Supports – Brackets – Article holding means
Patent
1992-11-19
1994-09-06
Foss, J. Franklin
Supports
Brackets
Article holding means
361707, 361708, A47G 110
Patent
active
053441133
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to a multiple spring-retention device designed to fasten a plurality of aligned components onto a support, by means of elastic loading of these components against this support. More particularly, the invention relates to a device of this type which is adapted to fastening electronic components on a support forming a thermal radiator, with a view to cooling these components. The present invention also aims to provide a method for producing a device of this type.
Nowadays, an electronic power component is commonly fastened onto a radiator with the aid of a spring produced by cutting out and folding "spring" sheet steel. In certain electronic housings comprising several aligned power components, for example on an edge of an electronic circuit support, the fastening of these components onto a common radiator with the aid of individual springs is costly in terms of manpower. Thus, for mass production, "multiple" retention devices have been designed, which, in an adapted monoblock form, combine several springs or elastic tabs which simultaneously squeeze all the components after a single, and thus economical, assembly of the device in the housing. A multiple "clip" or device of this type, acting by pinching between two rows of elastic tabs, is disclosed in European Patent No. 0,195,701, granted to BENDIX ELECTRONICS S.A.
Multiple devices of this type have been satisfactory but, nevertheless, have certain limitations. Their form is rigid and adapted to only one configuration of aligned components. Their production by means of cutting out and folding sheet metal leads to the wastage of scraps of sheet metal of up to, for example, 30% of the surface of the blanks used, which is uneconomical. A longer multiple device requires the use of a more powerful cutting press, the more so as it is then often necessary to use harder stainless steel in order to prevent major deformations during the heat treatment which is necessary to obtain a spring steel.
Moreover, the device may comprise only one single row of elastic tabs and a small bar connecting these tabs cut out simultaneously, in a single operation, the tabs generally being oriented perpendicularly to the axis of the small bar. As the sheet metal used has undergone a rolling treatment, the tabs can be provided with good elasticity by cutting them out in the direction of the rolling treatment. At the same time, the small connection bar is oriented perpendicularly to this rolling-treatment direction, which lowers its resistance to the bending stresses to which it is subjected in reaction to the pressures applied by the tabs on the components to be fastened. The rigidity of the small bar may then be insufficient and it becomes deformed. This drawback may be alleviated by using a thicker sheet metal, a solution which results in an increase in the cost of the device and the resistance to bending of the elastic tabs. If the orientations of the elastic tabs and of the small bar relative to the rolling-treatment direction are reversed, it is the tabs, on the contrary, which will have their resistance to bending reduced.
Moreover, a requirement has arisen for a method for manufacturing retention devices of this type, making it possible to produce devices of a "modular" nature, in order simply and economically to manufacture a family of devices of this type which are adaptable to any arrangement of electronic components to be fastened onto a radiator. Thus, for example, in automobile electronics, the various versions of one and the same fuel-injection computer may, according to the functions implemented in this computer, have a greater or smaller number of power components arranged in various configurations and even, if appropriate, with various spacings, on an edge of an electronic board of this computer. The known methods for producing multiple spring-retention devices then result in different manufacturing processes, with as many cutting-out and folding tools as there are different versions of the computer. This manner of proceeding is expensive
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Foss J. Franklin
Siemens Aktiengesellschaft
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