Electrical connectors – With insulation other than conductor sheath – Plural-contact coupling part
Reexamination Certificate
1999-05-05
2001-02-27
Donovan, Lincoln (Department: 2839)
Electrical connectors
With insulation other than conductor sheath
Plural-contact coupling part
Reexamination Certificate
active
06193561
ABSTRACT:
THE FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to an electrical plug connector with contact elements disposed in contact chambers, spring legs of the contact elements, which spring legs are provided with an embossed contour, being disposed in a mirror-inverted manner.
Plug connectors of this kind are used as circuit board plug connectors. What is aspired to, in this connection, is to increase the number of contact elements of a plug connector to an ever-greater extent, but to reduce the size of the plug connector itself to an ever-greater extent. In order to enable two-legged spring contact elements to be manufactured in an economical manner, even in the case of small grid intervals of <2 mm, it is necessary to punch these out of a continuous metal strip beforehand in the particular mounting grid. Because of the resultant closeness of the intervals, however, it is difficult to design the contact in a two-sided manner since the said contact no longer fits, from the development point of view, into a small punching grid in the case of conventional contact elements with a U-shaped or folded contact body. This particularly applies to designs of plug connector for the surface soldering technique (surface- mounted technology—SMT), in which the size of the components that can be surface-mounted (surface-mounted devices, SMD's) is kept very shallow and very small and the number of contacts can scarcely be reduced. In addition, the plugging-in force of the plug connector rises as the number of contacts increases.
DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART
From DE-OS 18 13 739, a plug connector for printed circuits is known which has spring legs with an embossed contour disposed in a mirror-inverted manner in its contact chambers, the contact elements or their spring legs being constructed in such a way that they are supported on the contact walls in the rest condition. In this plug connector, no contact-making between the spring legs and a contact pin which is introduced comes about in the first half of the plugging-in region, and the said contact-making takes place only when the contact pin is almost completely inserted, under which circumstances high plugging-in forces occur.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The underlying object of the invention is to construct a plug connector of the initially mentioned type to the effect that, in spite of the contact forces and number of contacts remaining the same, the plugging-in forces are reduced, compared with conventional plug connectors, a low contact pressure of the spring legs being initially exerted on the blade contacts on insertion of the said blade contacts in the contact elements of the contact chambers, so that easy insertion of the counter-plug is achieved—but immediate, reliable contact-making is guaranteed at the same time—and that the maximum contact forces operate only when the blade contacts are completely introduced.
This object is achieved through the fact that the spring legs are constructed in such a way that they are at a distance from the contact chamber walls when the contact elements are inserted in the contact chambers, the spring legs being deflected in such a way, when a contact pin is inserted in the contact elements, that the said spring legs are supported on the contact chamber walls.
An advantageous refinement of the invention is indicated in claim
2
.
The advantages obtained by means of the invention consist, in particular, in the fact that the plugging-in forces of the plug connector according to the invention are lower, compared with conventional plug connectors. This is achieved through the fact that, during the pushing-in of a counter-plug (blade strip), the spring legs are deflected with low force because of a lower active spring length and a narrow spring root. As a result of a suitably formed contour, the spring legs are then supported on the contact chamber walls and produce, in a manner brought about by a shorter active spring length in conjunction with the broader contact legs, an increased spring force which is necessary for reliable contact-making.
REFERENCES:
patent: 3601775 (1971-08-01), Longenecker et al.
patent: 3790924 (1974-02-01), Sauer
patent: 4033656 (1977-07-01), Freehauf et al.
patent: 5611700 (1997-03-01), Mitra
patent: 6048230 (2000-04-01), Kikuchi
patent: OS 18 13 739 (1968-12-01), None
Harting Dietmar
Luttermann Dieter
Pape Gunter
Cook Alex McFarron Manzo Cummings & Mehler, Ltd.
Donovan Lincoln
Harting KGAA
Webb Brian S.
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