Contact of connector

Abstract

A contact of a connector made of an elongated resilient material and having an inner end fixed to a connector housing and a midway to be in contact with a mating contact of another connector. According to the invention, the contact comprises a substantially straight portion extending from a contacting portion of the midway with the mating contact to the fixed inner end, and an outer portion being bent in zigzag extending from the contacting portion to the distal end abutting against a surface of the connector housing, thereby obtaining a sufficient contacting resilient pressure to realize stable and reliable connecting condition with the mating contact and simultaneously achieving small-sized connectors and high speed signal transmission.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

This invention relates to a contact of a connector, and more particularly to a contact suitable for use in small-sized connectors for information transmission appliances.

2. Description of the Prior Art

With requirement of signal transmission at higher speed in information transmission line, it has been required to shorten lengths of conductive portions of contacts in connectors incorporated in information transmission lines. On the other hand, the connectors to be used in information transmission appliances have been intensively required to be small-sized, inasumuch as these appliances have been required to be small-sized. In this case, an indispensable condition to fulfill the requirement of the small-sized connectors is to achieve small-sized contacts.

Under the circumstances, however, such small-sized contacts should still realize reliable and stable contacting conditions with contacts of mating connectors inserted and connected or contacts of printed circuit boards in order to perform their inherent function. On the contrary, if the contacts are small-sized to shorten the signal transmission line, contacting resilient pressure of the contacts usually becomes insufficient to adversely affect the contacting conditions. Accordingly, the small-sizing of the contacts would encounter an unavoidable limitation.

Various attempts have therefore been effected in order to obtain sufficient contacting resilient pressures in sufficiently small-sized contacts. As shown in FIG. 1, for example, a contact 1 is bent at its mid portion or midway 1a into a wide S-shape, and its distal end 1b is then folded back to its holded portion 1c so as to abut against a surface of a connector housing 2. In this manner, the S-shaped midway 1a and the distal end 1b provide a contacting resilient pressure required when a contact 3 of a mating connector is inserted into this connector to be into contact with the contact 1. With this arrangement, however, a signal flowing into the contact 1 at its contacting point 1d passes through the S-shaped bent portion 1a to a connneting portion 1e as shown by arrows in the drawing, so that the signal transmission passage is much longer than that in a conventional contact 1, for example, as shown in FIG. 2.

In an alternative example as shown in FIG. 3, a contact 1 is bent so as to form a loop to bring its distal end 1b into the proximity of a holded portion. In order to obtain a resilient pressure with this arrangement substantially equivalent to the pressure of the contact shown in FIG. 1, however, the bent portion 1f of the loop should be fairly large, so that an overall length of the contact becomes much longer. As the result, the contact does not fulfill the requirement of the small-size and fails to shorten the signal transmission passage because a signal flowing at a contacting portion 1d into the contact passes through the loop 1f into a connecting portion 1e as shown by arrows in the drawing.

In a further alternative example, as shown in FIG. 4, a contact 1 comprises an upper portion 1g extending much longer than that of the contact shown in FIG. 2 and abutting with its distal end 1b against a surface of a housing 2 in order to obtain a predetermined resilient pressure. With this arrangement, a signal flowing at a contacting portion 1d passes straight into the contact as shown by an arrow in the drawing, so that the length of the signal transmission passage is sufficiently shortened in comparison with those in FIGS. 1 and 3. On the other hand, however, the upper portion 1g should be considerably elongated in order to obtain a resilient pressure substantially equivalent to that of the contact shown in FIG. 1, so that such an elongated contact does not fulfill the requirement of the small-sized contact. In addition, a distance from an entrance of this connector for a mating connector to the contacting portion 1d becomes considerably long, so that a contact of the mating connector is also unavoidably long so as to elongate the signal transmission passage of the mating connector to give rise to reduction in signal transmission speed.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is a principal object of the invention to provide a contact capable not only of shortening a signal transmission passage but also ensuring a predetermined contacting resilient pressure to meet the high speed signal transmission and small-sized connector.

In order to achieve this object, the contact of a connector made of an elongated resilient material and having an inner end fixed to a connector housing and a midway to be in contact with a mating contact of another connector to be connected to the first mentioned connector, according to the invention comprises a substantially straight portion extending from a contacting portion of the midway with the mating contact to the fixed inner end and an outer portion extending from the contacting portion to its distal end, the outer portion being bent in zigzag and the distal end abutting against a surface of the connector housing.

The outer portion is preferably bent in S-shape.

The distal end of the contact abuts against the surface of the connector housing with a free edge or a flat surface of the distal end.

The distal end of the contact is preferably beveled or rounded at its edge to prevent the surface of the connector housing from being scraped by the edge.

In order that the invention may be more clearly understood, preferred embodiments will be described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a fragmentary sectional view of a connector having a contact of the prior art;

FIG. 2 is a fragmentary sectional view of a connector having another contact of the prior art;

FIG. 3 is a fragmentary sectional view of a connector having a further contact of the prior art;

FIG. 4 is a fragmentary sectional view of a connector having a different contact of the prior art;

FIG. 5 is a fragmentary sectional view of a connector including a contact of a preferred embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 6a is a partial perspective view illustrating a contact of another embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 6b is a partial perspective view illustrating a contact of a further embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 6c is a perspective view of a contact of point-contact type according to the invention;

FIG. 6d is a perspective view of another contact of point-contact type according to the invention; and

FIG. 7 is a fragmentary sectional view of a connector including two contacts according to the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

Referring to FIG. 5 illustrating one embodiment of the invention, a contact 1 comprises a straight portion 1h extending from its connecting portion 1e fixed to a connector housing 2 to a contacting portion 1d in contact with a mating connector, and an outer portion 1i extending outwardly from the contacting portion 1d and bent in zigzag or S-shape whose free edge 1i' or flat free end surface abuts against the connector housing 2 to obtain a predetermined resilient pressure or force.

With this arrangement, a distance or signal transmission passage for a signal flowing from the contacting portion 1d to the connecting portion 1e is the shortest, because the passage consisting of the straight portion 1h in the similar manner as in FIG. 4. According to the invention, moreover, the zigzag bent portion 1i is formed instead of the straight extending portion 11 for obtaining the required contacting resilient pressure in FIG. 4, so that notwithstanding the short overall length of the contact, a predetermined contacting resilient pressure can be obtained without elongating a signal transmission passage of a mating connector. Therefore, the contact according to the invention can achieve the stable and reliable connecting condition, and simultaneously serves to realize a small-sized connector and high speed signal transmission.

According to the invention, the contacting resilient pressure is derived not only from the zigzag bent portion 1i but also the straight portion 1h. In this case, the housing 2 may be formed with a projection 2a whose edge abuts against the midway of the straight portion 1h as shown in broken lines in FIG. 5, thereby preloading the straight portion. When the contact 3 of a mating connector is inserted into the connector, the zigzag bent portion 1i is compressed to move the free edge 1i' on the surface of the connector housing 2 in a direction opposite to the insertion of the mating connector so as to cause a risk of the surface being cut or scraped. In order to avoid this, the free edge 1i' may be beveled at 1j as shown in FIG. 6a or rounded at 1k as shown in FIG. 6b. FIGS. 6c and 6d illustrate contacts of particular embodiments according to the invention, which have contacting portions 1d adapted to be in point-contact with mating contacts. The above beveled or rounded edge 1j or 1k can be applied to these contacts of the point-contact type.

Although the above embodiments have been explained to arrange the contact on one side of the contact 3 of the mating connector, contacts according to the invention can of course be arranged on both sides of the contact 3 so as to be in contact therewith as shown in FIG. 7.

As can be seen from the above description, the invention can provide the contact of a connector, having a sufficient contacting resilient pressure to realize stable and reliable connecting condition with a mating contact and simultaneously capable of achieving small-sized connectors and high speed signal transmission, thereby greatly contributing the improvement in performance of connectors for use in information transmission circuits.

It is further understood by those skilled in the art that the foregoing description is that of preferred embodiments of the disclosed contacts and that various changes and modifications may be made in the invention without departing from the spirit and scope thereof.

Claims

1. A contact of a connector formed of an enlongated resilient material comprising, an inner end fixed to a connector housing and a midway to be in contact with a mating contact of another connector to be connected to the first mentioned connector, said contact including a substantially straight portion extending from a contacting portion of said midway to said fixed inner end and an outer portion extending from said contacting portion to a distal end of said contact, said outer portion being bent in generally s-shaped configuration and said distal end abutting against a surface of said connector housing said abutting distal end being movable along said connector housing in a direction opposite to the direction of insertion of said mating contact.

2. A contact as claimed in claim 1 in which said distal end of the contact has a flat edge which abuts against the surface of the connector housing.

3. A contact as claimed in claim 1 in which said distal end of the contact has a flat surface which abuts against the surface of the connector housing.

4. A contact as claimed in claim 1 in which said distal end of the contact is beveled at its edge to prevent the surface of the connector housing from being scraped by the edge.

5. A contact as claimed in claim 1 in which said distal end of the contact is rounded at its edge to prevent the surface of the connector housing from being scraped by the edge.

6. A contact as claimed in claim 1 in which said midway of the contact has a cross-sectional configuration in point-contact with a surface of said mating contact.

7. A contact as claimed in claim 1 in which said connector housing includes a projection abutting against said straight portion of the contact so that it is subjected to a preload.