Electricity: electrical systems and devices – Housing or mounting assemblies with diverse electrical... – For electronic systems and devices
Reexamination Certificate
1999-08-27
2001-04-10
Picard, Leo P. (Department: 2835)
Electricity: electrical systems and devices
Housing or mounting assemblies with diverse electrical...
For electronic systems and devices
C361S748000, C361S798000, C361S754000, C439S327000, C211S041170
Reexamination Certificate
active
06215673
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
A hot plug retainer and actuator holds or retains any electronic card or blanking panel into an input/output chassis of an electronic system, and actuates a switch that informs the user that the card is installed and is ready for use.
BACKGROUND
A trend in the computer industry is to servers having multiple components such as power supplies, fans and PCI cards, for example, a four-way server which has four redundant components inside and an eight-way server containing eight redundant components. An advantage of these servers is that if one component in a server goes down, the server can still keep running, e.g., a user can replace a defective electronic card or other component using “hot swapping” without crashing the system.
The most common method for holding down a PCI card is to use a screw as illustrated in
FIG. 7. A
screw implementation is disadvantageous in a hot-swap system because too much time is required to remove/replace the screw, and there is a danger that the loosened screw could fall onto powered components to result in an electrical disaster. One disadvantageous hot plug PCI retainer and actuator eliminates the need for this screw, thus reducing part count and loose hardware. However, this known retainer and actuator requires additional parts such as metal hinges or mounting hardware on the chassis. This can increase the required thickness/strength of the sheet metal of the chassis, thereby adding weight and increasing cost.
SUMMARY
An improved hot plug retainer and actuator for use on a chassis is disclosed. The actuator includes a one piece body having a first portion, a second portion and a living hinge pivotably connecting the first and second portions to one another for opening and closing the actuator.
These and other features of the improved hot plug retainer and actuator will become more apparent from the following description when taken in connection with the accompanying drawings which show, for purposes of illustration only, one example in accordance with the present invention.
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Flamm Ronald C.
Gordon Glen P.
Leuthe Anthony
Valpiani Anthony P.
Antonelli Terry Stout & Kraus LLP
Intel Corporation
Picard Leo P.
Vortman Anatoly
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