Electrical contact for plug-in connector
AssigneeITT Manufacturing Enterprises, Inc.
InventorsAndreas Michael Schremmer, Rene Körber
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An electrical contact (10) which can engage a mating terminal (50) for electrical connection and detachable latching thereto. The contact includes a piece of sheet metal bent to form at least one guide plate (13, 14) and a bias plate (15) lying facewise adjacent to the guide plate. The bias plate has a front end upper portion or nose (38) with a top (104) that lies above an adjacent location (24, 25) on the guide plate, but the nose can be resiliently downwardly deflected and then tends to spring up again. A recess (17) in the bottom of the guide plate front portion receives the mating terminal, and the upper bias of the nose of the bias plate keeps the guide plate pressed down against the terminal lying in its recess, to thereby latch the two connectors together.
Claims17
A contact for engaging a terminal, wherein:
- said contact includes a piece of sheet metal that has at least one bend to form a bias plate and at least a first guide plate lying facewise adjacent and in largely parallel planes and joined at said bend, said contact and said bias and guide plate having front and rear portions;
- said guide plate front portion has a lower end that lies below a lower end of the front portion of said bias plate;
- said bias plate front portion has a top that initially extends above a top of said guide plate front portion and said bias plate top can be resiliently deflected downward relative to said guide plate, to thereby enable resilient compression of said contact front portion.
A contact for mounting in a housing of a first connector and for engaging a terminal of a mating second connector, wherein:
- said contact includes a piece of sheet metal that is bent to form three facewise adjacent plates in largely parallel planes, including a pair of outer plates and an inner plate sandwiched between said outer plates, said plate front portions have upper and lower ends, and each plate has longitudinally spaced front and rear portions;
- the front portion of said inner plate has an upper end lying above adjacent locations on upper ends said outer plates, said inner plate having a lower end lying at a greater height than adjacent locations on lower ends of said outer plates, and said inner plate front portion is resiliently deflectable downwardly to resiliently reduce the effective height of the front portion of the contact.
A combination of first and second connectors that each have an insulator, said first connector having a contact mounted to the insulator of said first connector and said second connector having a terminal, wherein:
- said contact comprises a piece of sheet metal bent to form a guide plate and a biasing plate that are joined by a bend, said plates lying facewise adjacent to each other and in largely parallel planes and having front portions with upper and lower ends, said biasing plate being resiliently deflectable downward from an initial position, wherein said biasing plate front portion upper end lies above said guide plate front portion upper end, to a deflected position wherein the upper ends of said plate front portions are at substantially the same heights, said guide plate front portion lower end lying below said biasing plate front portion lower end in said initial and deflected positions;
- the insulator of said second connector forming a cavity with vertically spaced upper and lower cavity walls, for receiving a front of said contact between them, said terminal lying at one of said cavity walls, said cavity having an entrance with a height that is small enough to deflect said biasing plate from said initial position to said deflected position, to thereby cause vertical pressure of said contact against said terminal.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.