JPH04242084A - Connector - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To impart a strong individual character in appearance to a connector so that it can be easily recognized at a glance. CONSTITUTION:The sections of a male connector 1a and a female connector 1b which come in contact with each other, are formed into a specified letter or a figure shape, for example, a groove 3 in a N shape and a projected piece 7 in a shape which can be coupled in the groove 3. There exist conductive pins 4 in the groove 3, and there also exist receiving holes 8 in the projected piece 7. And an engagement of the groove 3 with the projected piece 7 allows the conductive pins 4 to be connected with the receiving holes 8, so that electric connection is thereby made.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a connector for electrically connecting a control device, an input/output device, etc. by combining a male connector and a female connector.

0002

2. Description of the Related Art Conventional connectors include, for example, a combination of a male connector having a large number of conductive pins arranged in an orderly manner and a female connector having a receiving hole into which the conductive pins of the male connector fit. By changing the number of conductive pins and receiving holes, or by making the overall size different, it is possible to prevent incorrect connections other than between specific devices or parts.

0003

However, in the above-mentioned connectors, it is difficult to distinguish between different connectors even by looking at the overall shape and arrangement of conductive pins, etc., and therefore, it may be inconvenient to handle. For example, when it becomes necessary to replace a connector due to damage to a conductive pin, etc., you have to refer to the instruction manual etc. to confirm the type of connector.
Alternatively, when there are many connectors that differ in the number of conductive pins by only a few, it takes time to confirm the male and female connectors that are to be paired, resulting in poor workability. Furthermore, since the connector itself has no individuality, there is a risk that, for example, an input/output device that is incompatible with a particular control device may be purchased by mistake.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a connector that can be identified at a glance by adding a strong individuality to its appearance.

[0005]

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve the above object, the connector of the present invention has the contact portion of the male connector and the female connector formed by characters, figures, symbols such as trademarks, or a combination of these. It is characterized by its shape.

[0006]

[Operation] By making the shape of the part where the male connector and the female connector come in contact with letters or figures such as a trademark, it is possible to add a strong individuality to that part. Therefore, even if the overall size and number of conductive pins are the same, the connectors can be easily identified.

[0007]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Examples of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is an exploded perspective view of a connector 1 showing a male connector 1a and a female connector 1b. The male connector 1a is constructed by forming an "N"-shaped groove 3 in a square synthetic resin housing 2, and installing a plurality of conductive pins 4 in the groove 3. The male connector 1a has a housing 2 screwed to an inner frame 13a of a pachinko machine P, which will be described later, and a cable 33a soldered to a conductive pin 4 connected to a control device C1 in an inter-machine ball lending machine 11. electrically connected via. On the other hand, the female connector 1b is integrally formed from the groove 3 of the male connector 1a from the square base plate 6 made of synthetic resin.
An inverted "N"-shaped projecting piece 7 that fits into the projection piece 7 is provided in a protruding manner, and a receiving hole 8 into which the conductive pin 4 of the male connector 1a is fitted is bored in the projecting piece 7. Conductive contact 8 on the inner surface
A is coming soon. The female connector 1b is electrically connected to, for example, an operation panel 26, which will be described later, via a cable 33b soldered to the contact 8a.

The female connector 1b has a key piece 9 protruding from one side of the base plate 6, and the male connector 1a has a locking groove 10 on the side surface of the housing 2 in which the key piece 9 of the female connector 1b engages. is formed. The key piece 9 and the locking groove 10 are used to limit the direction in which the female connector 1b and the male connector 1a are fitted together, and to lock the engagement between the female connector 1b and the male connector 1a.

In order to connect the male connector 1a and the female connector 1b constructed as described above, the groove 3 of the male connector 1a is
The protruding piece 7 of the female connector 1b is aligned with the key piece 9 of the female connector 1b, and the locking groove 10 of the male connector 1a is engaged with the key piece 9 of the female connector 1b. Then, the contacts 8a of the female connector 1b and the conductive pins 4 of the male connector 1a come into close contact with each other, and the male connector 1a and the female connector 1b are electrically connected.

[0011]The connector 1 can be intuitively recognized as an "N-type connector" because the mating portion where the male connector 1a and the female connector 1b contact each other is "N" shaped.
Easily distinguishable from other connectors. In addition to the "N" shape, this shape can be anything, such as a string of characters such as "ABC", numbers such as "7" or "123", figures such as a star or triangle, or your company's trademark. It is desirable to select a shape with strong individuality and use it continuously. By doing so, the user can, for example, determine whether the control device and the input/output device are compatible by simply looking at connector 1.
This is effective in avoiding problems related to compatibility.

Next, a specific application example of the connector 1 of the present invention will be described by exemplifying a combination of a pachinko machine P and an inter-machine ball rental machine 11 compatible with prepaid cards. Figure 2
3 is a perspective view showing a combination of a pachinko machine P and an inter-machine ball lending machine 11, and FIG. 3 is a back view thereof.

The pachinko machine P includes a front frame 13 which is hinged to the front side of an outer frame 12 so as to be openable and closable, and has an inner frame 13a fixed to the back side of the front frame 12, and an inner frame 13a located on the back side of the front frame 13.
It is generally composed of a game board 14 that is installed by being fitted into the game board 14, and a mechanism board 15 that overlaps the back surface of the game board 14 and is hinged to the game board 14 so that it can be opened and closed.

The front frame 13 has a game board 14 on its front side.
A glass door frame 16 that can be opened and closed covers the game section 14a of the game section 14a, a front panel 17 that can be opened and closed that covers the firing section of the firing rail, an operation handle 18 that adjusts the force of the ball to be hit, and a A lower ball dish 20 and the like are provided to receive overflowing balls from the upper ball dish 19.

The mechanism board 15 includes the game section 14 of the game board 14.
A winning ball collecting gutter 21 with a concave portion facing the back side of the game board 14 to collect winning balls flowing out to the back side of the game board 14, and a winning ball processing device communicating with the terminal end of this winning ball collecting gutter 21 to process winning balls. 22, a prize ball discharging device 23 that releases a fixed number of prize balls (for example, 13 balls) in conjunction with the winning ball processing device 22, and a downpipe 24 that guides the prize balls to the upper and lower ball trays 19, 20, A horizontal gutter 25 that guides rental balls to the upper ball tray 19, a control device C2 that controls the game content of the pachinko machine P, and the like are provided.

The front panel 17 of the pachinko machine P has an operation panel 2 integrally continuous with the end of the upper ball tray 19.
6 is provided. This operation panel 26 includes a segment display section 27 for displaying the remaining amount of the prepaid card used for the inter-stand ball rental machine 11, and a ball rental button 28 for key-inputting a command to supply rental balls to the control device C1. Similarly, the control device C1 is provided with a return button 29 for key-inputting a prepaid card return command.

On the other hand, the inter-stand ball rental machine 11 includes a card reader 31 for reading the amount information of a prepaid card, and a rental ball discharging device 32 for discharging rental balls, in a thin rectangular parallelepiped case 30.
This device incorporates a control device C1 that controls the card reader 31 and the rental ball discharging device 32.

The card reader 31 has a prepaid card insertion/ejection port 34 facing the front of the case 30, and a prepaid card is inserted into and removed from the card reader by driving a built-in motor (not shown).

The rental ball discharging device 32 is of a type that can freely control the number of balls released by driving a motor or solenoid (not shown), and is connected to the ball supply gutter (
(not shown) via a flexible pipe 35 to receive supply of pachinko balls from the island where the pachinko machine is installed. At the ball outlet of the ball rental device 32, there is a guide tube 3 as shown in FIG.
6 are connected, and the opening at the lower end of the guide tube 36 and the opening at the end of the horizontal gutter 25 of the mechanism plate 15 communicate with each other so that the rental balls are guided to the upper ball tray 19. Note that the guide tube 36 and the horizontal gutter 25 only face each other and communicate with each other, and are not physically connected. Therefore, the front frame 13 can be opened and closed freely.

The pachinko machine P and the inter-machine ball rental machine 11 are each formed independently, and are placed next to each other on the pachinko machine installation island. The cable 33a of the control device C1 of the inter-machine ball rental machine 11 faces the inside of the front plate 17 from the lower side of the pachinko machine P. The male connector 1a of the present invention is attached to the tip of the cable 33a, and the housing 2 of the male connector 1a is screwed to the inner surface of the inner frame 13a as shown in FIG. On the other hand, the female connector 1b of the present invention is attached to the tip of the cable 33b on the operation panel 26 on the side of the pachinko machine P. Then, the female connector 1b and the male connector 1a are combined to connect the control device C1 of the inter-machine ball rental machine 11 and the operation panel 2 of the pachinko machine P.
6 is electrically connected. In this way, the control device C1
Since the control panel 26 and the control panel 26 are electrically connected, key input of the ball rental button 28 or the return button 29 allows the control device C
1, the ball rental device 32 and the card reader 31 are operated.

[0021] The control device C1 of the inter-stand ball rental machine 11 is as follows:
It is also possible to use it as the gaming control device C2. In this case, as shown in FIG. 4, a female connector 1b is attached to the cable 33a of the inter-machine ball rental machine 11, and the female connector 1b is connected to a male connector provided on the control device C2 side. Further, in this embodiment, the mating portion of the connector 1 is shown in an appropriate shape, but the shape is not limited to this, for example, the engaging portion between the key piece 9 and the locking groove 10. For example, it may be applied to any part where the male connector 1a and the female connector 1b come into contact.

[0022]

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, in the connector of the present invention, the shape of the contact portion between the male connector and the female connector is in the form of letters or figures, so the type of connector can be easily identified by looking at the shape of that portion. can. Therefore, there is no need to refer to an instruction manual or the like when replacing the connectors, and when there are many connectors, it is easy to identify the male and female connectors that are to be paired, thereby significantly improving work efficiency.

Furthermore, if the connector 1 of the present invention is used to connect the pachinko machine P and the inter-machine ball rental machine 11, the following effects can be obtained. That is, the pachinko machine P and the prepaid card compatible inter-machine ball rental machine 11 are closely related in structure.
Incompatible with only certain models. For example, when the pachinko machine P is provided with the prize ball discharging device 23 as in the above embodiment, the rental ball discharging device 32 of the inter-machine ball rental machine 11 only needs to have the function of discharging only rental balls. If the pachinko machine P does not have the prize ball release device 23, the ball rental device 32 of the inter-machine ball rental machine 11 must be equipped with a prize ball release function. Therefore, if a connector 1 with a specific shape is used only for pachinko machines P and inter-machine ball rental machines 11 for which compatibility has been confirmed, when a consumer purchases a pachinko machine P and an inter-machine ball rental machine 11, In addition, pachinko machine manufacturers can control quality by licensing the use of a specific connector 1 only to inter-machine ball rental machines 11 that work reliably with their pachinko machines P. It becomes easier to do.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is an exploded perspective view of a connector.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a combination of a pachinko machine and an inter-machine ball rental machine, showing an example of application.

FIG. 3 is a rear view of FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a rear view of a combination of a pachinko machine and an inter-machine ball rental machine, showing another example of application.

[Explanation of symbols]

1...Connector 1a...Male connector 1b...Female connector 3...Groove (contact part) 7
... protruding piece (contacting part) 11 ... inter-machine ball rental machine (input/output device) C1, C2 ... control device

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A connector for electrically connecting a control device, an input/output device, etc. by combining a male connector and a female connector, the contact portion of the male connector and the female connector being marked with characters such as trademarks, etc. A connector characterized by a shape formed by a figure, a symbol, or a combination of these.