Abstract: An electrical system includes a first substrate (31) having a first contact portion (32, 33) thereon and a second substrates (35) having a second contact portion (36, 37) thereon. An electrical connector is arranged between the first and second substrates for establishing electrical connection therebetween. The electrical connector includes a number of wafers (10) stacked together and each wafer includes at least a passageway (13, 14) defined therein having ends facing the first and second substrates. Each passageway has a terminal (21, 22) moveably supported therein and has end contacting portions (21b, 21c; 22b, 22c) electrically contacting with first and second contact portions of said first and second substrates. The terminal includes an arm (21d, 22d) abutting against an inner side of the passageway.

Abstract: An electrical connector comprises a housing having first and second surfaces and forming a plurality of contact supports formed therein. A plurality of electrical contacts is moveably attached to each corresponding support and has a first contacting end extending beyond the first surface for driving the contact to move along the support upon mating with an electrical device.

Abstract: A cable connector includes an insulative housing (10), a pair of individual terminal modules (12) assembled to the housing, a cable end (14) connected to the terminal modules, an insulator (16) located between the terminal modules and a cover (18) over-molded to the housing and together with the housing enclosing the cable end and the terminal modules. The housing defines two slots (30). Each terminal module includes an insulative base (32), a number of terminals (34) and a grounding blade (38) attaching to the base. The cable end includes a number of conductive cores (60) and a corresponding number of metal webs (62) circling respective conductive cores. The conductive cores are electrically connected to corresponding terminals and the metal webs are electrically connected to corresponding grounding blades. The terminal modules are inserted into the corresponding slots after the terminals and the grounding blades are attached to the insulative base.

Abstract: An electrical system includes a first substrate having a first contact portion thereon and a second substrate having a second contact portion thereon. An electrical connector is arranged between the first and second substrates for establishing electrical connection therebetween. The electrical connector includes a plurality of wafer stacked together and each wafer includes at least a passageway defined therein having ends facing the first and second substrates. Each passageway has a terminal moveably supported therein and has end contacting portions electrically contacting with first and second contact portions of said first and second substrates. The terminal includes an arm abutting against an inner side of the passageway.

Abstract: An electrical card edge connector comprising: (a) a housing defining a slot for receiving an edge of a circuit board and a plurality of cavities along the slot for receiving contacts; (b) a plurality of contacts in the cavities. The plurality of contacts has at least a first contact, a second contact, and a third contact, each of which comprises a body and at least one cantilevered arm extending from the body. At least one cantilevered arm of each contact extends into the slot so that when a circuit board is inserted in the slot, a portion of the cantilevered arm of each contact contacts the circuit board. From a viewpoint parallel to the slot, the profile of the body of the first contact overlaps substantially all of the profile of each body of the second and third contacts. Additionally, from this viewpoint, the profile of one or more cantilever arms of the first contact overlaps a substantial portion of the profile of each cantilever arm of the second and third contacts.

Abstract: The present invention provides an ejection mechanism 10 having an ejector 60 mounted within a housing 40. The housing 40 has an electronic module receiving area 48 and a connector receiving area 50. The ejector 60 is secured to the housing 40 by a pivot pin 80 passing through pivot openings 66, 27, 43. The ejector 60 may be simply urged from a first position to a second position such that a projection 70 causes the electronic module to be ejected.

Abstract: An electrical connector 12 is provided for receiving a card edge into a card-receiving slot 13. A series of contacts 20 are disposed inside contact-receiving cavities 14 which are provided along the card-receiving slot 13. The contacts 20 have a cantilever arm 42, a tail section 40 and a contact section 48 which is lanced from the cantilever arm 42. The contact section 48 is profiled to have a contact point 50 located at a distance from the cantilever arm 42 near a free end 44.

Abstract: An electrical connector 10 having a configurable ground plane 60 is provided. The connector 10 features an insulative housing 20 having an upright section 30 and a board receiving section 28. The board receiving section has open top and bottom outer surfaces 29, 27 for allowing insertion of contacts 50, 52 into contact receiving passages 34, 32. The ground plane 60 is disposed over the top set of contacts 50 and is profiled to engage selected ones of the contacts 50 in the upright section of the passages 34. The ground plane 60 is configurable in that it can be easily adapted to achieve various signal to ground contact ratios by locating contacts 92, 94 at selected positions on fingers 88 which extend into the upright section of the passages 34.

Abstract: An electrical connector 10 is provided for completing a right angle electrical interface between a pair of circuit boards. The connector 10 features an insulative housing 20 having an upright section 30 and a board receiving section 28. The board receiving section has open top and bottom outer surfaces 29, 27 for allowing insertion of contacts 50, 52 into contact receiving passages 34, 32. A ground plane 60 is disposed over the top set of contacts 50 and is profiled to engage selected ones of the contacts 50 in the upright section of the passage 34.

Abstract: An electrical connector 2, suitable for use as a plug for a Universal Serial Bus cable assembly, includes a plurality of terminals 4 that are partially insert molded in a nonconductive housing 36. A distal end 6 of each terminal 4 is recessed from the front end 38 of the housing 36. The terminals 4 are insert molded while still on a carrier and a weakened section 14 is formed at the distal end 6. After the housing 36 is molded, a tensile force is applied to fracture each terminal 4 at the weakened section 14 so that the distal end 6 of each terminal is recessed where it cannot inadvertently contact shields 54, 64 on the plug 2 or a mating receptacle 62. The rear of the housing is overmolded, and the insert molded housing 36 includes sections completely surrounding the terminals 4 so that the overmolded material cannot flow onto a housing mating surface 42 or onto a terminal mating section 10.

Abstract: The present invention is related to an improved boardlock 10 for use in an electrical connector 40. The boardlock 10 features a plurality of arms 16, 18, 20 ,22 extending from a housing securing portion 12. The arms 16, 18, 20, 22 are joined together by integral neck portions 24, 26, 28 which act as pivot points to allow the boardlock 10 to be insertable into a variety of circuit board openings.

Abstract: A smart card reader (10,10') is provided for temporary electrical connection of a smart card (70) to a printed circuit board. The smart card reader (10,10') features a cover (14,14') which is hingeably mounted to a base (12) at a first end (28). The cover (14,14') is biased such that its bottom surface (26) is spaced apart from the base (12) at a second end (29). Card support projections (18) are formed from the cover (14,14') and act in combination with an actuator (20) which extends from the base (12) to draw the cover (14,14') towards the base (12) upon insertion of a smart card (70).

Abstract: A smart card reader 10 is disclosed having a base 12 which is profiled to have a card receiving area 20. Contacts 22,23 are disposed inside a contact receiving 32 of the base and are pivotable about a leg 40. Insertion of a smart card 60 causes the contacts 22,23 to pivot about the pivot point 42 in order to cause contact points 50 to engage contact pads of the smart card 60.

Abstract: A connector (10) for interconnecting circuitry (12, 16) of two circuit boards (14, 18) which carry relatively high frequency signals, includes a receptacle connector (20) and a mating plug connector (24). The receptacle connector (20) includes shield plates (56) between each adjacent pair of signal contacts (58) and the mating plug connector (24) includes a central elongated ground plate (136) that electrically engages each of the shield plates (56). The ground plate (136) includes a plurality of leads (142) along its length that engage ground pads on the circuit board (18). The plug connector (24) includes an outer shield (146) that substantially surrounds the plug connector (24) and includes leads (148) that are attached to the leads (142) of the elongated ground plate (136).

Abstract: An electrical connector 10 is disclosed for connecting two printed circuit boards 50,60. The electrical connector 10 features a insulative housing 12 having a plurality of contacts 18 disposed in contact-receiving slots 32. The contact-receiving slots 32 extend between the mating faces 22,24 and back to a curved end wall 30. A retainer pin 16 is pressed into a retaining slot 14 of the housing to hold the contacts 18 firmly against the curved end wall 30 at a center point 28. Upon mating, the contact will experience a wiping action across the pads 52,62 of each of the circuit boards.

Abstract: An electrical connector assembly 2 for use in connecting parallel printed circuit boards includes a receptacle connector 4 and a plug connector 6. The receptacle connector 4 includes receptacle contacts 8, each of which includes a surface mount solder tail 16 and a mating contact section in the form of a resilient arm 26 on opposite sides of a sealing pad 18 that seals a contact insertion opening 38 when the receptacle contact 8 is fully inserted. The mating contact portion is therefore isolated from contaminating materials, such as solder flux during surface mount solder operations. The height of the connector assembly 2 can be adjusted by using plug connectors 6 of different heights with a universal receptacle connector 4. The height of the side walls 60 on the plug housing 12, between a plug mating section and contact retention section is changed for different plug connector heights.

Abstract: An electrical connector assembly 2 for use in connecting parallel printed circuit boards includes a receptacle connector 4 and a plug connector 6. The receptacle connector 4 includes receptacle contacts 8, each of which includes a surface mount solder tail 16 and a mating contact section in the form of a resilient arm 26 on opposite sides of a sealing pad 18 that seals a contact insertion opening 38 when the receptacle contact 8 is fully inserted. The mating contact portion is therefore isolated from contaminating materials, such as solder flux during surface mount solder operations. The height of the connector assembly 2 can be adjusted by using plug connectors 6 of different heights with a universal receptacle connector 4. The height of the side walls 60 on the plug housing 12, between a plug mating section and contact retention section is changed for different plug connector heights.

Abstract: An electrical contact comprises a generally flat contact body having a central member and a pair of compliant sections formed as tandem loops on opposite sides of the central member. Each of the compliant sections has a contact section at an end remote from the central member, and the body is resiliently compressible along an axis of deflection extending through the central member and the contact sections.

Abstract: A miniature electrical connector (10) having two rows of closely spaced signal contacts (40) extending from a board-mounting face (30) to a mating face (32), and having extended height. An insert (100) is assembled within a large cavity (36) of the housing (20) to define inner walls of passageways of the housing containing the contacts (40). A planar metal member (102) of the insert can define a ground bus for preventing crosstalk between the two rows of contacts, or can facilitate assembly and retention of the insert in the housing, or both, providing very thin elongate inner walls for the contact passageways while simplifying molding of the housing.

Abstract: A method for assembling an electrical connector (10) to the edge (18) of a printed circuit board (12). A machine (50) incorporates an actuating mechanism that requires only a single input motion to achieve a variety of functional motions within the machine. The machine includes a carriage assembly (54) that moves substantially vertically within the frame of the machine to sense the thickness of the circuit board and then to align the centerline of the connector held on fixture (280) with the exact center plane (44) of the board. A slide member (140) then moves toward the connector, causing a pair of comb members (252,254) to close into position in front of the moving connector. The solder tails (38,40) of the connector (10) then enter spaced slots (260) in the edges of the comb members for support and the connector housing engages the face (272) of the combs, pushing them toward the circuit board.