Electrical connectors – With guiding means for mating of coupling part – Rodlike guide member extending in coupling direction or...
Reexamination Certificate
2000-02-15
2001-04-17
Bradley, Paula (Department: 2833)
Electrical connectors
With guiding means for mating of coupling part
Rodlike guide member extending in coupling direction or...
C439S157000, C439S310000, C439S362000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06217368
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to cable-to-card connectors and, more particularly, to a system for simplifying plugging and unplugging operations and for preventing any risk of bending pins and damaging contacts; first, by guiding male and female connectors; and second, by multiplying the operator insertion/extraction force.
BACKGROUND ART
Large Input/Output Connectors
The great progress realized these last years in the data processing technology now allows the interconnection of numerous sub-systems with a constantly growing number of input and output signals. The reduction of the overall size of connectors leads to increase of the density of both pins and contacts. However, higher is the number of transmitted signals per connection, more fragile and thinner are the pins and contacts. The standard connectors which are the most frequently used, are manually inserted. The retention of the cable connector is done mainly by means of mechanical devices such as screws, springs, embossing or different kinds of latching.
Inserting Force
FIGS. 1
to
4
show an overview of the particular problems encountered by the plugging and unplugging of large cable connectors. Large cable connectors (
1
) (more than 80 pins) are very often designed as an extension of small size connectors which, as for them, can be easily plugged and unplugged manually. But the insertion force is directly related to number of pins.
The improvement of the Radiated Frequency Interference (RFI), Electro-Static Discharge (ESD), Electrical Fast Transient (EFT) behaviour of large connectors requires additional contacts between male and female shells (
16
). These contacts are achieved due to special embossing or springs on the male shell which also have, by sliding friction, the adverse effect of drastically increasing the insertion force.
Therefore, it becomes very difficult for an operator to smoothly insert and remove such assemblies. As described in
FIG. 2
, the operator is forced to plug and unplug the pins sequentially, by applying a kind of wavy motion. But, since the pins are very fragile, this kind of un-straight motion may lead to contact damages (
6
) and indirectly to machines misfunctions as show in FIG.
4
.
The connector latching systems very often increases the above problem. As shown in
FIG. 1
, the retention system, the most frequently used, consists of a couple of screws (
3
) which fit in threaded studs (
4
) on the receiving connector (
2
). Most of time, the operator does not have the force to plug completely the connector and to complete the job, he uses the retention screws (
3
) or other plugging tools. Instead of turning the two screws at the same time, the operator tightens screws one after the other, which does not move the cable connector straightly, but with an angle as shown in FIG.
3
.
Pins follow the same motion and go in sockets with a wrong orientation which bends pins (
5
) and opens female sockets (
6
) (FIG.
4
).
A system adapted to connectors having a small number of
110
is not endlessly expendable to large connectors. There is a limit which depends upon several different parameters:
connector shape,
accessibility,
contact technology,
operator,
etc.
To give an approximate limit, when the insertion force is above approximately 20 kg, an assisted device is highly recommended for plugging or unplugging male and female connectors.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Plugging and Unplugging Operations
First, to prevent the risk of damaging contacts male and female contacts must be plugged/unplugged by means of a linear translation, without any leading angle. Connectors must move straight without any rotation as shown in FIG.
1
. Thus, A guiding device (also known as guiding structure or guiding assembly) is required for placing and maintaining the male and female connectors lined up during the connection/disconnection operations.
Second, the insertion force of connectors with large number of pins is very important. Most operators have difficulties to plug or unplug male and female connectors. A device for multiplying the force of operators is required for exercising enough pressure to insert the connectors or enough force to separate the connectors.
Finally, to avoid any tilting of connectors while their insertion or extraction, the force must be applied in the connectors axis.
The object of the present invention is to smoothly plug and unplug large input/output connectors without bending pins and damaging contacts.
It is a further object of the invention to:
guide the cable and receiving connectors,
multiply the operator's insertion/extraction force and
center the forces on the connectors axis.
It is another object of the invention to design a cable connector which can be smoothly plugged and unplugged on standard receiving connectors.
The cable connector comprises a fixed part with placing and maintaining means and a movable part ensuring electrical contacts with the receiving connector. The fixed part comprises pushing and/or pulling means for pushing and/or pulling the movable part of the cable connector. The placing and maintaining means comprise guiding posts to be fixed to the receiving connector and on which the movable part of the cable connector can freely slide.
REFERENCES:
patent: 3755771 (1973-08-01), Brush
patent: 4577919 (1986-03-01), Waters
patent: 4898541 (1990-02-01), Lhuillier
patent: 5098312 (1992-03-01), Raczynski
patent: 5125849 (1992-06-01), Briggs et al.
patent: 5197900 (1993-03-01), Ellis et al.
patent: 5391091 (1995-02-01), Nations
patent: 5647758 (1997-07-01), Ichikawa et al.
patent: 5859766 (1999-01-01), Van Scyoc et al.
patent: 5873745 (1999-02-01), Duclos et al.
patent: 6053761 (2000-04-01), Baron et al.
patent: 3902230 (1990-08-01), None
patent: 0674362 (1995-09-01), None
European Search Report for application No. EP 98 48 0025.
Baron Dominique
Centola Bruno
Conde Jean
Bradley Paula
Cockburn Joscelyn G.
International Business Machines - Corporation
Nguyen Truc
LandOfFree
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