Patent Application
20230064235
The present disclosure relates to a connector, and more specifically, to a connector for plugging into a bus bar and an electrical device comprising the same.
A connector used in a high current density application needs to be grounded so as to ensure safe operation. However, in the prior art, it is a typical arrangement that power terminals and grounding terminals of the connector are arranged in a row, which may risk short-circuiting of the power terminals of the connector in certain conditions (such as relatively high humidity, failure or error in assembly, etc.) risk. And when assembling various connecting components, due to an error in aligning the various connecting components or manufacturing tolerances of the various connecting components themselves, then it may be too difficult for the grounding terminals to provide sufficient contact forces upon being inserted into the bus bar to contact reliably with a respective one of ground wires in the bus bar, eventually resulting in a failure in grounding the grounding terminals, and in turn an electric failure or a potential hazard of such electric failure of an electrical equipment comprising the connector.
Accordingly, improved connector designs are desired.
According to one embodiment of the present disclosure, a connector for plugging into a bus bar comprises a housing with a first side wall, a second side wall, and a connecting channel between the first side wall and the second side wall. A plurality of power terminals each having an electrical connection part are provided inside the connecting channel and are adapted to electrically connect with the bus bar. A plurality of grounding terminals are each disposed on the first side wall and the second side wall outside the connecting channel respectively. Each of the grounding terminals have an elastic first finger. An auxiliary support member is provided and supports the first finger.
The invention will now be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying Figures, of which:
Exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure will be described hereinafter in detail with reference to the attached drawings, wherein the like reference numerals refer to the like elements. The present disclosure may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as being limited to the embodiment set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided so that the present disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the concept of the disclosure to those skilled in the art.
In the following detailed description, for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the disclosed embodiments. It will be apparent, however, that one or more embodiments may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well-known structures and devices are schematically shown in order to simplify the drawing.
Hereinafter, the structure of the connector 100 according to the embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to
The connector 100 comprises a housing 110, power terminals 130, two grounding terminals 140, an auxiliary support member 150 and a mating plate 160. The housing 110 has a first side wall 121, a second side wall 122, and a connecting channel 120 between the first side wall 121 and the second side wall 122, and the connecting channel 120 extends longitudinally so as to be plugged into the bus bar 20. The housing 110 also has two shoulders 111, which are located on two opposite sides of the connecting channel 120 and extend from the first side wall 121 and the second side wall 122 in respective extending directions away from the connecting channel 120 respectively. In this embodiment, one of the shoulders 111 extends substantially perpendicular to a respective one of the first side wall 121 and the second side wall 122, and the other one of the shoulders 111 extends substantially perpendicular to the other one of the first side wall 121 and the second side wall 122. The mating plate 160 is generally made of copper. The two shoulders 111 are provided with threaded holes 112, respectively, so as to fix a main body 161 of the mating plate 160 to the two shoulders 111 and the main body 161 is provided with an opening 1611 through which the connecting channel 120 passes, so as to facilitate assembling the mating plate 160 onto the connector 100. Two wings 162 of the mating plate 160 extend longitudinally from the main body 161 in respective lengthwise directions away from the connecting channel 120, respectively, so as to connect to a ground wire (not shown) in the electrical equipment, and the two wings 162 are provided with a plurality of perforations 1621 for heat dissipation and are located outside the two cables 30, 31 respectively (see
In this embodiment, the connector 100 comprises two grounding terminals 140 located outside the connecting channel 120, respectively. Each of the grounding terminals 140 is in a form of a substantially “L” shape, and a part of each of the grounding terminal 140 (i.e., first fingers 141 described below) may be disposed on the first side wall 121 or the second side wall 122 of the connecting channel 120, and the other part (i.e., fixing fingers 142 described below) of each of the grounding terminal 140 may be provided on each of the two shoulders 111.
In this embodiment, the connector 100 comprises two power terminals 130 electrically connected to the positive cable 30 and the negative cable 31 respectively, and each of the power terminals 130 has an electrical connecting component 131 disposed inside the connecting channel 120. The electrical connecting component 131 may be used for electrically connecting with the bus bar 20 to be plugged, and two electrical connecting components 131 are arranged to be spaced apart from each other on the first side wall 121 and the second side wall 122 of the connecting channel 120 respectively, as shown in
Therefore, the power terminals 130 are spaced apart from the grounding terminals 140 by the connecting channel 120, which greatly reduces or even eliminates a risk of short circuit of the power terminals 130 in some cases, and thus improves safety performance of the connector 100 and the electrical equipment comprising the connector 100.
As shown in
As described above, in order to enhance respective elastic forces provided by the at least one first finger 141, then, as shown in
As shown in
As described above, in order to facilitate fixing the grounding terminals 140 to respective shoulders 111, each of the grounding terminals 140 further has two fixing fingers 142, and each of the two fixing fingers 142 is fixed, by respective first plug-in parts 144 protruding therefrom, to a respective shoulder 111 . In order to enhance the abutment between the grounding terminal 140 and the mating plate 160 and in turn improving a grounding performance of the grounding terminal 140, each of the grounding terminals 140 also has two second fingers 143 which are elastic, which are located between the two fixing fingers 142 and extend obliquely from a plane defined by the two fixing fingers 142, so that when the two fixing fingers 142 and the two second fingers 143 are sandwiched between the respective shoulder 111 and the main body 161 of the mating plate 160, the second fingers 143 reliably abuts against the mating plate 160 so as to ensure reliable contact between each of the grounding terminals 140 and the mating plate 160. In order to further facilitate fixing each of the grounding terminals 140 to the respective shoulder 111, a second plug-in part 145 is arranged between respective roots 1431 of the two second fingers 143 and protrudes from between the roots 1431, for being plugged into the respective shoulder 111. In the embodiment of the present application, both the first plug-in parts 144 and the second plug-in part 145 are all set into the shape of a tuning fork, however, they may also be set into other suitable shapes according to actual needs. In the present application, the specific number of the first plug-in parts 144 and the second plug-in part 145 may not be restrictive.
By this fixing method of the grounding terminals 140 and the substantially “L”-shaped structure of the grounding terminals 140, each of the grounding terminals 140 is basically abutted against the respective shoulder 111 of the housing 110 of the connector 100 and a respective surface of the connecting channel 120 (see
As shown in
In addition, those areas in which it is believed that those of ordinary skill in the art are familiar, have not been described herein in order not to unnecessarily obscure the invention described. Accordingly, it has to be understood that the invention is not to be limited by the specific illustrative embodiments, but only by the scope of the appended claims.
It should be appreciated for those skilled in this art that the above embodiments are intended to be illustrated, and not restrictive. For example, many modifications may be made to the above embodiments by those skilled in this art, and various features described in different embodiments may be freely combined with each other without conflicting in configuration or principle.
Although several exemplary embodiments have been shown and described, it would be appreciated by those skilled in the art that various changes or modifications may be made in these embodiments without departing from the principles and spirit of the disclosure, the scope of which is defined in the claims and their equivalents.
As used herein, an element recited in the singular and proceeded with the word “a” or “an” should be understood as not excluding plural of the elements or steps, unless such exclusion is explicitly stated. Furthermore, references to “one embodiment” of the present disclosure are not intended to be interpreted as excluding the existence of additional embodiments that also incorporate the recited features. Moreover, unless explicitly stated to the contrary, embodiments “comprising” or “having” an element or a plurality of elements having a particular property may include additional such elements not having that property.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 202111019028.6 | Aug 2021 | CN | national |
This application claims the priority benefit of Chinese Patent Application No. 202111019028.6 filed on Aug. 31, 2021 in the China National Intellectual Property Administration, the whole disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
