Patent Application
20200366024
This application claims the benefit of the filing date under 35 U.S.C. § 119(a)-(d) of Japanese Patent Application No. 2019-087049, filed on Apr. 30, 2019.
The present invention relates to a connector housing and, more particularly, to a connector housing having a latch arm.
Conventionally, a connector housing is provided with a latch arm for catching a latched member of, for example, a mating housing or the like, to retain the latched member. Such a connector housing is, for example, disclosed in JPH04-137474A. The latch arm extends like a cantilever from a housing main body and has a structure at an intermediate portion of the cantilever for locking onto the latched member.
The housing main body is required to have high rigidity so as not to deform easily. On the other hand, the latch arm is required to deform elastically temporarily so as to catch the latched member of, for example, a mating housing. If this latch arm is formed from the same material as the housing main body, an operating force for the latch arm becomes too large.
JPH02-186569A discloses a connector housing having a housing main body made of a hard material and a hinge made of a soft material different from the hard material, by a multi-material injection molding technique. To form the housing main body and the latch arm from different materials suitable for the housing main body and the latch arm, respectively, it is possible to apply the multi-material injection molding technique disclosed in JPH02-186569A to a lock arm. However, multi-material injection molding is costly because a molding process is performed twice. Also, multi-material injection molding is likely to cause separation of the housing main body and the lock arm at their juncture, which can result in a lack of reliability.
JP2017-177738A discloses a molding device in which different resin materials are injected from a plurality of gates (inlets) of a mold. JP2017-177738A, however, does not disclose a connector housing.
A connector housing includes a housing main body formed from a first material and a latch arm formed from a second material having a lower rigidity than the first material. The latch arm extends in a cantilever form, forms a boundary portion at a connection between the latch arm and the housing main body, and is configured to elastically deform in relation to the housing main body to latch a latched member. A transition region having a continuously variable mixing ratio between the first material and the second material is present within an expanded boundary region including the boundary portion and expanding into the housing main body and into the latch arm.
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 like reference numerals refer to like elements. The present disclosure may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as being limited to the embodiments set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided so that the present disclosure will convey the concept of the disclosure to those skilled in the art. Furthermore, several aspects of the embodiments may form—individually or in different combinations—solutions according to the present invention. The following described embodiments thus can be considered either alone or in an arbitrary combination thereof.
A connector 10 according to an embodiment, as shown in
The connector housing 20, as shown in
A mating connector is mated with the connector 10 in a direction of an arrow Z in
A material whose rigidity has been increased by mixing a resin material with glass is used for the housing main body 21. A material that is the same resin material as the housing main body 21 but not mixed with glass is used for the latch arm 22. In another embodiment, a material mixed with glass in a mixing ratio lower than a mixing ratio for the housing main body 21 may also be used for the latch arm 22 in order to adjust rigidity. By mixing glass, the rigidity becomes higher as the mixing ratio increases, and the material becomes more suitable for elastic deformation as the mixing ratio decreases. The housing main body 21 therefore has the required rigidity while the latch arm 22 is suitable for elastic deformation.
A material mixed with a pigment of a color may be used for the latch arm 22 to distinguish it at a glance from the housing main body 21, which is not mixed with the pigment in an embodiment. It should be noted that, instead of mixing the latch arm 22 with the pigment, the material of the housing main body 21 may instead be mixed with the pigment.
A cavity 70 of a mold for manufacturing the connector housing 20 is shown in
As shown in
In an embodiment, timings of opening a pair of valves 61, 62 shown in
The transition region T, as shown in
In this manner, the connector housing 20 having the housing main body 21 formed from the first material 21A having high rigidity, and the latch arm 22 formed from the second material 22A suitable for elastic deformation, is completed. Moreover, the connector housing 20, unlike a connector housing formed by multi-material injection molding, has the transition region T in which the material is integrated and continuously variable. As a result, an accident where the latch arm 22 is separated from the housing main body 21 may be prevented with high reliability. The connector housing 20 is accordingly highly reliable.
The housing main body 21 and the latch arm 22, as described above, may have different colors from each other. This makes it possible to easily confirm that the materials are mixed well in the transition region T.
It should be noted that, here, using a material whose rigidity has been adjusted by mixing or not mixing glass, or by mixing different ratios of glass, has been described by way of example. However, this is an example, and different mixing substances may be mixed in. In another embodiment, the resin materials themselves may be different resin materials from each other.
Also, here, the latch arm 22 that latches a housing of a mating connector has been described. However, the latch arm 22 referred to in the present disclosure is not limited to a latch arm that latches a housing of a mating connector. For example, the latch arm 22 referred to in the present disclosure may be a latch arm that catches the contact 30 inserted into the connector housing 20 to retain the contact 30, such as a contact lance 23 shown in
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-087049 | Apr 2019 | JP | national |
