Interlocking Poke Home Contact Cage Structure
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing connectors for insulated wires and electronic components, such as printed circuit boards (PCBs), often require complex designs and insulative bodies, which can complicate secure and reliable connections, especially in pick-and-place mounting processes.
Innovation Solution
A single-element electrical connector formed into a cage structure from a stamped metal sheet, featuring a cage structure with a wall structure for wire insertion, contact tines for pinching the wire, and a contact surface for mating with PCBs, allowing for secure and reliable connections without an insulative body.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional connectors use insulative bodies and complex structures, then connection reliability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent removes the insulative body from the connector design, extracting only the essential conductive contact elements. The connector is formed entirely from conductive material shaped into a cage structure with contact tines, eliminating the need for separate insulating components while maintaining connection reliability through the conductive cage design.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent combines the functions of the insulative body and conductive contact elements into a single integrated conductive structure. The cage structure serves both as the structural framework and as the electrical contact mechanism, merging multiple traditional components into one unified element that reduces overall complexity.
2Strength
If traditional connectors use multiple components, then connection strength is improved, but ease of manufacture deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The connector is manufactured as a single integrated conductive piece formed into a cage structure with contact tines. This unified design eliminates the need to assemble multiple separate components, significantly simplifying the manufacturing process while maintaining connection strength through the integrated structural design.
Solution Approach 2:
The conductive material is segmented into functional zones within the single piece structure - the cage walls provide structural strength, while the contact tines provide electrical contact capability. This segmentation of functions within a unified component achieves both strength and manufacturing ease.
3Reliability
If traditional connectors include insulative bodies, then electrical isolation is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The insulative body is completely extracted from the design. Electrical isolation is achieved not through insulating materials but through the geometric configuration of the conductive cage structure and its contact tines, which provide natural electrical isolation through their spatial arrangement and contact geometry.
Data Source
AI summary
A single element electrical connector includes a single conductive contact element formed into a cage structure having a wire insert end and a wire contact end along a longitudinal centerline axis of the connector. One wall of the cage structure includes a tab that extends into a recess included in another wall of the cage structure. The cage structure defines an upper pick-up surface having a surface area suitable for placement of a suction nozzle of a vacuum transfer device, as well as a pair of contact tines biased towards the centerline axis to define a contact pinch point for an exposed core of a wire inserted into the connector. A contact surface is defined by a member of the cage structure for electrical mating contact with a respective contact element on a component on which the connector is mounted.