Floating Electrical Connector Terminal Positioning
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Solution Overview
Problem
The existing manufacturing methods for electrical connectors with elastic terminals, such as floating connectors, face challenges in maintaining positional accuracy during integral molding, leading to potential misalignment issues.
Innovation Solution
The design includes a fixed and movable housing with terminals that have specific linear and bent portions exposed for contact with the mold during molding, ensuring accurate positioning and alignment by restricting misalignment in XYZ directions through integral molding.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If integral molding is used to manufacture floating connectors, then manufacturing efficiency is improved, but positional accuracy of terminals deteriorates due to misalignment during molding
Solution Approach 1:
A positioning protrusion on the terminal engages with a positioning recess in the mold during integral molding. This intermediary positioning mechanism ensures that the terminal maintains accurate positional relationship with the housing throughout the molding process, preventing misalignment while allowing efficient integral manufacturing
Solution Approach 2:
The terminal is pre-positioned and fixed to the housing before the integral molding process begins. The positioning protrusion and recess are designed in advance to guide the terminal into the correct position, ensuring manufacturing precision is maintained from the start of the molding operation
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach improves the positional accuracy of terminals in electrical connectors, allowing them to absorb misalignment errors and maintain effective contact with mating connectors, enhancing the reliability of the connectors.
Implementation Method 1
The terminal has an elastic portion that is not supported at all between two held portions that are held by the fixed housing and the movable housing. The elastic portion elastically deforms, so that the movable housing is movable with respect to the fixed housing.
Data Source
AI summary
A movable housing has a fitting recess into which a fitting protrusion of a mating connector is fitted. The fitting recess has a pair of side wall portions facing each other, a pair of connecting wall portions connecting both end portions of the pair of side wall portions, and a bottom wall portion connecting the pair of side wall portions and the pair of connecting wall portions. A plurality of terminals is held by the pair of side wall portions and the bottom wall portion. A second fixing portion of the terminal has a first and second linear shaped portion, and a first bent portion connecting the first second linear shaped portions. At least a part of the first linear shaped portion is exposed from the movable housing on an inner wall surface of the bottom wall portion.