Wire harness structure

Details Wire harness structure Wire harness structure

2001-08-02

2003-01-07

Nguyen, Khiem (Department: 2839)

Electrical connectors

With flaccid conductor and with additional connector spaced...

C439S724000, C439S949000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06503098

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to a wire harness structure for connecting separate (divided) wire harnesses together, and more particularly to a wire harness structure capable of efficiently splicing (Going) wires of the wire harnesses together.
2. Description of Related Art
Electrical equipment mounted on an automobile obtain electric power and a lot of information fed from switch sensors and the like, through wires, and therefore wire harnesses, having a large amount of wires concealed from the view, are installed in the vehicle, Here, the term “wire harness” means a bundle of wires of various kinds joined together by a corrugated tube, a tape or the like.
In view of the productivity and the ability of mounting on a vehicle body, the wire harnesses of suitable lengths are provided in a divided manner, and are mounted respectively at various portions, such as an engine room, an instrument panel a door and a seat, and the wire harnesses are connected together through suitable connection means such as a connector. This is usually referred to as “wire-to-wire connection”.
The wire harnesses connecting the electrical equipments are arranged in complicated paths, and therefore, parts of wires forming the wire harnesses need to be spliced, and particularly at the wire-to-wire portion, the wires often need to be spliced over the wire harnesses This has been the cause of an increased number of the wires.
One example of methods of thus splicing wires over a plurality of wire harnesses is shown in FIG.
11
.
In
FIG. 11
, a wire harness
1
is mounted in an engine room, and a wire harness
2
is mounted on an instrument panel. These wire harnesses
1
and
2
are connected together through a connector
3
.
A circuit group
4
of the wire harness
1
comprises two wires A and one wire B. and in
FIG. 11
, the two lower wires B and A are spliced to the uppermost wire A.
As shown in
FIG. 13
described in detail later, the wires A, B and C are used in accordance with equipment specifications. More specifically, the wires A are connected to units provided as standard (that is, in all variations), and wires B and C are connected to units provided in accordance with the variations.
As shown in
FIG. 11
, a circuit group
5
of the wire harness
2
comprises wires A, B and C, and the two lower wires A and C are spliced to the uppermost wire B.
Therefore, these wires A to C are spliced over the wire harnesses
1
and
2
through the connector
3
.
As shown in
FIGS. 12A and 12B
, with respect to the splicing of the wires A to C of the circuit groups
4
and
5
, a sheath is removed from an arbitrary portion of a sheathed wire
6
, and a wire
7
is connected to this sheath-removed portion, and these connected portions are spliced together by press-deforming a press-fastening member
8
.
Assuming that with respect to wire harnesses of this kind, there are four Item Nos.
1
to
4
of splice specifications as shown in
FIG. 13
, it is necessary to splice the circuit groups
4
and
5
of the wire harnesses
1
and
2
in accordance with the splice specifications (including four Item Nos.
1
to
4
) after removing the sheaths from the wires A to C. Therefore, it has been necessary to produce four kinds of circuit groups corresponding respectively to the four Item Nos.
1
to
4
, and therefore the production cost of the wire harnesses has increased, and the production has been very cumbersome.
In order to overcome such a disadvantage, methods of splicing wires by the use of a joint connector have been extensively used. One example of such splicing methods is shown in FIG.
14
. In
FIG. 14
, the construction of wire harnesses is similar to that shown in
FIG. 11
, and therefore, only splice portions will be described.
In
FIG. 14
, two wires A and one wire B are spliced to a circuit group
10
of a wire harness
1
through a joint connector
100
, and one wire A, one wire B and one wire B are spliced to a circuit group
11
of a wire harness
2
through another joint connector
101
.
As shown in
FIG. 15
, each of the joint connectors
100
and
101
comprises a connector
102
, into which crimp-type terminals secured respectively to one ends of the wires A to C are inserted, and a bus bar connector
9
containing bus bars
9
a.
As shown in
FIG. 14
, the wires
10
and
11
, connected through a connector
3
, are connected to the joint connectors
100
and
101
, respectively, and the wires A to C are spliced over the wire harnesses
1
and
2
through the wires
10
and
11
.
In the splicing method using these joint connectors
100
and
101
, merely by connecting the wires A to C to the joint connectors
6
and
7
in accordance with a selected one of the Item Nos.
1
to
4
(as shown in FIG.
13
), the wires A to C can be spliced over the wire harnesses
1
and
2
in accordance with the selected Item Number. Therefore, it is not necessary to produce four kinds of wire harnesses corresponding respectively to the four Item Nos.
1
to
4
, and there are achieved advantages that the cost of production of the wire harnesses is prevented from increasing, and that the production of the wire harnesses can be carried out easily.
In recent years, the control of automobiles has become more and more advanced, and many ECUs (electronic Control Units) have been mounted on the automobile, and the high-speed transfer of information between the ECUs for an engine, an ABS (Antilock Brake System), a transmission and the like has become indispensable. The transfer of signals between the engine, the ABS, the transmission and the like is enabled by a CAN (Control Area Network) forming a high-speed communication network in the automobile.
This CAN is capable of effecting a multiplex communication (that is, a serial data communication) at high speed, and therefore, the number of wires can be much reduced, and a compact, lightweight design of a wire harness can be achieved.
However, generally, a shielded wire, as shown in
FIG. 18A
, is used as a communication wire (that is, a serial data wire), used in the CAN, in order to eliminate the effects of noises, and such serial data wires are often spliced over wire harnesses.
One conventional method of splicing serial data wires of this type is shown in
FIGS. 16 and 17
. Basically, this method also uses joint connectors as in FIG.
14
.
In
FIGS. 16 and 17
, reference numerals
11
,
12
and
13
denote wire harnesses, and in view of the productivity and the ability of mounting on a vehicle body, these wire harnesses
11
,
12
and
13
of suitable lengths are provided in a divided manner, and are mounted respectively at various portions such as an engine room, a dash panel and an instrument panel.
The wire harnesses
11
to
13
include their respective serial data wires
11
a
,
12
a
,
12
b
,
12
c
and
13
a
each including a shielded wire. As shown in
FIG. 17B
, each of these serial data wires comprises two wires a and b and one drain wire c. This drain wire c forms a metal film, and these wires are collectively covered with a tube.
As shown in
FIG. 17A
, one end of the serial data wire
11
a
is connected to an ECU
16
, and the other end of this serial data wire
11
a
is connected to one end of the serial data wire
12
a
through a connector
14
. The other end of this serial data wire
12
a
is connected to a joint connector
19
containing bus bars.
One end of the serial data wire
12
b
is connected to an ECU
17
, and the other end of this serial data wire
12
b
is connected to the joint connector
19
.
One end of the serial data wire
12
c
is connected to one end of the serial data wire
13
a
through a connector
15
, and the other end of this serial data wire
12
c
is connected to the joint connector
19
. The other end of the serial data wire
13
a
is connected to an ECU
18
.
The serial data wires
12
a
to
12
c
are thus spliced to the joint connector, and with this arrangement the serial data wires
11
a
,
12
a
to
12
c
and
13
a
are spliced over the wire harnesses
11
to
13
as shown in FIG.

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