Electricity: conductors and insulators – Conduits – cables or conductors – Insulated
Reexamination Certificate
2002-04-19
2004-04-06
Mayo, III, William H. (Department: 2831)
Electricity: conductors and insulators
Conduits, cables or conductors
Insulated
C174S1170FF, C174S12000C
Reexamination Certificate
active
06717058
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed to an electrical cable having a helically wrapped transparent plastic jacket for wrapping a multi-conductor cable having a twisted pair conductor section and a flat parallel conductor section into a generally uniform round-shaped cable. The transparent jacket allows the flat parallel conductor section to be quickly identified for easier mass termination and attachment to a connector.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Mass termination connectors have become more commercially popular because of the time and cost savings compared to the traditional method of stripping and individually terminating each conductor using a crimp terminal. These connectors are often used with a flat ribbon-type cable in which several conductors run parallel to one another and are spaced to match the spacing of the terminal elements of the connector. The use of a flat cable allows the ends to be quickly attached to a connector without having to strip and position each of the conductors individually, as with traditional round cables. However, while flat cables offer advantages with respect to ease of termination, they are more difficult to route than round cables because they are less flexible, and consequently are more prone to damage. In addition, they cause significant airflow restriction problems within high performance electronic systems cabinets.
To overcome these disadvantages, cable manufacturers have taken standard flat cables with flat mass termination sections and manually folded them into a generally round-shaped cable, thus increasing the cable's flexibility and making it easier to route or lay the cable. In addition, cable manufacturers have usually manually covered this round-shaped cable with an additional covering such as nylon sleeving, or PVC tubing to protect the cable bundle. However, this method hinders the control of the cable's electrical properties because it is impossible with manual folding methods to predict how close the conductors are compressed together. A generally round-shaped cable has varying effective dielectric constants between the twisted pairs, due to the randomness of the manual folding and compression. This can cause wide variations in the cable's impedance and time delay, and consequently, increases the amount of reflection and crosstalk in the cable/connector system.
Another method of terminating a generally round cable is to take a standard round twisted pair cable having an extruded cover, remove the cover and then manually untwist each of the pairs on the end of the cable for termination. This process is costly due to the time and intensive labor involved. In addition, it is extremely costly to terminate the conductors when the connectors must be applied in the middle of the cable's length, as is the case with multi-drop SCSI cables.
Solutions to the above problems are suggested by U.S. Pat. No. 4,973,238 to Kihlken et al. which discloses a cable with a first twisted pair section and a second flat section wrapped in a non-transparent outer jacket into a generally round-shaped cable. A marker is placed on the outer jacket of the cable so that the location of the flat section of the cable can be identified for termination. However, it may be possible for the marker to be misplaced and incorrectly identify the location of the flat section.
Therefore it would be advantageous to provide a machine compacted uniformly round cable having a flat section for mass termination and attachment to a connector, and to provide a means for locating the flat section of the cable quickly and accurately. Such machine compaction would allow much more predictability of effective dielectric constant within the uniform round shape. It would also be advantageous to provide a means to easily strip the cable to expose the conductors therein for attachment to a connector, both at the ends and in the middle of the cable length.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed to a multi-conductor cable with a twisted pair section and a flat section, wrapped in a transparent plastic jacket to form a generally uniform round-shaped cable. The transparent jacket allows the flat section to be identified so that the jacket may be removed at this location and the flat section prepared for attachment to a connector for either point to point or daisy chain connection.
Additionally, the individual conductors in the flat section of the cable are each supported by a support member that maintains the spacing of the conductors. A connector having correspondingly spaced terminals can then be quickly attached to the conductors.
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Booth Carl S.
Vaupotic Gregory P.
Wiggin Robert A.
Amphenol Corporation
Blank Rome LLP
Mayo III William H.
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