Electrical Connector Alignment Structure for Mating Tolerance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing electrical connectors suffer from misalignment due to mating tolerance, leading to poor contact at contact portions and potential resonance issues.
Innovation Solution
The electrical connector design includes a female connector with first and second restricting portions located near contact wall portions to compensate for misalignment, ensuring secure fitting and reducing poor contact.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If mating tolerance is allowed for removable fitting, then ease of operation is improved, but misalignment occurs between electrical connectors leading to poor contact
Solution Approach 1:
The restricting portions are pre-positioned on the holding member to anticipate and prevent misalignment before mating occurs. These structural features guide the connectors into proper alignment during insertion, eliminating the need for post-mating adjustment and ensuring reliable contact from the outset while maintaining removable fitting capability
Solution Approach 2:
The restricting portions act as intermediary elements between the two electrical connectors during mating. These features mediate the alignment process by providing physical guidance and constraint, allowing the connectors to mate removably while preventing the misalignment that would otherwise occur due to tolerance accumulation
2Reliability
If restricting portions are added to compensate for misalignment, then contact quality is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The restricting portions are integrated directly into the holding member structure rather than being separate components. This merging of functions allows the holding member to simultaneously perform its primary function of securing terminals and the secondary function of providing alignment compensation, thereby improving contact quality without proportionally increasing device complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The holding member is designed with multi-functionality by incorporating restricting portions that serve dual purposes: maintaining terminal positions and compensating for misalignment. This universal design approach allows a single component to address multiple issues, improving contact quality while minimizing the increase in overall device complexity
Data Source
AI summary
A female electrical connector includes internal terminals, an external terminal surrounding the internal terminals, and a holding member that holds the internal terminals and the external terminal and extends in a long-side direction (X axis direction) and a short-side direction (Y axis direction). The internal terminals are arranged in the long-side direction. The external terminal includes a first contact wall portion closer than the internal terminals to a corner in the long-side direction and a second contact wall portion closer than the internal terminals to a corner in the long-side direction. The first and second contact wall portions face each other in the short-side direction. The holding member includes a first restricting portion close to the first contact wall portion to compensate for misalignment in a mated state and a second restricting portion close to the second contact wall portion to compensate for misalignment in the mated state.