Process of Manufacturing Low-Profile Connector

Abstract

A process of manufacturing low-profile connector includes the steps of (a) forming connector main body, (b) laser activation, (c) plating, and (d) post-treatment. The connector main body for low-profile connector so manufactured includes integrally formed pin terminals to effectively reduce the costs for researching and developing production engineering and making molds, to simplify processing procedures and save a lot of time and labors that are otherwise needed to process metal pins and separated half shells, and to effectively reduce the stock of components and save the warehousing management cost. Moreover, the present invention provides simplified and automated manufacturing process to omit manual assembling and accordingly, save labor cost for subsequent assembling and enable mass production.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0001]1. Field of the Invention[0002]The present invention relates to a process of manufacturing low-profile connector, and more particularly to a process of manufacturing connector main bodies for low-profile connectors for data transmission among electronic products.[0003]2. Description of the Prior Arts[0004]It is a common technique in the electronic industry to use a connector to bridge or connect two separate electronic devices at their connecting ends for signal and data transmission. There are tremendous types and models of connectors. However, most general connectors, when viewing from their structure, include a shell and a plurality of parallelly arranged metal pins enclosed in the shell. By fixedly welding the metal pins of the connector to an end of a cable, signal and data can be transmitted between two electronic devices via the connector. Conventionally, the shell of the connector is assembled from an upper and a lower half shell. Separate mo...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention provides an improved process for manufacturing low-profile connectors. The process includes steps of forming connector main bodies and a holding support using plastic material, laser activation to modify the surface of the plastic material, plating to form a layer of metal on the laser activated areas, and post-treatment including cutting off the connector main bodies from the holding support and trimming the edges. The connector main body includes integrally formed pin terminals that effectively reduce costs and simplify the manufacturing process. The invention also provides a simplified and automated manufacturing process to save labor costs and enable mass production.

Problems solved by technology

(1) The size-reduced metal pins and connector shells are separately researched and developed, and separate molds must be made for them. Therefore, relatively high cost is required for researching and developing production engineering and making molds.

(2) Since the metal pins and the upper and lower half shells are manufactured and processed separately, complicated processing procedures are involved to consume relatively high amount of time and labor.

(3) While the existing low-profile connectors have a reduced overall volume, the number of the components thereof does not decrease. That is, the structure of the existing low-profile connectors is not simplified. A large stock of different components for the connectors is required to thereby increase the cost for warehousing management.

(4) With the conventional connector manufacturing process, the existing low-profile connectors in the final processing procedures require manual assembling to complete the finished products thereof. The large number of small components tends to cause lowered good yield in the manual assembling while a lot of time and labor is needed to result in increased manufacturing cost.

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