Connector and manufacturing method thereof

A manufacturing method of a connector, comprising the steps of:

• providing two rows of conductive terminals, and injection molding an insulating block onto each row of conductive terminals to form two terminal modules, wherein each row of conductive terminals defines a plurality of contacting portions protruding beyond the corresponding insulating block;
• assembling the two terminal modules together;
• directly injection molding a housing onto the two terminal modules, wherein the housing defines a mating portion extending along a front-to-rear direction and including two opposite mating surfaces in a vertical direction perpendicular to the front-to-rear direction, and wherein said contacting portions of two rows of conductive terminals are respectively exposed on the two opposite mating surfaces of the housing further providing a metal piece including a shielding portion and two grounding portions extending from the shielding portion, and mounting the metal piece onto one of the two terminal modules, then assembling the two terminal modules together, wherein the shielding portion is located between two rows of contacting portions of the two terminal modules and the grounding portions extend out of the insulating blocks;
• wherein the housing includes a base injection molded onto the insulating blocks of said terminal modules, the mating portion extends forwardly from a front end of the base, said two rows of conductive terminals define two rows of tail portions extending beyond the housing and spaced in the vertical direction to form a receiving space therebetween;
• wherein said two grounding portions are disposed respectively at two sides of and in a line with one row of the tail portions of one of the two terminal modules, the base defines a pair of arms respectively extending backwardly from two sides thereof in a left-to-right direction perpendicular to both the vertical and front-to-rear directions, the two arms define a pair of mounting slots respectively at two opposite sides thereof, said two rows of tail portions of said two terminal modules and said two grounding portions of the metal piece are all between the two arms, said a pair of mounting slots are respectively disposed at two sides of the receiving space in the left-to-right direction and facing the receiving space.

An electrical connector comprising:

• a pair of terminal modules back to back assembled with each other in a vertical direction, each of said terminal modules including a plurality of contacts embedded within an insulator via a first insert molding process, each of said contacts including a front contacting section, a middle retention section and a rear tail section, said front contacting section having a raised portion with a greater thickness than the middle retention section and the rear tail section;
• an insulative housing applied upon said pair of terminal modules via a second insert molding process, and defining a pair of mating surfaces obliquely opposite to each other, each of said mating surfaces being coplanar with outer surfaces of the raised portions of the corresponding contacting sections of the corresponding terminal module;
• wherein
• the housing essentially fully encloses the insulators of said pair of terminal modules, and is fully exposed to an exterior vertically in said vertical direction and forwardly in a front-to-back direction perpendicular to said vertical direction wherein each insulator includes a first shoulder structure, and the housing forms a pair of second shoulder structures to compliantly enclose the corresponding first shoulder structures therein;
• wherein a metallic shielding plate is sandwiched between the pair of terminal modules in the vertical direction;
• wherein each terminal modules defines a cutout without contacts thereabouts, and the mating surface defines a concave portion corresponding to said cutout in said vertical direction.