GB2347282A

GB2347282A - Connector assembly with latching system and terminal modules

Info

Publication number: GB2347282A
Application number: GB0004273A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Francois Blasco; Thierry Huin
Original assignee: Whitaker LLC
Current assignee: Whitaker LLC
Priority date: 1999-02-24
Filing date: 2000-02-23
Publication date: 2000-08-30
Anticipated expiration: 2020-02-23
Also published as: GB2347282B; GB0004273D0

Abstract

A connector comprises terminal modules (10) stackably received between cover parts (14, 16). A latch (8) integrally moulded with the respective cover parts comprises a resilient latch arm (38) extending along a first side (18) of a cover part (16) and an actuator (40) attached to the other cover part (14) and having a manually engageable grip at an opposed side (20) of the connector. The actuator (40) has legs (52) that engage an actuation extension (46) of the latch arm (38) in order to depress the locking end (42) towards the connector housing. A compact, well protected, and easy to operate latching system is thus provided. The connector may further comprise separating walls (28) integrally moulded with the cover parts (16, 14) for insertion between the terminal modules. The separating walls improve electrical performance and may further include polarising ribs or grooves (33) co-operating with complementary grooves or ribs of the terminal modules for correct orientation and positioning thereof.

Description

CONNECTOR ASSEMBLY WITH LATCHING SYSTEM This invention relates to an electrical cable connector assembly with a resilient latching feature for interconnection and secure coupling to a complementary connector.

A connector for interconnecting a data communications cable to a complementary circuit board connector is described in EP 401 937. In the latter publication, a cable connector is shown with a manually engagable latch having a resilient arm supported on two spaced apart pivot points to a housing of the connector.

The spaced apart pivot points enable the latch to be disengaged by manually depressing a grip at an end of the arm towards the connector housing, whereby the locking protrusions of the latch also displace towards the connector housing. This is a useful configuration in applications where the cable connector is pluggably received between upstanding walls of the complementary circuit board connector. The latching arm is however fairly exposed and prone to damage. It would be advantageous to provide a more robust and better protected latching system that is compact, reliable, and easy to operate.

It is known to provide cable connectors with a plurality of housing modules as shown in EP 595 234.

Each module comprises a plurality of terminals for interconnection to a plurality of conducting wires of the cable. Modules are then stacked together and received securely within a pair of outer housing or cover parts that sandwich the modules and securely assemble them together. The modules may have open sides that allow access for the conducting wires to be interconnected to connection regions (for example insulation displacement contacts) of the terminals. The open side walls reduce the electrical path between adjacent terminals thereby increasing the risk of short circuits. The electrical performance of the connector may also decrease because of increased capacitive coupling between contacts of stacked modules.

It is an object of this invention to provide an improved cable connector. In particular, it would be advantageous to provide a cable connector with a robust, compact, and reliable latching system. It would be advantageous to provide a cable connector with stacked modules having improved electrical performance in a cost-effective and compact manner.

Objects of this invention have been achieved by providing the connector according to claim 1. Disclosed herein is a connector comprising a housing, one or more terminals mounted in the housing for connection to a complementary connector, and a latching system including a resilient latch arm extending in a coupling direction along a first side of the connector housing and attached to the housing via a pivot, the latch arm having a latching portion extending from the pivot to a locking end comprising a locking shoulder arranged towards or proximate a mating end of the connector, the latch arm further comprising an actuation portion extending in a roughly opposed direction to the latching portion from the pivot, wherein the latching system further comprises an actuator having a manually engagable portion arranged proximate a second side of the connector opposed to the first side, the actuator further having an engagement portion for engaging the actuation portions of the latch arm. The actuator may thus be provided roughly at the level of a sidewall or below the sidewall of the connector housing in a protected and compact arrangement. Only a single latch arm pivot point is required in this configuration whilst enabling the latching shoulder to be biased towards the connector housing, thus providing a particularly compact latch arrangement.

The connector assembly may be provided with one or more terminal receiving modules that are stacked together and received within a cover member which may be separated into two parts that are assembled together.

The latch arm may be integrally moulded to one part of the cover member via flexible bridging portions and the actuator may be integrally moulded via a flexible portion to the other cover part or alternatively comprise a separate part assembled to the connector. The actuator may for example be in the form of a U-shaped member having a pair of spaced apart actuation legs that engage the actuation portion of the latch arm, the legs joined together by a bridging portion that forms the manually engagable actuation grip. The actuation portion of the latch arm may be substantially in the form of a cantilever extension from the pivot, the end thereof positioned below or beneath an outer sidewall of the connector cover or housing for protection thereof.

The cover member may be provided with separating walls integrally moulded with a cover part or cover parts for insertion between adjacent terminal modules to improve the electrical performance of the connector. The separating walls may be provided upstanding from a sidewall of each cover part whereby the cover parts are assembled together about the sandwiched terminal modules in a direction orthogonal to the stacking direction of the modules. A particularly compact yet cost-effective connector with good electrical performance is thus provided.

Further advantageous aspects of the invention are set forth in the claims, or will be apparent from the following description and drawings.

An embodiment of the invention will now be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings in which; Figure 1 is a perspective view of a connector according to this invention; Figure 2 is an exploded perspective view of the connector; Figure 3 is an exploded perspective view of the connector viewed towards the cable receiving end; Figure 4 is a plan view of the connector towards a latch arm side thereof; Figure 5 is a cross sectional view through line 5-5 of figure 4 ; Figure 6 is a cross sectional view through line 6-6 of figure 5.

Referring to the figures, a connector 2 for terminating a multi-conductor cable comprises a housing 4, a plurality of terminals 6 mounted in corresponding cavities of the housing, and a latching system 8. The housing 4 is an assembly of a plurality of parts including terminal module housings 10 that each receive a plurality of the terminals 6 to form respective terminal modules 11 that are stackable together and received in a cover member 12 of the housing. The cover member 12 is provided in this embodiment in two separate cover parts 14,16 that may be assembled together and securely attached by bonding, heat staking, or by any other conventional means, to capture and secure the terminal modules 11 therein.

The cover 12 may be in the form of a roughly boxshaped shell having opposed first and second sidewalls 18,20, and orthogonal thereto opposed third and fourth walls 22,24 that are separated along a seam 25 defining the interface between the separate cover parts 16,14.

The cover member 12 further comprises terminal module separating walls 28 that upstand in an assembly direction (A) from the first and second walls 18,20 respectively, where the assembly direction (A) is perpendicular to the stacking direction (S) of the plurality of terminal modules 11. The separating walls 28 provide an insulating separation between the terminal modules 11 and in particular between the open-sided connection regions 30 of terminal modules. The connection regions 32 of the terminals 6 are accessible for termination of conducting wires thereto.

The separating wall 28 increases the electrical path between terminals and may improve the electrical performance characteristics by increasing the dielectric constant between terminals of adjacent modules. The separating walls 28 are also useful for ensuring that the terminal modules 11 are stacked in the required order and/or orientation by provision of coding and/or polarising ribs or grooves 33,34 extending in the assembly direction (A) along the separating walls 28 of each cover part 14,16. The ribs or grooves 33,34 engage in complementary grooves or ribs 35,36 of corresponding terminal modules designated for that particular position. As may be seen in figure 2, the first polarising or coding elements 35 on the terminal modules 11 are offset in the connector mating direction (M) with respect to the second polarising grooves or ribs 36 of the same terminal module such that each terminal module can only be assembled in a particular orientation to the cover member 12 which has complementarily positioned polarising or coding elements 33,34 on the separating walls 28. Both the orientation and/or position of the terminal modules 11 in the cover member 12 can thus be defined by the interengaging polarising or coding elements 35,36,33,34. In the present embodiment the separating walls 28 are provided as substantially equal height walls extending from the opposed sides of the respective cover parts 14,16.

The latching system 8 comprises a resilient latch arm 38 and an actuator 40 separate therefrom. The latch arm and actuator are moulded integrally with respective cover parts 16,14, although they could also be separately assembled to the connector housing 4.

Integral moulding of the cover parts provides a particularly compact and cost-effective arrangement. The latch arm 38 is attached to the housing, in particular to the second cover part 16 via a flexible pivot 41 in the form of an integrally moulded leg extending from the second sidewall 18. The latch arm 38 extends from the pivot 41 to a locking end 42 which is proximate or at a free end 43 such that the latching portion 44 is substantially in the form of a cantilever beam. Locking shoulders 45 for engagement with complementary locking shoulders of a complementary connector are provided on locking protrusions at the locking end 42. The latching arm 38 further comprises an actuation portion 46 extending in a roughly opposite direction to the latching portion 44, from the pivot 41 to a free end 48.

The actuation portion 46 extends below an outer sidewall portion 50 of the cover member 12. The actuation portion 46 is thus well protected from interference with external objects. Small protective extensions 52 of the third and fourth sides 22,24 proximate the locking end 42 also protect the latch arm from interference with external objects.

The actuator 40 comprises an actuation portion 52 connected to a manually engagable grip 54 arranged at the second side 20 of the cover member opposed to the first side 18 along which the latch arm 38 extends. In this embodiment, the actuator 40 is substantially in the shape of a"U-where the legs of th ^are the actuation portions 52 bridged together by the grip 54 that is roughly at or below the cover part second side 20. The actuator 40 may be integrally moulded with the cover part 14 in a resilient manner, for example by providing slots 56 (see figure 2) such that the grip 54 and actuation legs 52 may be resiliently biased towards the first side 18 thereby biasing the latch arm actuation portion 46 such that the locking end 42 displaces towards the side wall 18.

As best seen in figure 2 and 5, the actuator actuation portions 52 have recessed engagement ends 60 which receive therein complementary shaped ends 62 of the latch arm actuation portion 46. The depression of the actuator grip 54 from a side of the connector opposed to the latch arm enables provision of a particularly compact and well protected latching system whereby the latch locking shoulder 45 displaces towards the connector. The latter is particularly useful in applications where the connector 2 is pluggably received between upstanding walls of a complementary connector.

Claims

CLAIMS: 1. A connector comprising a housing, one or more terminals mounted in the housing for connection to a complementary connector, and a latching system comprising a resilient latch arm extending in a coupling direction (M) along a first side of the connector housing and attached to the housing via a pivot, the latch arm having a latching portion extending from the pivot to a locking end comprising a locking shoulder arranged towards or proximate a mating end of the connector, the latch arm further comprising an actuation portion extending in a roughly opposed direction to the latching portion from the pivot, wherein the latching system further comprises an actuator having a manually engageable portion arranged proximate a second side of the connector opposed to the first side, the actuator having an actuation portion for engaging the actuation portion of the latch arm.
2. The connector of claim 1 wherein the connector comprises one or more terminal receiving modules assembled within a cover member of the housing, the latching system being integral with or attached to the cover member.
3. The connector of claim 2 wherein the cover member includes a first part and a second part for assembly to the first part, the latch arm mounted on the second part and the actuator mounted on the first part.
4. The connector of claim 3 wherein the latch arm is integrally moulded with the second cover part.
5. The connector of claim 3 or 4 wherein the actuator is integrally moulded with the first cover part.
6. The connector of any one of the preceding claims wherein the actuator comprises actuation portions and a grip forming substantially a U-shape where legs of the U are defined by the actuation portion that extend to free ends engageable with the latch arm actuation portion.
7. The connector of any one of the preceding claims wherein the actuation portion of the latch arm extends at least partially below an outer sidewall portion of the housing for protection of an engagement end thereof.
8. The connector of any one of the preceding claims wherein the connector comprises a plurality of terminal modules stackable together and received within a cover member of the housing, the cover member comprising separating walls insertable between stacked adjacent modules.
9. The connector of the preceding claim wherein the separating walls and terminal modules have complementary interengaging polarising and/or coding ribs or grooves for the correct orientation and/or position of the terminal modules.
10. A connector substantially as herein described with reference to the accompanying drawings.