Card extraction and separation system

#1. Field of the Invention

#This invention relates generally to computer systems and, more particularly, to a technique for separating and extracting printed circuit boards within a computer system.

#2. Background of the Related Art

#The foregoing and other advantages of the invention will become apparent upon reading the following detailed description and upon reference to the drawings in which:

#FIG. 1 illustrates a perspective view of a computer system in accordance with the present techniques;

#FIG. 2 illustrates a perspective view of a basket assembly in accordance with the present techniques;

#One or more specific embodiments of the present invention will be described below. In an effort to provide a concise description of these embodiments, not all features of an actual implementation are described in the specification. It should be appreciated that in the development of any such actual implementation, as in any engineering or design project, numerous implementation-specific decisions must be made to achieve the developers' specific goals, such as compliance with system-related and business-related constraints, which may vary from one implementation to another. Moreover, it should be appreciated that such a development effort might be complex and time consuming, but would nevertheless be a routine undertaking of design, fabrication, and manufacture for those of ordinary skill having the benefit of this disclosure.

#Turning now to the drawings and referring initially to FIG. 1, a perspective view of a computer system is generally illustrated as reference numeral 10. The computer system 10 may include a user interface (not shown), such as a keyboard, a mouse, light pen, buttons or voice recognition system. The system 10 may also include a display (not shown) such as an LCD display, a CRT, LEDs and/or audio display. The computer system 10 includes a chassis 12 to house the processors, memory devices, expansion cards, disk drives, etc. which may be included in the system 10. As can be appreciated by those skilled in the art, a system circuit board or “motherboard” (not shown) is generally mounted to the floor of the chassis 12. The view of the motherboard in the presently described system is obstructed by the floor of the card basket assembly 14, which will be described with reference to FIGS. 2-5. The motherboard may include one or more processors, memory chips and associated devices, as well as one or more connectors to provide mechanical and electrical connections for one or more printed circuit boards (“daughter boards” or “cards”). The daughter boards may provide additional processing and memory capabilities for the system 10, for example. An exemplary daughter board 16 (along with the card divider and card extractor assembly explained further below) is shown in the exploded view of FIG. 1 and further illustrated with reference to FIGS. 2 and 3.

#The daughter board 16 may be vertically coupled to the system motherboard. Card connectors on the motherboard (mounted in the base of the chassis) are adapted to mateably receive a plurality of respective edge connectors 18 which extend along the edge of the daughter board 16. Each of the edge connectors 18 includes a number of metal contacts or “fingers” which extend along the edge connector 18 to provide electrically conductive contact points such that electrical signals may be exchanged between the daughter board 16 and the motherboard. Each of the contact fingers may be gold plated, for instance. The edge connectors 18 are configured such that they may be removably engaged with the connectors on the motherboard.