Electrical contact

Abstract

An electrical contact formed from a plurality of interlaced and annealed wires by weaving or braiding the wires together to form a mesh, annealing the mesh, and cutting the an-nealed mesh so as to form a plurality of individual electrical con-tacts. A method for forming a precursor material for use in man-ufacturing an electrical contact is also provided that includes ma-nipulating a plurality of wires so as to interlace the wires into a unitary structure. The unitary structure is then annealed. An electrical contact may then be formed from the precursor mate-rial by elastically rolling a portion of the unitary structure so as to form a tube, annealing the tube, and then cutting the unitary struc-ture so as to release the tube thereby to form an electrical contact. An electrical contact may also be formed by folding a portion of the unitary structure so as to form one or more pleats, annealing the pleated unitary structure, and then cutting the pleated unitary structure so as to release one or more electrical contacts. The pre-cursor material may also be formed by photo-etching a sheet of conductive material so as to form a mesh, and then annealing the mesh. A connector system may be formed including a housing defining a plurality of openings that are each filled with an elec-trical contact comprising a plurality of interlaced and annealed wires that have been previously either rolled or pleated.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.