Patent Application
20070134971
The present invention relates to a transmission line that is easily plugged and unplugged and particularly to a transmission line that has a force applying member hinged on a socket to facilitate plugging and unplugging.
Nowadays computers are widely used in various industries or locations. The rapid advance of computer technology also constantly spawns new functions. For instance, multimedia applications need new peripheral devices such as CD-ROM optical drivers. The operation speed of the computers also is faster and produces higher temperature during operation. This requires a cooling fan to generate cooling airflow to dispel heat energy generated by the CPU chipset in the computer. These additional computer peripheral devices or cooling fan have to be coupled with a power supply socket on the computer to obtain power supply for operation.
The socket and insertion slot of the computer peripheral devices have to be tightly coupled to establish electric connection and to avoid short circuit or connection breakdown. Hence plugging and unplugging between the socket and the insertion slot generally are not easy and take a lot of efforts. The conventional power supply socket, such as R.O.C. patent publication No. 385070 entitled “Improved adapter for computer power supply” discloses a power supply socket that has protrusive members two sides to aid plugging and unplugging. A user grasps the protrusive members to do plugging or unplugging. But even resorting to the protrusive members still is difficult to overcome the tight coupling between the socket and the insertion slot to remove the socket from the insertion slot. Users often have to shake the socket left and right, and up and down to loosen the socket before removing. Some times even the power cord has to be pulled to aid removing of the socket. This could cause damage of the connection terminal and dislocation. As a result, plugging next time could be difficult and poor contact could occur. This is troublesome to users. Moreover, the design of 4P socket at present usually adopts an equal length for the ground terminal and fire terminal. The socket often has a plurality of fire terminals with different potentials. As the ground terminal is located in the center, and the fire terminals are located on the left side and right side, shaking the socket causes the fire terminals to make contact first (or the ground terminal to loosen off first). This results in not equal potential of the disconnected electronic device and the power supply, and the floating voltage rises. It affects the electronic device. This phenomenon is especially obvious in the plug-and-play condition. Even not in the plug-and-play condition, the power supply and electronic device still have potential due to existing of scattering capacitance. Hence discharge to the ground does not take place due to no common ground. In addition to the disadvantages mentioned above, a slight arc occurs due to the male and female fire terminals do not share the common ground. This phenomenon increases the impedance of the fire terminals and affects electric characteristics.
To remedy the aforesaid problems, R.O.C. patent publication No. M271285 entitled “Power supply connector” discloses an improved socket that has an arched and elastic pressing plate on a upper end surface of the socket. The pressing plate has one end anchored on a rear end of the upper end surface and is extended to the coupling location of the socket and the insertion slot. It has a ramming surface on a front end surface. The arched portion of the pressing plate has a plurality of ridges on a upper end. The male connector has a jutting force applying surface on the bottom end. The force applying surface further is extended downwards to form a conical surface. When the socket and the insertion slot are coupled, the front end surface of the insertion slot pushes the ramming surface of the pressing surface which is deformed rearwards in an arched manner. Hence a return action force directing forwards is generated on the pressing plate. When there is a desire to separate the socket and the insertion slot, user's finger depresses the conical surface on the lower side of the force applying surface, another finger depresses the pressing plate downwards, the ramming surface on the front end of the pressing plate generates a thrust force directing forwards to press the insertion slot. Thereby the insertion and the socket can be separated, and the socket can be removed. The connector set forth above has the pressing plate located on the upper end surface of the socket to aid the applying force. For the modern computer peripheral devices such as optical disk drives or hard disk drives that adopt new specifications of SATA sockets, the wires are vertically inserted into the SATA socket by piercing. If the connector previously discussed is adopted on the SATA socket, the pressing plate will hinder the vertically inserting wires and coupling becomes not possible. In other words, the connector mentioned in the previous patent cannot be adopted on the SATA socket. Thus its applicability is limited.
In view of the drawbacks and limitations occurred to the conventional techniques, the present invention aims to provide a transmission line that can be easily plugged and unplugged to conform to the industrial specifications and to facilitate user operation.
The primary object of the invention is to provide a transmission line that is easily plugged and unplugged. It has a force applying member hinged on a socket. To remove the socket from an insertion slot, in can be easily accomplished by applying a force on the force applying member. The transmission line of the invention is adaptable to various types of connectors to improve operation convenience and enhance applicability in the industry.
The transmission line of the invention includes a wire and at least one socket connecting to one end of the wire. The socket aims is connected to an electronic device and also is coupled with a force applying member. The force applying member rams the electronic device when subject to a force to make separation of the socket and the electronic device easier. The force applying member is hinged on the socket and divided by the hinged location to form a force applying portion and a pressing portion. When the force applying portion receives a force, the pressing portion generates a counter force about the hinged location to make separation of the socket and the electronic device easier. Hence by means of the construction set forth above, users can easily unplug the socket from the electronic device.
The foregoing, as well as additional objects, features and advantages of the invention will be more readily apparent from the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings. It is to be noted that the drawings and discussion below serve only for illustrative purpose, and are not the limitation of the invention.
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Adopted the design concept of the invention, the force applying member 20 can be formed in various styles without restrictions.
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While the preferred embodiments of the invention have been set forth for the purpose of disclosure, modifications of the disclosed embodiments of the invention as well as other embodiments thereof may occur to those skilled in the art. Accordingly, the appended claims are intended to cover all embodiments which do not depart from the spirit and scope of the invention.
