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US 5,807,123 AGranted
Radio-telephone cradle connector
AssigneeThe Whitaker Corporation
InventorsHans Spiegelaar, Eric Van Der Heyden, Jacobus Nicolaas Tuin
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AssigneeThe Whitaker Corporation
InventorsHans Spiegelaar, Eric Van Der Heyden, Jacobus Nicolaas Tuin
Estimating the term…
A cradle connector for a radio-telephone base station has a plurality of terminals mounted in insulative housings the terminal interconnected by a shorting bar inmoulded to the housing. The terminals have spring section and contacts that are depressible against action of the spring to allow relatively large tolerances in the positioning of the telephone with respect to the base station. The contacts have extensions that abut against the shorting bar when the connector is disconnected, whereby one of the terminals is connected to ground so that electrostatic discharges do not damage the base station circuitry. Certain extensions can be removed for some of the terminals if such terminals should not be grounded (e.g. power terminals). The shorting bar could be made of wire that interconnects a plurality of housings during manufacturing and handling for reducing the cost thereof. The cradle connector is thus compact, cost-effective and protected against electrostatic discharge.
A cradle connector for interconnecting a frequently removable and replaceable telephone to a base station, the connector comprising an insulative housing having cavities therein, and terminals mountable within the cavities, the terminals comprising connection sections for electrical connection to electrical circuitry of the base station, contact sections for electrical connection to complementary contacts of the removable device, and supple meandering spring sections intermediate the contact and connection sections for allowing resilient biasing of the contact sections to compensate for relatively large tolerances in positioning of the device, wherein the cradle connector comprises a shorting bar electrically interconnecting the terminals when disconnected to the removable device.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.