Electrical connectors – With insulation other than conductor sheath – Plural-contact coupling part
Reexamination Certificate
2000-01-19
2001-07-17
Nguyen, Khiem (Department: 2339)
Electrical connectors
With insulation other than conductor sheath
Plural-contact coupling part
C439S824000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06261130
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is a high-density pogo pin connector and a data gathering and analysis station making use of the same.
The manner in which electrical connectors are presently configured places an upper limit on the number of pins that may be connected over a given connector face surface area. This limitation on pin density results in a bulky construction for high pin count (ie, greater than
20
pins) connector designs.
FIG. 1
shows a pin-to-pin socket structure that is typical for a prior art connector. The pin socket
2
includes one contact
4
, in the general form of a leaf spring that touches the side of the mating pin
6
. Accordingly, the pin
6
must which must fit snugly in pin socket
2
to ensure that contact
4
touches pin
6
when the connector halves are engaged. The need for a snug fit in turn creates a requirement that each pin
4
be positioned relative to its neighboring pins such that every pin precisely match in position the location of a pin socket. If one pin is misplaced or bent slightly, the entire connector will not mate and will not be usable. This requirement imposes a burdensome manufacturing task that tends to become impractical, and results in poor performance, for a pin density above about 10 per cm
2
.
The bulky construction of high pin count electrical connectors in turn forces an awkward and expensive configuration for some devices that make use of high pin count electrical connectors. For example, ultrasound-monitoring stations frequently come equipped with a number of specialized probes for performing different ultrasound scanning functions. As shown in
FIG. 1
each probe
10
is fixedly attached to a cable
12
that bears a connector
14
for connecting to a mating connector
16
on the ultrasound monitoring station data analysis and display unit
18
. This configuration is necessitated by the bulky nature of the cable connector pair
14
and
16
. If the connector were located on the probe end of the cable, the probe would be rendered bulky and difficult to manipulate. Unfortunately, this configuration is expensive because it means that a separate cable must be provided for each one of the ultrasound probes. As each one of these cables costs on the order of $1000, this adds considerable expense to the ultrasound monitoring station. Moreover, because the lack of a sufficiently high pin density connector forces each ultrasound probe to be manufactured and sold bundled with a cable, as a single unit, a problem with either the probe or the cable necessitates the replacement of the entire probe/cable unit. Accordingly, a probe/cable unit must be replaced when the probe has been damaged, even if the cable portion is still fully operative and vice versa.
SUMMARY
In a first separate aspect, the present invention is a high pin count electrical connector assembly for electrically connecting a set of first conductors to a set of second conductors according to a predetermined connective scheme. The connector assembly includes a male-half connector that has an array of spring-loaded pins, each of which is connected to a separate first conductor, and also has a male half connective bracket. A female-half connector has an array of contact regions positioned in matching arrangement to the array of spring-loaded pins, each of which connects to a separate second conductor, and also has a female-half connective bracket configured to releasably mate with the male-half connective bracket. Therefore, when the male-half bracket and the female-half bracket are correctly mated together the spring loaded pins are held in contact with the contact regions so that the first conductors and the second conductors are electrically connected according to determined scheme.
In a second separate aspect the present invention is a data gathering and analysis station including. A probe of the station has a multiplicity of separate receive elements and is adapted to be manipulated by a human hand. Further, a multi-conductor electrical cable is releasably connected to the probe, and is adapted to transmit information from the receive elements of the probe. In addition, a data analysis and display unit is connected to the cable and is adapted to receive the information from the cable. Finally, the multi-conductor electric cable and the probe are releasably connected together by an electrical connector having a mating pair of connective elements for each of the separate receive elements in the probe, arranged at a density of greater than 10 per cm
2
.
In a third separate aspect the present invention is a cable assembly adapted to permit the retrofitting of a data gathering and analysis station and comprising a cable having a first end and a second end. In addition, a low pin density connector is electrically and physically connected to the first end of the cable and a high pin density connector is electrically and physically connected to the second end of the cable.
In a fourth separate aspect the present invention is a data-gathering probe comprising a set of data-gathering elements. Additionally, a high pin density connector has a set of contact elements, each of which is connected to a data-gathering element by a conductive element.
The foregoing and other objectives, features and advantages of the invention will be more readily understood upon consideration of the following detailed description of the invention, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
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Davis Larry L.
Huynh Ky
Hyeon Hae Moon
MHL Development Company, Inc.
Nguyen Khiem
Siegel Timothy E.
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