1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical connector, and more particularly to a flappable plug connector used with a receptacle connector.
2. Description of Related Art
US Patent Publication No. 20130095702A1 discloses a dual orientation plug connector, which has a connector tab with first and second major opposing sides and a plurality of electrical contacts carried by the connector tab. The plurality of contacts may include a first set of external contacts formed at the first major side and a second set of external contacts formed at the second major side. The first plurality of contacts may be symmetrically spaced with the second plurality of contacts and the connector tab may be shaped to have 180 degree symmetry so that it can be inserted and operatively coupled to a corresponding receptacle connector in either of two insertion orientations.
A receptacle connector corresponds to the plug connector. A sensing circuit in the receptacle or the electronic device in which the receptacle connector is housed can detect the orientation of the contacts and switch internal connections to the contacts in the connector jack as appropriate. When the contacts are more, the sensing circuit is more complicated, which will waste software switches or hardware switches.
Hence, a new and simple electrical connector is desired.
Accordingly, the object of the present invention is to provide a flappable plug connector.
In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, a plug connector comprises a mating tongue defining opposite top and bottom surfaces thereon. Each surface is provided with a plurality of conductors or conductive pads in one row wherein the characters/categories of the conductors on the top surface are sequentially arranged to be either same with those on the bottom surface or with one conductor appearing on the top surface while missing on the bottom surface with a vacant space. The corresponding receptacle connector mounted upon a printed circuit board, defines a receiving cavity to receive the mating tongue therein. Opposite top and bottom rows of contacts are respectively located by upper and bottom sides of the receiving cavity and categorized in a same sequence with the conductors of the plug connector for respectively connecting to the corresponding conductive pads, respectively, when the mating tongue of the plug connector is inserted into the receiving cavity. Under this arrangement, the plug connector is flappable with regard to the receptacle connector in operation without necessity of orientation consideration. A pair of power contacts are optionally located respectively on two opposite interior side surfaces beside the receiving cavity to mechanically and electrically connected and engaged with a pair of corresponding power conductor portions located in two opposite notches of two opposite lateral sides of the mating tongue.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
Reference will now be made in detail to the preferred embodiment of the present invention
Referring to
The receptacle connector 200 includes an insulative housing 21 enclosed in a metallic shell 22. The housing defines a receiving cavity 210 for receiving the mating tongue 11. A plurality of contacts 23 are disposed in the housing 21 and arranged in opposite top row and bottom row by two sides of the receiving cavity 210 in the vertical direction. Notably, the characters/categories of the contacts 23 sequentially are shown in
Referring to
The insulative housing 21 of the receptacle connector 200 with a plurality of contacts 23 are disposed on the opposite upper and bottom sides of the housing 21 for mating with the conductors 14 and a pair of power contacts 23p having bugled contours around the corresponding tip regions are located on two opposite lateral sides for mating with the recessed regions of the power conductor portions 14p in the notches 15, defines a pair of slots 40 are formed in each of the upper side and the bottom side of the housing 21 for snugly receiving the corresponding pair of ribs 17 during mating. The power contact sections 23p in a spring cantilever pattern are located in side slots 25 of the housing 21
Referring to
Referring to
The plug connector 300 defines an exposed mating tongue 31 with conductors 32 on two opposite surfaces of the mating tongue 31. An overmolding 33 is located behind the mating tongue 32 with a grounding bar 34 exposed around a front region of the overmolding 33 and right behind the mating tongue 31 for engagement with the spring fingers 451 of the gasket 45 during mating. A cable extends rearwardly behind the overmolding 33. A pair of recessed power conductor portions 32p are exposed in the corresponding notches in two lateral sides of the mating tongue 31. In this embodiment as shown in
The housing 52 is composed of the upper piece 70 and a lower piece 72 commonly sandwiching therebetween a middle piece 74 which forms the mating tongue 54. The upper row contacts 58 are associated with the upper piece 70, the lower row contacts 58 associated with a lower piece 72 and the shielding plate 76 is associated with the middle piece 74 via an insert molding process wherein the contacting sections 60 of the upper row contacts 58 and those of the lower rows contacts 58 are seated upon opposite upper surface and lower surface of the mating tongue 54, respectively, as mentioned before. A rear portion of the step structure 62 is removed to have a front edge region 71 of the upper piece 70 and the front edge region 73 of the lower piece 72 sandwiched between the middle piece 74 and the loop structure 66 of the EMI collar 64 so as to enhance the strength during mating under some bending. In this embodiment, the shielding plate 76 defines an opening 77 and a thinner area 78 for both securing and impedance consideration, and further a pair of mounting legs 79 so as to efficiently separate the upper row contacts 58 and the lower row contacts 58 from each other wherein the upper row contacts 58 form the surface mount type tail sections while the lower row contacts 58 form the through hole type tail sections. The lower piece 72 includes a pair of mounting posts 80 for mounting the housing 52 to the printed circuit board P.
In this embodiment, the middle piece 74 forms a pair of recesses 82 to respectively receive the corresponding protrusions 84 of the upper piece 70 and the lower piece 72 for securing the upper piece 70, the lower piece 72 and the middle piece 74 therebetween in a stacked manner wherein the upper piece 70 further include a pair of downward assembling poles 84 received in the corresponding alignment holes 86 of the middle piece 74, and the lower piece 72 further includes an upward assembling pole 85 received in the corresponding alignment holes 86 of the middle piece 74, and the lower piece 72 further forms a pair of upward locating posts 87 received within the corresponding recesses 89 in the upper piece 70. In this embodiment, the lower piece 72 defines a plurality of through holes 91 and 93 to receive the tail sections of the lower row contacts 58 and the mounting legs 79 of the shielding plate 76 to extend therethough as an alignment spacer. Notably, the shielding plate 76 forms a front edge section 69 extending forwardly beyond a front edge of the mating tongue 54 for anti-mismating consideration, and a pair of lateral edge sections 67 as well extending beyond the side edge of the mating tongue 54 and further equipped with latching structures for locking with a latch 39 of the plug connector 600 (illustrated later). In brief, the shielding plate 76 is essentially multifunctional to perform shielding, grounding, reinforcing, anti-mis-mating and locking. A metallic bracket 95 is soldered under the shield 56 and forms a pair of supporting legs 97 mounted to the printed circuit board P for supporting the receptacle connector 500 within the notch 102 of the printed circuit board P. The shield 56 further includes a pair of mounting legs 55 for mounting to the printed circuit board P and a pair of locking tabs 59 received in the recesses 99 of the upper piece 70 after the shield 56 is rearwardly assembled to the housing 52 in a front-to-back direction.
Referring to
A cable 41 behind the paddle card 38′, encloses a plurality of wires 41 regulated by a pair of organizer 42 to be soldered upon a rear region of the paddle card 38′. An auxiliary rear shell 17′ grasps the shell 16′ to shield the paddle card 38′, and a clipper 44 grasps the cable 41 behind the paddle card 38′. Opposite front overcoat 45 and rear overcoat 46 are overmolded upon the rear shell 17′ and the clipper 44, respectively. Finally, a cover 47 essentially fully covers the clipper 44, the front overcoat 45 and the rear overcoat 46. During mating, the mating tongue 54 is received in the receiving cavity 14′ with the corresponding contacting sections 60 of the contacts 58 of the receptacle connector 500 connected to the contacting sections 20′ of the contacts 18′ of the plug connector 600 wherein the latch 39′ is locked with the shielding plate 76, and the front resilient region 24′ of the spring plate 22′ contacts the collar 64.
It is to be understood, however, that even though numerous characteristics and advantages of the present invention have been set forth in the foregoing description, together with details of the structure and function of the invention, the disclosure is illustrative only, and changes may be made in detail, especially in matters of shape, size, and arrangement of parts within the principles of the invention to the full extent indicated by the broad general meaning of the terms in which the appended claims are expressed.
This application is a continuation-in-part of the copending application Ser. No. 14/337,180 filed on Jul. 21, 2014 which claims its own priorities of the corresponding provisional applications, and the instant application further claims the benefit of, and priority to, U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/863,896, filed Aug. 8, 2013, No. 61/866,037, filed Aug. 14, 2013, No. 61/867,584, filed Aug. 19, 2013, and No. 61/949,232 filed Mar. 6, 2014, the contents of which are incorporated entirely herein by reference.
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
6755689 | Zhang | Jun 2004 | B2 |
7758379 | Chen | Jul 2010 | B2 |
8087944 | Kumamoto et al. | Jan 2012 | B2 |
8517773 | Lee | Aug 2013 | B2 |
8968031 | Simmel et al. | Mar 2015 | B2 |
20130095702 | Golko et al. | Apr 2013 | A1 |
20150072562 | Little | Mar 2015 | A1 |
20150162684 | Amini et al. | Jun 2015 | A1 |
20150171562 | Gao et al. | Jun 2015 | A1 |
20150171573 | Little | Jun 2015 | A1 |
20150214673 | Gao et al. | Jul 2015 | A1 |
20150214674 | Simmel et al. | Jul 2015 | A1 |
Number | Date | Country |
---|---|---|
202423735 | Sep 2012 | CN |
202737282 | Feb 2013 | CN |
M454654 | Jun 2013 | TW |
Entry |
---|
USB Newark WG/USB 3.0 Promoter Group, Universal Serial Bus Type-C Cable and Connector Specification, Revision 0.7 Working Draft, Jan. 2014, USA (conditionally published), pp. 13-14, 20-21,33, 38. |
USB Newark WG/USB 3.0 Promoter Group, Universal Serial Bus Type-C Cable and Connector Specification, Revision 1.0, Aug. 11, 2014, USA, pp. 1, 19-10, 28-48, 51, 55, 58-63, 65-67,70,93, 96-99. |
USB Newark WG/USB 3.0 Promoter Group, Universal Serial Bus Type-C Cable and Connector Specification, Revision 0.9 Working Draft, May 2014, USA (conditionally published), pp. 24-44, 47, 53-63, 84-86. |
Number | Date | Country | |
---|---|---|---|
20150044886 A1 | Feb 2015 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
---|---|---|---|
61863896 | Aug 2013 | US | |
61866037 | Aug 2013 | US | |
61949232 | Mar 2014 | US | |
61867584 | Aug 2013 | US | |
61856077 | Jul 2013 | US | |
61857687 | Jul 2013 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
---|---|---|---|
Parent | 14337180 | Jul 2012 | US |
Child | 14454737 | US |