Electrical connectors – With insulation other than conductor sheath – Metallic connector or contact secured to insulation
Reexamination Certificate
2002-11-26
2004-08-24
Bradley, P. Austin (Department: 2833)
Electrical connectors
With insulation other than conductor sheath
Metallic connector or contact secured to insulation
C439S095000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06780068
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND
The invention relates to a plug-in connector with a bushing and with an insulating member arranged in the bushing in the use position, and with elongate, pin-like contacts—contact pins or female contacts—which in the use position are fixed in holes or bores which receive them in the insulating body via projections which engage in groove-like recesses located on the contacts transverse to their length direction. The holes or bores are located with the elongate contacts on an imaginary cylinder concentric to the middle of the bushing or of the insulating member and thus at the same distance from the inner side of the bushing or of the surface of the insulating member. A further contact in the interior of the imaginary cylinder is arranged within a hole or bore and parallel to the other contacts.
Such electrical plug-in connectors are known and have proved to be useful, since the contacts are fixed and retained in the axial direction when the plug-in connector is plugged together with, or released from, a counterpart, which is frequently associated with overcoming clamping forces and consequent exposure of the contacts to a force in their length direction.
The mutual allocation of the projections to the recesses on the plug contacts has heretofore been costly. In many cases the insulating member is formed in a plurality of parts in order to be able to fix the contacts with their recesses to corresponding projections within the insulating member when this is dismantled. This means that it subsequently has to be assembled, so that both production and assembly are to be considered as costly;
Another known solution provides projections, produced integrally with the insulating member, which, when the pin-like contacts are pushed in, at first deflect and then can latch in the recesses on the contacts. This requires a correspondingly elastic material and furthermore expensive molds for the production of such an insulating member.
SUMMARY
The invention has as its object to provide an electrical plug-in connector of the kind noted above, which is easy to produce and which, with a one-piece constitution of the insulating member, makes it possible in a simple manner to fix the contacts, whether they are contact pins or female contacts, via recesses and projections engaging therein.
To attain this object, the plug-in contact as noted above further comprises the insulating member having at least one groove, running around its outside and open outward, and intersecting or passing through the holes or bores for the contacts over a portion of their radial extent on their side facing the outside of the insulating member; and in that the groove is arranged on the insulating member at the height at which the recesses of the contacts are located in the use position. A latching or retaining ring is provided, formed of an insulating material and extending at least over a portion of the entire periphery of the insulating member, fitting into the groove of the insulating member and simultaneously engaging in the use position as a projection into the recesses of the contacts. The retaining ring bears at least one inwardly-projecting retaining tongue which in the use position engages into a channel or perforation extending inward from the groove and projects to within the recess of a further contact located in the interior of the imaginary cylinder and its receiving hole or bore.
An integral, one-piece insulating member can be provided in this manner in which corresponding holes or bores are arranged into which the pin-like contacts are to be pushed, the projections fixing these contacts in the axial direction being formed from a common retaining ring, which is located along a groove of the insulating member and intersects or slightly passes through the holes or bores of the contacts, so that the retaining ring located in this groove can engage in the recesses, located at the same height, of the contacts. A multi-part insulating member, or expensive injected projections on the insulating member for axial fixing of the contacts, is thereby avoided.
It is favorable for easy assembly if the retaining ring comprises only a portion of a circle and its two free ends can be moved apart as least so far that their spacing in this deformed state corresponds to the diameter of the insulating member in the region of the floor of the groove. Thus the retaining ring is interrupted and has two free ends, and can be bent such that in spite of its function of enclosing the insulating member in the groove in the use position, it can first be pushed-on from the side. The retaining ring, which can be bent outwardly due to its elasticity, then snaps back into the use position in the groove due to its elasticity and the resulting restoring force and is thereby fixed. At the same time, its elasticity enables it to move slightly aside again when the contacts are pushed into their holes, into which the retaining ring slightly engages.
It is appropriate here if the groove-like recesses on the elongate contacts or contact pins, particularly groove-like recesses running around their circumference, are respectively bounded by a collar or the like, radially outstanding with respect to the contact region, and on the side remote from the recess this collar has a bevel or a cone shape which, on insertion of the contact into its bore, runs on against the retaining ring and deflects this radially until the recess of the contact is in coincidence with the groove of the insulating member, so that the retaining ring then automatically drops into the recess of the contact and thus fixes the contact axially. It follows from this that the contact region proper of the contact has a smaller cross section than this collar and the portion of the contact extending toward the other side.
One of the contacts arranged on an imaginary cylinder can be provided as a grounding contact and left free by the retaining ring, and this grounding contact can be fixed in the axial direction by an electrically conductive retaining spring or the like fitting into the groove of the insulating member and engaging the contact there, particularly gripping and latching the contact with spring arms or the like. This arrangement is advantageous from many aspects, since such plug-in connectors as a rule require a grounding contact. The presence of this grounding contact is used so that the retaining ring has to run only over a portion of the periphery of the insulating member, and thus has to bend outward a correspondingly small amount during assembly, which reduces or avoids the risk of breakage of the retaining ring when mounting it. At the same time an appropriate solution results for the fastening of the grounding contact, in which the presence of the groove running around the insulating member can be correspondingly used. The retaining ring of the grounding contact, namely a retaining spring, can also likewise form the grounding contact connection.
This results in all in an arrangement in which not only easy production, but also a very easy and nevertheless effective assembly are made possible, in that the retaining ring is first placed on the insulating member in its groove, and then the contacts are pushed in the axial direction into the holes or bores such that their own contact regions are situated to the front in the direction of insertion. With their conical region or projection, they then displace the retaining ring, which then however automatically falls into its recess again and thus effects the fastening. Since the retaining ring is resiliently elastic, it can move aside until, during axial insertion, the recess of the contact reaches this region, and the retaining ring can then spring back again. Due to the elasticity of the retaining ring, the contact pins are thus already secured after insertion, and this also holds for a contact pin in an inner position, which engages with a corresponding conical projection or region on the radially inward-facing tongue of the retaining ring and can displace this radially outward, which is likewise possible due
Bartholoma Mario
Bohusch Herbert
Hoch Achim
Anton Hummel Verwaltungs - GmbH
Bradley P. Austin
Chung-Trans X.
Volpe and Koenig P.C.
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