JP2000003757A - Low insert force type connector - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a low insert force type connector having a cam slide which is driven by a bolt. SOLUTION: A low insert force connector 1 has a housing 2 and a cam slide 50 arranged freely slidably in the housing 2. The cam slide 50 holds a bolt 60, and the housing 2 holds a nut 20 for receiving the bolt 60. The bolt 60 is operated by a tool so as to slide the cam slide 50. With this structure, this low insert force connector can cope with a connector which is very much multiple-electrode, that needs a large fitting force but does not need a space for operating the cam slide 50.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electrical connector, and more particularly, to a low insertion force connector using a cam slide and a bolt.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A connector using a cam slide for realizing a low insertion force is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-215827. This is to operate the cam slide manually and to pull in the cam follower of the mating connector engaged with the cam groove of the cam slide, so that the connectors are fitted with a low insertion force. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2-123681 discloses a connector in which a cam slide is driven by a lever as a further reduced insertion force. However, since the operation of the lever requires a space, a connector disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 9-320885 as shown in FIG. 7 is known as a lever-type connector which does not require much space.

[0003] The connector 100 disclosed in FIG.
The housing 102, the other housing 104 having the cam follower 118, and the housing 1 having the cam groove 120.
02, a cam slide 106 that slides inside. The cam slide 106 is driven by rotation of a lever 108.
When the lever 108 is rotated, the support shaft 11 of the lever 108
2 engages with the inclined groove 116 formed in the arc wall 114 of the cam slide 106 to slide the cam slide 106. Accordingly, the cam follower 118 of the housing 104 moves in the cam groove 120 of the cam slide 106 and is inserted into and extracted from the housing 102.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The aforementioned Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 9-32 is disclosed.
No. 0685, the lever 108
Although the space occupied by the operation part is small to some extent, the space occupying the rotation range is required.
To further increase the amount of movement of the cam slide 106,
The operating force of the lever 108 is not so low, and when it is desired to reduce the operating force of the lever 108, it is difficult to increase the amount of movement of the cam slide 106. Since the arc wall 116 is eccentrically attached to the cam slide 106, there is a problem that the balance of how the fitting force is applied is not good. Cam slide 106 and lever 10
There is also a problem that the engagement with resin 8 is made of resin and the durability is low.

The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and does not require a space for operating the cam slide.
An object is to provide a low insertion force connector that can be operated even in a narrow place.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a low insertion force connector which has a large amount of movement of a cam slide and can reliably obtain a low insertion force, and can cope with an extremely multi-pole connector.

Yet another object is to provide a low insertion force connector which is durable and suitable for automatic assembly.

[0008]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION A low insertion force connector according to the present invention comprises a housing having a cam slide which is cam-engaged with a mating connector, and the connector is inserted and withdrawn by sliding the cam slide. At
The cam slide is driven by cooperation between a bolt provided on the cam slide and a nut provided on the housing.

Preferably, the housing is provided with a floating means, that is, a floating means.

[0010]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Preferred embodiments of a low insertion force connector (hereinafter simply referred to as a connector) 1 according to the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 is a plan view of the connector 1 of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a front view of the connector 1 of FIG. FIG. 3 is a partially sectional side view of the connector 1 of FIG. This will be described below with reference to FIGS.

The connector 1 includes a substantially rectangular insulating housing 2 formed of resin, and a cam slide 50 having a pair of arms 52 slidably disposed in the housing 2. In the figure, reference numeral 70 denotes a bracket for fixing the housing 2. Terminals arranged in the fitting portion 4 of the connector 1 are omitted. Both side walls 8 of the housing 2,
8 ', arm receiving grooves 6, 6 are formed over substantially the entire length of the housing 2. Inside each side wall 8, 8 ', an opening 12 is provided for receiving the cam follower 204 (FIG. 5) of the mating connector 200. A guide hole 14 is formed on the side wall 8 ′ side of the holding portion 10 of the housing 2, and an ear 18 is formed integrally with the housing 2 on the side of the side wall 8 on the opposite end wall 16. A similar guide hole 14 'is formed. The guide holes 14 and 14 ′ are located substantially diagonally of the housing 2.

A rectangular opening 19 for attaching the housing 2 to the bracket 70 is formed in the holding portion 10 of the housing 2 on the side opposite to the guide hole 14, that is, on the side wall 8 side. A latch arm 72 of a bracket 70 is engaged with the opening 19 to hold the housing 2. The details will be described later. The bracket 70 has four tabs 74 formed two by two along the side walls 8, 8 '. Each tab 74 has a mounting hole 76 for mounting the bracket 70 to another member.
Are drilled.

The cam slide 50 is made of resin and has a base 5.
Arms 52 are integrally formed at both ends of the arm 4. Inside each arm 52, three cam grooves 22 inclined as shown in FIG. 2 are formed. A bolt 60 is held by the cam slide 50, a nut 20 is held by the holding portion 10 of the housing 2, and the bolt 60 and the nut 20 are engaged. Slide. Details of this attachment will be described later.

Referring to FIG. 3, ear 18 has substantially the same height as housing 2, and guide pin 206 (FIG. 5) of mating connector 200 is smoothly received at the upper end of guide hole 14 '. Taper 24 is formed. Opening 1
Upward shoulders 26 and 28 are formed on the inner wall of the step 9 in a stepped manner, and a lower portion of the shoulder 28 is formed with an outward taper 32. When the bracket 70 is made of resin, the latch arm 72 is formed integrally with the bracket 70, and when the bracket 70 is made of metal, the latch arm 72 is formed of, for example, resin as a separate component. The latch arm 72 is made of a material having elasticity, and is integrally formed with a support post 74, which extends diagonally upward from the tip of the support post 74, and furthermore, a locking finger 78 that is folded back from the top portion 76 and extends diagonally downward.

When the latch arm 72 is a separate body, a locking finger (not shown) having the same shape as the locking finger 78 is formed at the lower part of the support post 74 and inserted into a hole (not shown) of the bracket 70. Latch arm 72 and bracket 70
Are linked. When the latch arm 72 is inserted from the lower part of the housing 2, that is, from the taper 32 side, the locking finger 78
The tip of the locking finger 78 is locked to the shoulder 26 while being guided by the taper 32. Thus, the bracket 70 and the housing 2 are connected to each other. Since the locking finger 78 has elasticity, the housing 2 is
In FIG. 3, it is relatively movable in the direction of arrow A. Therefore, if the connector 200 is misaligned with the mating connector 200, the guide pin 206 is inserted into the guide holes 14 and 1 at the time of fitting.
When entering the housing 4 ', the housing 2 automatically moves to absorb the displacement. The shoulder 28 has a latch arm 72
This is to prevent the housing 2 from coming off from the housing 2 due to vibration or external force.

Next, FIG. 4 is a partially enlarged view of a mounting portion of the bolt 60 and the nut 20. Referring to FIG. 4, nut 20 is held in holding portion 10 of housing 2 by insert molding. The nut 20 is held around the holding portion 1
The through hole 30 through which the shaft 62 of the bolt 60 passes is formed at the center of the holding portion 10. The base 54 of the cam slide 50 has a recess 6 on its outer end face 58.
4 are formed, and a shallow recess 68 is formed in the inner end face 66. The bolt 60 is held by a bolt holding case (hereinafter simply referred to as a case) 82 having a circular flange. A lance 86 is formed in a space 84 inside the case 82 and engages with a neck portion 90 formed on the shaft 62 of the bolt 60 to lock the bolt 60. The bolt 60 is further locked to the cam slide 50 by a metal fitting 96 inserted into a slot 94 of the base 54. A substantially gourd-shaped hole is formed in the metal fitting 96, and the neck 92 is engaged with the smaller hole to hold the bolt 60. Since these are known bolt holding mechanisms, detailed description will be omitted. Since the bolt 60 is connected to the cam slide 50 in this manner, when the bolt 60 is rotated with an impact wrench or another tool,
The cam slide 50 also slides in conjunction.

Next, the operation of the cam slide 50 will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 5 is a partially sectional front view of the combination of the connector 1 of the present invention and the mating connector 200, and shows a state at the time of starting fitting. FIG. 6 is a front view similar to FIG. First, referring to FIG. 5, the connector 1 is bolted (not shown) to another member, for example, a vehicle body or the like, via a bracket 70. The bolt 60 is in a state of being pulled out, and at this time, the cam slide 50 is at the temporary locking position at the left end in the figure. The temporary locking is performed by the latch engagement between the cam slide 50 and the housing 2 at the temporary locking portion 212. Since this is a known configuration, detailed description is omitted.

When the cam slide 50 is in the temporary locking position, the opening 12 of the housing is aligned with the cam groove 22 of the cam slide. The other connector 200
The fitting portion 214 projects, and the fitting portion 214 has an opening 1.
2, a cam follower, that is, a projection 204 is provided. Further, guide pins 206 are provided so as to correspond to the guide holes 14 and 14 ′ of the housing 2. The length of the guide pin 206 is higher than the height of the fitting surface 216, and the surfaces substantially opposing each other are flat surfaces as can be seen from the drawing. That is, the cross section is semicircular. Connector 2
When 00 is inserted into the housing 2, the guide pin 206 and the guide holes 14 and 14 ′ of the housing 2 cooperate to absorb misalignment of each other as described above, and are accurately aligned. It is located in the opening 12.

Next, as shown in FIG. 6, when the bolt 60 is turned and screwed by a tool (not shown), the cam slide 5 is rotated.
0 moves to the right in the figure, and the protrusion 204 is driven downward by the cam groove 22 so that the connector 200 is fitted with the connector 1. The space required for the bolt 60 to rotate is only a part for a tool such as a socket wrench.
Little space is required around the circumference of the bolt 60. The rotation of the bolt can be performed on a production line by an automatic machine. Thus, since the cam slide 50 is driven by the bolt 60, it can be applied to an extremely multi-pole connector requiring a large fitting force.

Although the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the preferred embodiments, the embodiments are merely illustrative and not restrictive. For example,
Those skilled in the art will readily appreciate that the shape of the housing and cam slide can be changed without departing from the spirit of the invention.

[0021]

According to the connector of the present invention, the cam slide has
Since it is driven by the cooperation of the bolt provided on the cam slide and the nut provided on the housing, a low insertion force connector that does not require space for operation of the cam slide and can be operated even in a narrow place can be obtained. Further, the amount of movement of the cam slide is large, and a low insertion force is reliably obtained, so that an extremely multi-pole connector can be supported. Further, a connector having high durability and suitable for automatic assembly can be obtained.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a plan view of a low insertion force connector of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a front view of the low insertion force connector shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a side view of the low insertion force connector of FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a partially enlarged sectional view of a mounting portion of a bolt 60 and a nut 20.

FIG. 5 is a partially sectional front view showing a combination of the connector of the present invention and a mating connector, showing a state at the time of starting fitting.

FIG. 6 is a front view similar to FIG. 5, showing a state at the time of completion of fitting.

FIG. 7 is a perspective view showing a conventional connector.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Low insertion force connector 2 Housing 20 Nut 50 Cam slide 60 Bolt 200 Mating connector

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A low insertion force connector comprising a housing having a cam slide engaged with a mating connector by a cam, wherein said connector is inserted and removed by sliding operation of said cam slide, wherein said cam slide is provided on said cam slide. A low-insertion-force connector driven by cooperation of a bolt and a nut provided on the housing.