Patent Publication Number: US-8123533-B2

Title: Electrical connector saving development of mold

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     1. Field of the Invention 
     The present invention generally relates to an electrical connector, and more particularly, to a novel structure of a spacer of the electrical connector for saving development of the mold. 
     2. Description of Related Art 
     An electrical connector includes a plurality of elements that are needed to develop many molds for forming the elements, so the cost of the electrical connector is increased. If one element of the electrical connector is changed, the cost of the mold for forming the element is also increased. So the decrease of cost of molds for forming the elements is imperative. 
     An electrical connector includes an insulative housing, a plurality of contacts secured in the insulative housing and a spacer secured on the back of the insulative housing for retaining the contacts. Each contact has a contacting portion receiving in the insulative housing, a soldering portion extending outside the insulative housing for inserting through the spacer and a connecting portion connecting with the contacting portion and the soldering portion. The contacts include an array of first contacts whose the contacting portions are on a same line and adjacent soldering portions are arranged in two lines. The spacer includes a plurality of mounting holes for holding the soldering portions. The adjacent mounting holes are also arranged in two lines corresponding to the soldering portions of the first contacts. If the soldering portions of the first contacts are arranged in different sequence from what&#39;s it said, the mounting holes of the spacer also need to be changed corresponding to the soldering portions. The cost of mold for forming the spacer is increased. Thus, an electrical connector with saving development of the mold is desired to overcome the disadvantages of the related art. 
     Hence, the present invention is directed to solving this problem in the related art. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     An object of the invention is to provide an electrical connector which has an universal space corresponding to different sequences of the soldering tails with saving development of the mold for forming the spacer. 
     In order to achieve the object set forth, an electrical connector has a insulative housing defining a mating portion defining a front surface and a back surface opposite to the front surface. A plurality of contacts is secured in the housing and define soldering tails. The contacts include a group of first contacts. A spacer is assembled to position the soldering tails and comprises first mounting holes to be inserted with the soldering tails of the first contacts. The first mounting holes of the spacer are lined in at least two rows and each row has a same number of the first mounting holes to a total number of the first contacts. 
     Other objects, advantages and novel features of the invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  is an assembled perspective view of an electrical connector of a first embodiment of the present invention; 
         FIG. 2  is an exploded perspective view of the electrical connector as shown in  FIG. 1 ; 
         FIG. 3  is a perspective view of a spacer of the electrical connector as shown in  FIG. 1 ; 
         FIG. 4  is a bottom plane view of the exploded electrical connector as shown in  FIG. 1 ; 
         FIG. 5  is an assembled perspective view of an electrical connector of a second embodiment of the present invention; 
         FIG. 6  is an exploded perspective view of the electrical connector as shown in  FIG. 5 ; and 
         FIG. 7  is a rear side view of an electrical connector of a third embodiment of the present invention; and 
         FIG. 8  is a cross-sectional view of the electrical connector taken along lines  8 - 8  in  FIG. 3 . 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     Reference will now be made in detail to the preferred embodiment of the present invention. 
     Referring to  FIGS. 1 and 2 , an electrical connector  100  adapted for mounting on a printed circuit board (not shown) in accordance with a first embodiment of the present invention comprises an insulative housing  1 , a plurality of contacts  2  secured in the insulative housing  1  and a spacer  3  for retaining the contacts  2 . 
     Referring to  FIGS. 1 and 2 , the high-rise insulative housing  1  includes a mating portion  10  having a front surface  11  for mating a complementary connector (not shown) and a back surface  12  opposite to the front surface  11 . A pair of mounting portion  14  extends downwardly at the two back end of the mating portion  10  and defines a bottom face  140  (labeled in  FIG. 4 ) for mounting on the printed circuit board, respectively. There is obvious distance between the bottom face  140  and the mating portion  10 , so the pair of the mounting portions  14  is functioned as a stand-off The mating portion  10  defines a pair of side surfaces  13  connecting with the front surface  11  and the back surface  12 . A pair of guiding portions  15  extends forwardly from the side surface  13  and is located in front of the two mounting portions  14  to avoid mismating of the electrical connector  100 . The mating portion  10  defines a plurality of receiving passageways  16  extending through the front surface  11  and the back surface  12  and two L-shaped slots  17  below the receiving passageways  16  and communicated with the receiving passageways  16 . 
     Referring to  FIGS. 2 , a plurality of contacts  2  include an array of first contacts  21  and an array of second contacts  22  respectively secured in the receiving passageways  16  and exposing to said two L-shaped slots  17 , respectively. Each contact includes a contacting portion  23  extending to the front face  11 , a soldering tail  25  extending outside the receiving passageway and parallel to the back surface  12  and a connecting portion  26  connecting with the contacting portion  23  and the soldering tail  25  and defining a retained portion  24  retained in each receiving passageway. All the contacting portions  23  of the contacts receiving the receiving passageways are on a same line in longitudinal direction of the mating portion  10 . The first soldering tails  251  of the first contacts  21  are arranged in a plurality of lines along a front to back direction perpendicular to the longitudinal direction, for example the first soldering tails  251  are arranged in two lines along the front to back direction in the embodiment. The adjacent first soldering tails  251  of the first contacts  21  are located at different lines. The second soldering tails  252  of the second contacts  22  are on a same line in longitudinal direction. The soldering tails  25  are arranged for matching traces printed on the printed circuit board. 
     As shown in  FIG. 1 , the spacer  3  are assembled between the two mounting portions  14  to support the soldering tails. Referring to  FIGS. 3 , the spacer has a base  30  defining a plurality of first mounting holes  31  and a plurality of second mounting holes  32  both arranged along longitudinal direction. The spacer  3  further has a baffle  33  extending upwards from the base to be parallel to the soldering tails  25  of the contacts  2 . A plurality of parallel separators  34  aligned with the mounting holes extend forwardly from the baffle  33  for separating the adjacent soldering tails  25 . A pair of recesses  35  is defined at the two ends of the base  30  with a pair of first engaging portions  351  at two insides thereof and a pair of second engaging portions  352  at two outsides of the base. Correspondingly as shown in  FIG. 2 , each mounting portion  14  of the insulative housing  1  defines a pair of cutouts  142  recessed at an inner face  141  thereof and running through the bottom face  140  partitioned by a tuber  143 . Thus after the spacer  3  are assembled to the housing from the bottom face  140 , the two first engaging portions  351  interfere with two opposite inside faces of the tuber  143  and the two second engaging portions  352  interfere with the inner face of the cutout  142 . 
     Please notes to  FIG. 4 , the first soldering tails  251  and the second soldering tails  252  intend to be inserted to the first mounting holes  31  and the second mounting holes  32 , respectively. The second mounting holes  32  are lined in one row, with seven holes in the first embodiment which equals to the second soldering tails  252  also in one row. The first mounting holes  31  are lined in two rows and each row has a number equal to the number of the first contact, i.e., the number of the total first mounting holes doubles that of the soldering tails of the first contacts. As a result, the spacer  3  is used to position the first soldering tails of two rows as clearly shown in  FIG. 4  and the spacer also can be used to position the first soldering tails which are arranged in one row, without any amendment. The spacer can be used in different situations, which will omit re-development mold. 
     Referring to  FIGS. 2 , the electrical connector  100  also includes a pair of securing elements  4  respectively receiving in the two mounting portions  14  of the insulative housing  1  for assisting the housing  1  to be mounted on the printed circuit board. Each mounting portion  14  defines a plurality of mounting recesses  144  stacked up and down and communicated with each other for receiving the securing element  4 . One of the mounting recesses  144  adjacent to the bottom face  140  defines a hole  145  extending through the bottom face  140 . When the height of the insulative housing  1  is changed, the connection force between the mounting portion  14  and the printed circuit board will change and the height of the securing element  4  need to adjust by receiving the different heights of the mounting recesses  144 . 
     Referring to  FIGS. 5 and 7 , an electrical connector  200  of a second embodiment includes an insulative housing  201  having a first mating portion  202  and a second mating portion  203  stacked below the first mating portion  202 . A pair of mounting portions  204  extends downwardly from the two ends of the first and second mating portion  202 ,  203  for mounting on a printed circuit board (not shown) and defines at least two mounting recesses  205  stacked up and down and communicated with each other. One of the mounting recesses  205  adjacent to the bottom end of the mounting portion  204  defines a hole  206  extending through the bottom end. A plurality of contacts  207  are secured in a plurality of receiving passageways extending in the insulative housing  201 . A pair of securing elements  208  respectively are received in the mounting recesses  205  of the mounting portions  204 . In industry the securing element  208  can choose nut (shown  FIG. 6 ) or bolt (shown  FIG. 7 ) disposed in the mounting recesses  205 . When the height of the insulative housing  201  is changed, the pair of securing elements  208  needs to dispose in a proproxiate height mounting recesses  205 .