Abstract:
An electrical connector comprises an insulative housing, front and rear channels in the insulative housing and a hollow space defined between the front and corresponding rear channel, a plurality of front and rear contacts received respectively in said front and rear channels, said hollow space defines at least one block for separating the front and the rear contacts from each other, and avoid the front and rear contacts contacting each other for assuring the stable transmission of the signal.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
       [0001]     1. Field of the Invention  
         [0002]     The present invention relates to electrical connectors and more particularly to electrical connectors used to interconnect electronic assemblies, for example, an ODD (Optical Disk Drive).  
         [0003]     2. Description of the Related Art  
         [0004]     In the field of the electronics, with the trend that electrical products are developing to smaller size, smaller and lighter electrical connectors used in the electrical products are needed and the contacts in the connectors are also required to be formed with smaller space between each other. However, high-density contacts assembly brings a new problem that how to prevent short circuit. For resolving the above problem, U.S. Pat. No. 6,024,603 discloses a connector, which has upper contacts and lower contacts. The upper contacts and lower contacts are staggerly mounted to a housing. A plurality of blocks are defined on the rear wall of the housing to separate the contacts from each other. But along the desire to transmit information at a faster rate and have a bigger capacity, the number of the contacts is increasing highly. The above-mentioned structure of the contacts assembly will take a large space of the housing along the horizontal direction. Thereby, an improving structure of contacts assembly is proposed, which puts the two lines of contacts respectively in the front and rear position of the housing. Please refer to U.S. Pat. No. 6,375,506, wherein the contacts are divided to two lines and each contact is positioned in a channel. The contacts in same line are separated from each other by a plurality of walls of the channels. The disadvantage of this means is that it doesn&#39;t have any block structure and when the rear contacts are mounted to the channels, they may touch the front contacts that have been mounted, especially a big force is put to the rear contacts.  
         [0005]     Hence, an electrical connector is needed to overcome the foregoing shortcomings.  
       BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
       [0006]     A main object of the present invention is to provide an electrical connector that can efficiently prevent short circuit.  
         [0007]     An electrical connector comprises an insulative housing, front and rear channels in the insulative housing and a hollow space defined between each front and corresponding rear channel, a plurality of front and rear contacts received respectively in said front and rear channels, said hollow space defines at least one block for separating the front and the rear contacts from each other.  
         [0008]     Other objects, advantages and novel features of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description of the present embodiment when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. 
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0009]      FIG. 1  is a perspective view of the electrical connector according to the present invention.  
         [0010]      FIG. 2  is an exploded view of the electrical connector according to the present invention.  
         [0011]      FIG. 3  is another perspective view of the electrical connector according to the present invention.  
         [0012]      FIG. 4  is a cross-sectional view taken along a line  4 - 4  in  FIG. 1  according to the present invention.  
         [0013]      FIG. 5  is a sectional view according to the present invention.  
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION  
       [0014]     Referring to FIGS.  1  to  5 , the electrical connector of the present invention comprises an insulative housing  1 , a plurality of front contacts  2  and rear contacts  3  receiving in the housing and soldering pads  4  retained on opposite ends of the insulative housing.  
         [0015]     The insulative housing  1  is made of insulative plastic and has a longitude structure. An interface  11  in the front of the housing is provided, which defines a receiving space  12  for receiving a contacting board of a mating connector (not labeled). The insulative housing comprises front and rear receiving channels  13 ,  14 , wherein front contacts  2  and rear contacts  3  are received and a hollow space (not labeled) is defined between each front contact  2  and corresponding rear contact  3 . Further a block  17  is projecting from one of the sidewalls of the hollow space. The rear channels  14  extend along the top inner surface (not labeled) of the receiving space  12  toward to and through the rear wall  15  of the housing  1 , and then extend vertically along the rear wall  15  toward to and through the bottom wall  16  of the housing  1 . The front channels  13  extend along the bottom inner surface (not labeled) of the receiving space  12  to the block  17  but not beyond and then extend downwardly and through the bottom wall  16  of the housing  1 . Further more, a pair of retaining grooves  18  are formed at the ends of the housing  1  and a longitude slot  19  is defined between the receiving space  12  and the bottom wall  16 , for receiving the sidewall of the mating connector.  
         [0016]     The front contacts  2  and the rear contacts  3  are made of metal, and are respectively received in the front channels  13  and rear channels  14 . The front contacts  2  are formed with a U shape and the rear contacts  3  are formed with a L shape. Each front contacts  2  and the rear contacts  3  respectively comprises a contacting portion  21 ,  31  retaining respectively in the top and bottom inner surface of receiving space  12 , a first retaining portion  22 ,  32  extending backwardly from the contacting portion  21 ,  31 , a vertical connecting portion  23 ,  33  bending downwardly from the first retaining portion  22 ,  32 , a second retaining portion  24 ,  34  and a tail portion  25 ,  35 . Wherein, the second retaining portion  24  and the vertical connecting portion  23  of the front contacts  2  are perpendicular to each other and the second retaining portion  34  of the rear contacts  3  is extending downwardly from the vertical connecting portion  33 . The vertical connecting portion  23  of the front contacts  2  is formed with a narrow portion  231  concave insideward and the vertical connecting portion  33  of the rear contacts  3  is formed with a wide portion  331  extending outward. The front contacts  2  and the rear contacts  3  are mounted to the housing  1  forwardly from the rear wall  15  of the housing  1 . The width of the narrow portion  231  of the front contacts  2  is smaller than the width of hollow space where the block  17  is formed and the front contacts  2  can pass the blocks  17  and get into the channels  13 . Oppositely, the width of the wide portion  331  of the rear contacts  3  is bigger than the width of hollow space where the block  17  is formed and therefor the rear contacts  3  can&#39;t pass the block  17  and keep retaining in the rear channels  14 . By this, each front contact  2  and corresponding rear contact  3  are separated from each other efficiently by the block  17  between them, even if a big force is put to the rear contact  3  when mounted to the housing. Therefor it can prevent the short circuit of the contacts by the block  17  formed between the front and rear channels  13 ,  14 . The front and rear contacts  2 ,  3  are retained in the housing firmly by the interference between the first and second retaining portion  22 ,  24 ,  32 ,  34  and the front and rear channels  13 ,  14 .  
         [0017]     A pair of soldering pads  4  are formed with an L shape, and are received in the retaining grooves  18  at the ends of the housing  1 . The soldering pad  4  comprises vertical portion  41  and horizontal portion  42 . The vertical portion  41  is formed with a retaining portion  411  on the top of the rear end of the vertical portion  41  and the soldering pad  4  is retained in the housing  1  firmly by the interference between said retaining portion  411  and the retaining groove  18 . The horizontal portion  42  defines a soldering hole for enhance the soldering intensity.  
         [0018]     Obviously, the electrical connector of the present invention has other embodiments, for example, the hollow space can be formed with two blocks respectively on the two sidewalls of the hollow space and opposite to each other and thereby the connecting portion of the contact is configured with concave structure on one side or on two sides according to the number of the blocks formed in the hollow space.  
         [0019]     It is to be understood, however, that even though numerous, characteristics and advantages of the present invention have been set fourth in the foregoing description, together with details of the structure and function of the invention, the disclosed is illustrative only, and changes may be made in detail, especially in matters of shape, size, and arrangement of parts within the principles of the invention to the full extent indicated by the broad general meaning of the terms in which the appended claims are expressed.