Modular jack having inlined printed circuit board

A modular jack comprising:

• a one piece insulative unitary housing including a middle wall cooperating with opposite top and bottom walls and opposite two sides walls to commonly define a front mating port;
• a mounting port formed behind the middle wall opposite to the mating port;
• a plurality of grooves extending through the middle wall in a front-to-back direction, each of said grooves further extending through the top wall;
• a plurality of contacts configured to be forwardly inserted into the corresponding grooves from the mounting port and terminated at the mating port, each of said contacts including a stationary horizontal section retained in the top wall, and a deflectable oblique section linked to a front end of the horizontal section with a free end abutting against the middle wall in a preloaded manner;
• and
• an inner printed circuit board obliquely assembled to the housing between two opposite side walls in a side view;
• wherein
• said printed circuit board defines an upper edge region far away from a bottom face of the housing while being close to the middle wall to have tails of the stationary horizontal sections connected thereto, and a bottom edge region far away from the middle wall while close to a bottom face of the housing, and a plurality of conductive footer pins are connected to the bottom edge region with legs downwardly extending below the bottom face of the housing for mounting to an external printed circuit board on which the housing is seated.

A method of assembling a modular jack, comprising steps of:

• providing a one-piece insulative unitary housing with opposite top and bottom walls and opposite two side walls and a middle wall to commonly define a front mating port;
• providing a mounting port behind the middle wall;
• providing a plurality of through grooves in the middle wall along a front-to-back direction, each of said grooves further extending into the top wall;
• initially forwardly inserting a plurality of contacts into the grooves from the mounting port and through the middle wall and terminated at the mating port to have a stationary horizontal section retained in the top wall and a deflectable oblique section with a free end retained by the middle wall in a preloaded manner;
• and
• successively assembling an inner printed circuit board into the mounting port of the housing and having an upper edge region of the printed circuit board close to the middle wall while far away from a bottom face of the housing, and a lower edge region of the printed circuit board far away from the middle wall while being close to the bottom face of the housing so as to have said printed circuit board in an oblique manner in a side view;
• wherein
• tails of the stationary horizontal sections of the contacts are connected to the upper edge region of the printed circuit board.