contact portion
50
is a box-shape, and a resilient contact piece portion
52
is provided within the electrical contact portion
50
, and is supported by an interconnecting portion
51
extending from a side wall of the electrical contact portion
50
(see
FIG. 10
which is a cross-sectional view taken along the line B—B of FIG.
9
).
The resilient contact piece portion
52
is electrically connected at its contact portions
52
a
and
52
b
to a terminal of a mating connector.
Thus, the resilient contact piece portion
52
is supported only by the relatively-narrow interconnecting portion
51
extending from the side wall of the box-shaped portion, and therefore there is achieved an advantage that the amount of fine sliding movement of the contact portions
52
a
and
52
b
relative to the terminal of the mating connector is small.
With the above construction, although the intended effect can be obtained for vibrations in lateral and vertical (upward and downward) directions, a vibration-absorbing effect of the interconnecting portion
51
is not effective for vibrations in a forward-rearward direction a (see FIG.
9
). Therefore, the whole of the resilient contact piece portion
52
is turned about the interconnecting portion
51
to vibrate as shown in
FIG. 10
(which is a cross-sectional view taken along the line B—B of FIG.
9
). Because of this construction, the vibration-absorbing effect is incomplete, and the above problem with respect to the fine sliding movement has not yet been solved.
SUMMARY OF INVENTION
This invention seeks to solve the above problem. More specifically, an object of the invention is to provide an electrical contact which can be formed by one member, and even when vibrations develop in a forward-backward direction (terminal-inserting direction), a trouble, such as the increase of an electric resistance due to a fine sliding movement, will not occur.
The above object has been achieved by an electrical contact of claim
1
including a tubular portion, and a contact piece portion which is provided within the tubular portion so as to contact a contact portion of a mating connector terminal, inserted into the tubular portion through one open end thereof, to be electrically connected to the contact portion; provided in that the contact piece portion is supported by a contact piece portion-interconnecting portion, extending from an edge of the other open end of the tubular portion, in such a manner that the contact piece portion is held out of contact with an inner surface of the tubular portion.


REFERENCES:
patent: 5551897 (1996-09-01), Alwine
patent: 5685746 (1997-11-01), Maejima
patent: 5733155 (1998-03-01), Sagawa
patent: 5897404 (1999-04-01), Goodman et al.
patent: 6102752 (2000-08-01), Bommel et al.
patent: Hei 7-296886 (1995-11-01), None
patent: 10189102 (1998-07-01), None

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