PCB Connector Contact Wafer Assembly Without Potting
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Solution Overview
Problem
The assembly of electrical connectors for printed circuit boards is time-consuming and inefficient due to numerous cumbersome steps, particularly in managing terminations and adding potting layers.
Innovation Solution
A method involving interleaving contact wafers to form assemblies, loading them into an insert, and inserting into a shell without potting material, allowing for a faster and more efficient assembly process.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional assembly methods with potting layers and termination management are used, then connection reliability is improved, but assembly time and process complexity increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent removes the potting layer and termination management steps from the traditional assembly process. The contacts are designed with built-in positioning features and rigid tails that eliminate the need for potting material to secure them, thereby extracting the time-consuming steps while maintaining reliability through alternative design features.
Solution Approach 2:
The contacts are pre-formed with rigid tails and positioning features before assembly. This preliminary preparation ensures proper alignment and secure positioning without requiring post-assembly potting or termination management, reducing assembly time while maintaining connection reliability.
2Manufacturing precision
If traditional assembly methods with multiple potting layers are used, then contact positioning accuracy is improved, but manufacturing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the potting layers from the assembly process and replaces them with integrated positioning features on the contacts themselves, such as rigid tails that engage with the holder and positioning elements that ensure correct alignment, thereby simplifying the manufacturing process while maintaining positioning accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The contacts are designed with self-positioning features including rigid tails and positioning elements that automatically ensure correct alignment and secure mounting without requiring external potting material or complex termination management, enabling the component to serve its own positioning function.
3Manufacturing precision
If individual contacts are assembled separately with termination management, then contact alignment precision is improved, but productivity decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple individual contact assembly operations into a single integrated holder assembly process. The holder is designed to receive multiple contacts with rigid tails simultaneously, and the interleaved contact wafers are inserted as a group, combining what would otherwise be separate termination management steps into one efficient operation that maintains alignment precision while improving productivity.
Solution Approach 2:
The contacts are pre-assembled into interleaved contact wafers with built-in alignment features before being inserted into the holder. This preliminary organization ensures correct alignment is achieved automatically during the single insertion operation, eliminating the need for time-consuming individual termination management while maintaining precision.
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2A~2C
Figure 3~4A
AI summary
A method of assembling an electrical connector that is configured for mounting to a printed circuit board. The method has the steps of providing contact wafers with a plurality of contacts; bending the tail ends of each contact wafer; interleaving the contact wafers to form one or more contact wafer assemblies; loading the contact wafer assemblies into an insert of the electrical connector, such that the one or more contact wafer assemblies form a predetermined arrangement of mating ends of the plurality of contacts at a mating interface of the electrical connector; and inserting the insert into a shell of the electrical connector.