Classifications

• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H01—ELECTRIC ELEMENTS
  • H01R—ELECTRICALLY-CONDUCTIVE CONNECTIONS; STRUCTURAL ASSOCIATIONS OF A PLURALITY OF MUTUALLY-INSULATED ELECTRICAL CONNECTING ELEMENTS; COUPLING DEVICES; CURRENT COLLECTORS
  • H01R24/00—Two-part coupling devices, or either of their cooperating parts, characterised by their overall structure
  • H01R24/38—Two-part coupling devices, or either of their cooperating parts, characterised by their overall structure having concentrically or coaxially arranged contacts
  • H01R24/40—Two-part coupling devices, or either of their cooperating parts, characterised by their overall structure having concentrically or coaxially arranged contacts specially adapted for high frequency
  • H01R24/50—Two-part coupling devices, or either of their cooperating parts, characterised by their overall structure having concentrically or coaxially arranged contacts specially adapted for high frequency mounted on a PCB [Printed Circuit Board]
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H01—ELECTRIC ELEMENTS
  • H01R—ELECTRICALLY-CONDUCTIVE CONNECTIONS; STRUCTURAL ASSOCIATIONS OF A PLURALITY OF MUTUALLY-INSULATED ELECTRICAL CONNECTING ELEMENTS; COUPLING DEVICES; CURRENT COLLECTORS
  • H01R12/00—Structural associations of a plurality of mutually-insulated electrical connecting elements, specially adapted for printed circuits, e.g. printed circuit boards [PCB], flat or ribbon cables, or like generally planar structures, e.g. terminal strips, terminal blocks; Coupling devices specially adapted for printed circuits, flat or ribbon cables, or like generally planar structures; Terminals specially adapted for contact with, or insertion into, printed circuits, flat or ribbon cables, or like generally planar structures
  • H01R12/70—Coupling devices
  • H01R12/71—Coupling devices for rigid printing circuits or like structures
  • H01R12/75—Coupling devices for rigid printing circuits or like structures connecting to cables except for flat or ribbon cables
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H01—ELECTRIC ELEMENTS
  • H01R—ELECTRICALLY-CONDUCTIVE CONNECTIONS; STRUCTURAL ASSOCIATIONS OF A PLURALITY OF MUTUALLY-INSULATED ELECTRICAL CONNECTING ELEMENTS; COUPLING DEVICES; CURRENT COLLECTORS
  • H01R24/00—Two-part coupling devices, or either of their cooperating parts, characterised by their overall structure
  • H01R24/38—Two-part coupling devices, or either of their cooperating parts, characterised by their overall structure having concentrically or coaxially arranged contacts
  • H01R24/40—Two-part coupling devices, or either of their cooperating parts, characterised by their overall structure having concentrically or coaxially arranged contacts specially adapted for high frequency
  • H01R24/54—Intermediate parts, e.g. adapters, splitters or elbows
  • H01R24/542—Adapters
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H01—ELECTRIC ELEMENTS
  • H01R—ELECTRICALLY-CONDUCTIVE CONNECTIONS; STRUCTURAL ASSOCIATIONS OF A PLURALITY OF MUTUALLY-INSULATED ELECTRICAL CONNECTING ELEMENTS; COUPLING DEVICES; CURRENT COLLECTORS
  • H01R9/00—Structural associations of a plurality of mutually-insulated electrical connecting elements, e.g. terminal strips or terminal blocks; Terminals or binding posts mounted upon a base or in a case; Bases therefor
  • H01R9/03—Connectors arranged to contact a plurality of the conductors of a multiconductor cable, e.g. tapping connections
  • H01R9/05—Connectors arranged to contact a plurality of the conductors of a multiconductor cable, e.g. tapping connections for coaxial cables
  • H01R9/0515—Connection to a rigid planar substrate, e.g. printed circuit board
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H01—ELECTRIC ELEMENTS
  • H01R—ELECTRICALLY-CONDUCTIVE CONNECTIONS; STRUCTURAL ASSOCIATIONS OF A PLURALITY OF MUTUALLY-INSULATED ELECTRICAL CONNECTING ELEMENTS; COUPLING DEVICES; CURRENT COLLECTORS
  • H01R2103/00—Two poles

Definitions

• This invention concerns an interface with which signals brought from several separate coaxial cables to standard coaxial connectors are conducted to a printed circuit board.
• the invention is especially concerned with bringing such 2 Mbit/s signals to the plug-in unit board which are brought to the plug-in unit through cables.
• the physical components of a telecommunications system are built by using special sub-racks, in which printed circuit boards, connectors, plug-in units, power supply units, fans etc are located. Locating may take place at the plant before the final place of installation, whereby the furnished sub-rack forms a complete telecommunications module, which can be tested.
• the sub-rack is constructed so that each side of its front part is provided with flanges in parallel with the surface level of the front part, and the flanges are provided with holes.
• the sub-rack width without flanges is standardised, so owing to standard width and dimensions, equipment made by different manufacturers can be placed in the same sub-rack.
• the rack comprises two vertical mounting rails, which have holes and which are at a standard distance from each other.
• the rack is part of an equipment cabinet wherein several sub-racks can be located on top of each other.
• FIG. 1 numbers 2, 3, 4 and 5 refer to different sub-racks mounted on mounting rails 7 and 8 located on the sides of the equipment cabinet.
• the sub-rack can be supported in the cabinet only at its side flanges or a shelf may be made for it on which the sub-rack is placed.
• An especially heavy component, such as batteries 6, may be placed on the bottom of the cabinet.
• Plug-in units or BU are located in such a cabinet as shown in Figure 2.
• BU Battery Units
• the sub-rack constructed for plug-in units there are located in the back part a vertical back panel or circuit board 10, in which those electric circuits and internal circuit groups are formed through which card units are connected to that piece of telecommunications equipment to which the sub-rack belongs.
• BPC Back Panel Connector
• the cards are connected with their own back connectors BO Through the back connectors BC and back panel connectors BPC the cards are connected e.g. to the internal bus of a multiplexer unit formed on the sub-rack's back panel.
• the front edge of the card unit may have a front panel, which is not shown in Figure 2 and at which the unit may be attached mechanically to the sub-rack and to which connectors may also be attached.
• the front panel also serves as an EMC (Electro Magnetic Compatibility) protector between the card and the environment.
• Plug-in units are used e.g. in multiplexers, where a cable transferring a high-rate e.g. 2 Mbit/s signal is brought to the card.
• a cable transferring a high-rate e.g. 2 Mbit/s signal is brought to the card.
• low-rate 64 kbit/s channels are separated from the signal, they are processed along with channels of other cards in other units and 32 PCM channels are multiplexed into a 2 Mbit/s signal which is again forwarded from the card.
• Incoming and outgoing coaxial cables can be connected in many ways to the plug-in unit. It is possible e.g. to use an intermediate structure mounted to the front edge of the circuit board. Such a solution is presented in US patent 3 676 746. It uses a metal profile with a [-shaped cross-section and bent into right-angled U-shape. The profile is riveted to the circuit board at its edges. Multiple-pole connectors are attached to the profile and they pass through the bottom part profile of the U-shape, whereby the connector end at the front side of the profile will receive the cable and peaks located at the connector end at the back side are soldered to holes in an insulating board.
• the insulating board which is located at right angles to the circuit board and is soldered to this, has wires, which at one end are soldered to connector peaks in the holes of the board and at their other ends to the circuit board 9.
• the resulting structure is rigid, uniform and not removable.
• One way is to locate an FC (Front Connector) at the front edge of the card, such as an RF angle connector according to the standard, to which a socket-like RF connector according to the DIN 41626/2 standard at the end of the coaxial cable is connected.
• the connectors are generally known as SMB connectors and the connection implements a 2 Mbit/s connection.
• angle connectors may be placed in parallel in a row at the card's front edge, as is shown in Figure 2, whereby one coaxial cable can be connected to each connector.
• Other connectors than coaxial connectors may also be used as front connectors, as is illustrated by reference numbers 21 and 22. These connectors can be used e.g. for connecting optical cables and for connecting low-frequency signals etc.
• a third way of connecting coaxial cables to a plug-in unit is to make the back panel higher than the sub-rack and to locate RF connectors in the back panel part protruding from the sub-rack.
• coaxial cables are brought between two sub-racks to the back part of the sub-rack and SMB connectors at the cable ends are pushed into coaxial connectors in the back panel.
• a fourth way is to leave in one side of the sub-rack a vacant space, in which no plug-in units are located. However, the back panel extends into this space and all necessary coaxial and other connectors are located at this place of the back panel.
• This invention aims at an arrangement which does not have the drawbacks of the known arrangements presented above.
• the arrangement ought to allow the use of a great number of connectors per plug-in unit without increasing interference or taking surface area from the circuit card. It is an important objective to be entirely rid of coaxial connectors mounted on the circuit card.
• the proposed coaxial interface is based on the insight that coaxial connectors taking up much space are removed from the card of the plug-in unit, they are located in the front panel of the card unit and a connection is made between connectors and card which can be easily connected and easily removed when the front panel is removed. This is made by using a special auxiliary circuit board, to which the coaxial connectors are attached. On the circuit board a wire path extends from each connector to a connector bar soldered to the circuit board edge and having connector peaks protruding outwards. The auxiliary circuit board is attached to the front panel of the plug-in unit.
• An insulating board, coaxial connectors, connector pins and wire paths form a comprehensive unit which can be mounted to the circuit board in parallel with its surface and which can be removed from the circuit board.
• a connector bar is soldered having counter connectors for the connectors of the auxiliary circuit board.
• the connectors of this connector bar are connected with the wire paths in the circuit board which convey signals to integrated circuits mounted on the circuit board.
• a great number of coaxial connectors may be located on the auxiliary circuit board in several rows, and despite the great number of connectors only a minimum surface area is taken from the circuit board of the plug-in unit.
• no high- frequency signals causing interference need be conveyed above the circuit board surface, but they are conducted to the circuit board and away from this at the board edge.
• Figure 1 shows an equipment cabinet where sub-racks are mounted
• Figure 2 shows a plug-in unit
• Figure 3 is an exploded view of an interface according to the invention
• FIG. 4 shows the interface assembled
• Figure 5a is a perspective view of the removable entity
• Figure 5b is a side view of the removable entity
• Figure 5c is an end view of the removable entity; and Figure 6 is another exploded view of the interface according to the invention. Description of the preferred embodiment
• Figure 3 is an exploded view of the basic components of the interface according to the invention. They comprise an entity 31 removable from the board unit BU of the plug-in unit and one or several pin head connectors 32, 322 attached to board unit BU of the plug-in unit.
• Insulator 312 is a basic part of the removable entity 31. On its one side a set of standard SMB coaxial connectors is attached by soldering, of which only one is referred to with reference number 311 for the sake of clarity. On the opposite side of the circuit board 312 edge one or several connector bars 317, 318 are soldered, from which connector pins protrude at right angles away from the circuit board's surface. For the sake of clarity only one connector peak is indicated by reference number 313. There are wires (not shown) in the insulator board connecting the signal pole of each coaxial connector with one connector pin in the connector bar. Thus, the signal peak of each coaxial connector is connected with one connector pin, so one connector pin corresponds to one coaxial connector. There are also connector pins for earth purposes in the connector bar.
• the connector bar is a commercially available component which is generally used.
• the pin head connector is a commercially available component in general use and it comes both as a surface-mounted model like the connector shown in the figure and as a peak model.
• the function of the structure is shown by Figure 3.
• the removable entity 31 is mounted on board unit BU of the plug-in unit simply so that its pins 313 are pushed into counter connectors in the pin head connector located on board unit BU.
• the structure is made firm by the plug-in unit's front panel 33, wherein an opening 316 is made for each coaxial connector 311.
• each connector is pushed into its own opening and it is supported in the lateral direction against the periphery of the opening. It is advantageous to use such a coaxial connector model which has a compressible ring 319.
• the ring is placed at the periphery of the opening where it is slightly compressed and it will move to the other side of the opening.
• the periphery of the opening will hereby enter groove 320 in the connector ( Figure 5c), and in this way the connector will stay firmly in position without being able to move in the longitudinal direction.
• the metal front panel also functions to earth the coaxial connectors.
• a depression 315 may be made in the front panel with openings 316 in its bottom. This depression is especially advantageous when using a holder for a coaxial connector as described in Finnish Patent Application No. 970291 filed at the same time as the present application. This holder collects the coaxial cables, having a counter connector for connectors 311 at their ends, into an entity which is easily handled.
• connection height is less than one millimetre. Such a low height is not achieved in any known manner. This is of great significance from the viewpoint of interference.
• FIG. 4 shows the final result in an assembled state.
• Front panel 33, insulator board 312 and board unit BU form a rigid whole which is nevertheless easily disassembled.
• Figures 5a - 5c show a removable entity 31 of bigger size.
• the grouping of coaxial connectors on the surface of board unit 312 can be clearly seen in Figure 5a.
• Coaxial connectors are here in two rows, but they might as well be arranged in three or more rows by making the insulator board wider.
• the maximum height H of the insulator board may be almost equal to the height of the plug-in unit's front panel, whereby a really great number of coaxial interfaces are obtained for one plug-in unit, however, without taking space from the circuit card of the card unit.
• the occupied surface area is only a narrow strip on the card's front edge.
• Figure 5c which is an end view of the removable entity, shows those central wires 321 of the coaxial connectors which extend through insulator board 5c. In the soldering process they are connected with strip lines on the insulator board surface and through these with peaks 313 on connector bar 318.
• FIG. 6 finally is an exploded view of the interface arrangement according to the invention.
• the removable entity When the removable entity is attached to the front panel, the result is a comprehensive package, which may be attached to and removed from the plug-in unit.
• This structure is the most advantageous one in practice and, for this reason, the term "removable entity" also contains the front panel 33.
• the circuit board attached to the front panel When the front panel is removed from the plug-in unit, the circuit board attached to the front panel will follow along with its coaxial connectors and the connector pins of the connector bar will leave their counter connectors 32, 322 mounted on the circuit board of the plug-in unit.
• the connector pins when mounting the front panel the connector pins will be pushed into their counter connectors and an electric connection will result.

Landscapes

• Coupling Device And Connection With Printed Circuit (AREA)
• Details Of Connecting Devices For Male And Female Coupling (AREA)

Applications Claiming Priority (3)

Publications (1)

Family

ID=8547793

Family Applications (1)

Country Status (5)

Families Citing this family (1)

Family Cites Families (7)

• 1997
  • 1997-01-24 FI FI970292A patent/FI970292A/fi unknown
• 1998
  • 1998-01-21 EP EP98900878A patent/EP0956621A1/de not_active Ceased
  • 1998-01-21 AU AU56663/98A patent/AU5666398A/en not_active Abandoned
  • 1998-01-21 CN CN98802026A patent/CN1244302A/zh active Pending
  • 1998-01-21 WO PCT/FI1998/000046 patent/WO1998033247A1/en not_active Application Discontinuation

Non-Patent Citations (1)

Also Published As

Similar Documents

Legal Events