Patent Publication Number: US-2011073480-A1

Title: Process of Manufacturing Low-Profile Connector

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     1. Field of the Invention 
     The present invention relates to a process of manufacturing low-profile connector, and more particularly to a process of manufacturing connector main bodies for low-profile connectors for data transmission among electronic products. 
     2. Description of the Prior Arts 
     It is a common technique in the electronic industry to use a connector to bridge or connect two separate electronic devices at their connecting ends for signal and data transmission. There are tremendous types and models of connectors. However, most general connectors, when viewing from their structure, include a shell and a plurality of parallelly arranged metal pins enclosed in the shell. By fixedly welding the metal pins of the connector to an end of a cable, signal and data can be transmitted between two electronic devices via the connector. Conventionally, the shell of the connector is assembled from an upper and a lower half shell. Separate molds must be made for the upper and the lower half shell Therefore, according to the existing connector manufacturing technique, the metal pins are first assembled to a connector main body, and the separate upper and lower shells are then manually assembled to each other to enclose the metal pin therein. 
     Following the trend of development in the electronic industrial field, all kinds of electronic devices are designed to have light weight, low profile and compact volume. As a result, the connectors for these compact electronic devices are also largely reduced in size to form low-profile connectors. Nevertheless, the low-profile connectors are still manufactured and processed using the conventional ways, which results in the following disadvantages: 
     (1) The size-reduced metal pins and connector shells are separately researched and developed, and separate molds must be made for them. Therefore, relatively high cost is required for researching and developing production engineering and making molds. 
     (2) Since the metal pins and the upper and lower half shells are manufactured and processed separately, complicated processing procedures are involved to consume relatively high amount of time and labor. 
     (3) While the existing low-profile connectors have a reduced overall volume, the number of the components thereof does not decrease. That is, the structure of the existing low-profile connectors is not simplified. A large stock of different components for the connectors is required to thereby increase the cost for warehousing management. 
     (4) With the conventional connector manufacturing process, the existing low-profile connectors in the final processing procedures require manual assembling to complete the finished products thereof. The large number of small components tends to cause lowered good yield in the manual assembling while a lot of time and labor is needed to result in increased manufacturing cost. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     It is therefore a primary object of the present invention to provide an improved process of manufacturing low-profile connector, in order to eliminate the problems with the conventional ways for manufacturing a low-profile connector. 
     To achieve the above and other objects, the process of manufacturing low-profile according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention includes the following steps: 
     (a) Forming connector main body: Two connector main bodies for low-profile connector and a holding support are integrally formed using a plastic material through injection molding; the two connector main bodies are symmetrically formed on two opposite sides of the holding support, and each have a forward projected plug end, at where the connector main bodies are connected to the edges of the two opposite sides of the holding support; the joints of the connector main bodies and the holding support have a relatively smaller thickness to facilitate subsequent separation of finished connector main bodies from the holding support; on a front side of the plug end of each of the connector main bodies, there are formed a plurality of pins, which are parallelly arranged side by side; and the connector main bodies each have a rear side formed into a flat face; 
     (b) Laser activation: The integrally formed connector main bodies and holding support obtained in the step (a) of forming connector main body are positioned in a laser apparatus, so that the front and rear sides of the connector main bodies are laser activated to modify the surface of the plastic material of the connector main bodies; on the front side of the connector main bodies, only the areas corresponding to the pins at the plug end are laser activated; and, on the rear side, the whole flat face is laser activated; 
     (c) plating: The integrally formed and laser activated connector main bodies and holding support are positioned in a plating apparatus, the laser activated areas on the front and rear sides of the connector main bodies are plated to form a layer of metal thereon; surfaces of the pins corresponding to the front side of the connector main bodies that have been plated form an electrically conducting layer each to serve as pin terminals; and, a proximal end of each of the pin terminals is used as a welding point for welding to a connecting end of a conductor; and the plated rear side of the connector main bodies is fully coated by a metal layer and accordingly forms a metal shielding face, which provides the low-profile connector with the function of shielding interfering signals; and 
     (d) post-treatment: The connector main bodies are cut off from the holding support, and cut edges of the connector main bodies that have coarse surfaces are trimmed. 
     The connector main body for low-profile connector manufactured according to the process of the present invention includes integrally formed pin terminals to effectively reduce the costs for researching and developing production engineering and making molds, to simplify processing procedures and save a lot of time and labors that are otherwise needed to process metal pins and separated half shells, and to effectively reduce the stock of components and save the warehousing management cost. Moreover, the present invention provides simplified and automated manufacturing process to omit manual assembling and accordingly, save labor cost for subsequent assembling procedure and enable mass production. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       The structure and the technical means adopted by the present invention to achieve the above and other objects can be best understood by referring to the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments and the accompanying drawings, wherein 
         FIG. 1  is a flowchart showing the steps included in the process of manufacturing low-profile connector according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention; 
         FIG. 2  is a front view of a half-finished product of a connector main body for low-profile connector obtained in a first step of forming connector main body according to the manufacturing process of the present invention; 
         FIG. 3  is a side view of  FIG. 2 ; 
         FIG. 4  is a rear view of  FIG. 2 ; 
         FIG. 5  is a front view of a half-finished product of the connector main body for low-profile connector after a second step of laser activation according to the manufacturing process of the present invention; 
         FIG. 6  is rear view of  FIG. 6 ; 
         FIG. 7  is a front view of a half-finished product of the connector main body for low-profile connector after a third step of plating according to the manufacturing process of the present invention; 
         FIG. 8  is a rear view of  FIG. 7 ; 
         FIG. 9  is a front view of a finished product of the connector main body for low-profile connector after a fourth step of post-treatment according to the manufacturing process of the present invention; 
         FIG. 10  is a rear view of  FIG. 9 ; and 
         FIG. 11  is a side view of  FIG. 9 . 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
     The present invention will now be described with a preferred embodiment thereof with reference to the accompanying drawings. It is understood the accompanying drawings are illustrated only for assisting in describing the present invention and is not necessarily in compliance with the exact or precise size proportion and part arrangement of a real product manufactured through implementing the present invention. Therefore, the size proportion and part arrangement shown in the accompanying drawings are not intended to limit the present invention, which is intended to be limited only by the appended claims. 
     Please refer to  FIG. 1 . According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the process of manufacturing a low-profile connector includes the following steps: (1) forming connector main body; (2) laser activation; (3) plating; and (4) post-treatment. 
     Please also refer to  FIGS. 2 to 4 . In the first step of forming connector main body, at least one connector main body  10  for a low-profile connector and a holding support  20  are integrally formed using a plastic material through injection molding or other prior art plastic molding techniques. In the illustrated preferred embodiment, there are two connector main bodies  10  symmetrically integrally formed on two opposite sides of the holding support  20 . The two connector main bodies  10  each have a forward projected plug end  11 , at where the connector main bodies are connected to the edges of the two opposite sides of the holding support  20 . It is noted the joints of the connector main bodies  10  and the holding support  20  have a relatively smaller thickness to facilitate subsequent separation of finished connector main bodies from the holding support  20 . On a front side of the plug end  11  of each of the connector main bodies  10 , there are formed a plurality of pins  111 , which are parallelly arranged side by side. And, the connector main bodies  10  each have a rear side formed into a flat face. 
     Please further refer to  FIGS. 5 and 6  at the same time. In the second step of laser activation, the integrally formed connector main bodies  10  and holding support  20  obtained in the first step of forming connector main body are positioned in a laser apparatus. The holding support  20  functions to hold the integrally formed connector main bodies  10  in place. Then, the front and rear sides of the connector main bodies  10  are subjected to laser activation, so that the surface of the plastic material of the connector main bodies  10  is modified. On the front side of the connector main bodies  10 , only the areas corresponding to the pins  111  at the plug end  11  are laser activated; and, on the rear side, the whole flat face is laser activated. Since the modification of the surfaces of plastic objects by laser activation is actually a common process technique in the plastic industrial field, it is not discussed in more details herein. Only the effect that is to be achieved in the present invention through laser activation is described. 
     In the third step of plating, the integrally formed and laser activated connector main bodies  10  and holding support  20  are positioned in a plating apparatus. Since various types of plating techniques are known by a person of ordinary skill in the art, the plating apparatus applied in the present invention is not particularly limited. In the specification, only the structure and areas to be plated and the purpose and effect of plating are described. Please refer to  FIGS. 7 and 8  at the same time. In the plating step, the laser activated areas on the front and rear sides of the connector main bodies  10  are plated to form a layer of metal thereon. Surfaces of the pins  111  corresponding to the front side of the connector main bodies  10  that have been plated form an electrically conducting layer each to serve as pin terminals  112 . And, a proximal end of each of the pin terminals  112  is used as a welding point  113  for welding to a connecting end of a conductor. The plated rear side of each of the connector main bodies  10  is fully coated by a metal layer and accordingly forms a metal shielding face  114 , which provides the low-profile connector with the function of shielding interfering signals. 
     Please refer to  FIGS. 9 ,  10  and  11 . In the fourth step of post-treatment, the connector main bodies  10  are cut off from the holding support  20 , and the cut edges of the connector main bodies that have coarse surfaces are trimmed to complete two finished products of connector main bodies  10  for low-profile connectors. 
     The connector main body  10  for low-profile connector manufactured according to the process of the present invention has the following advantages: 
     1. Since the pin terminals  112  are integrally formed with the connector main body  10 , it is no need to make separate molds for the pin terminals and the connector shell, and the costs for researching and developing production engineering as well as making molds can be effectively reduced. 
     2. Unlike the conventional connector that involves complicated manufacturing procedures and requires a lot of time and labors to process and assemble the metal pins and the two half shells, the present invention does not require time and labor for assembling the metal pins to the connector main body. 
     3. The number of components is effectively reduced to exactly decrease the stock of components and the cost for warehousing management. 
     4. Since the manufacturing process is simplified and automated, manual assembling procedures can be omitted to save the labor cost for subsequent assembling, and bad yield due to errors in manual assembling can be avoided. 
     The present invention has been described with some preferred embodiments thereof and it is understood that many changes and modifications in the described embodiments can be carried out without departing from the scope and the spirit of the invention that is intended to be limited only by the appended claims.