The Whitaker Corporation

Amp LLC

Other

Carl G Reed

Clifford F Lincoln

Victor Eugene Slack

Mitchell E Miller

Terry Lee Pitts

Julian J Ferry

Ronald Treche

Donald R Neal

A proximity alert system for access badges including a transmitter assembly and a receiver assembly is disclosed herein. The transmitter assembly includes a transmitter housing. The transmitter housing includes a battery compartment. The housing assembly further includes a light to indicate the status of the battery. The housing assembly also includes a transmitter sensor and an adherable side to attach the transmitter assembly to a badge. The receiver assembly includes a receiver housing. The receiver housing includes a battery compartment, a light, a speaker, a motor, a clip and a receiver sensor. The light indicates the status of the battery. The receive sensor communicates with the transmitter sensor. The receiver sensor activates the motor and the speaker if the transmitter assembly and the receiver assembly are far from each other.

Proximity alert system for access badges

An electrical connector includes a housing having cavities that can receive mating electrical connectors. The cavities are arranged as vertically aligned pairs. The housing holds visual indicators which are associated with the cavities. The visual indicators for each vertically aligned pair are arranged in a rectangular array with one visual indicator at each exterior corner of the vertically aligned pair. At least some of the visual indicators have leads which extend along a rear of the housing. These leads are installed in a retainer prior to installation of the visual indicators in the housing. The visual indicators and the retainer form a subassembly which can be installed on the housing as a unit.

Stacked electrical connector having visual indicator subassembly

A disconnect module 10 includes printed circuit board subassemblies 12 mounted on a mounting member 70 for connecting shielded twisted pair cables 2A and 2B, and for disconnecting the cables for testing the integrity of the circuits. Each module 10 also includes a ground bus 74 on the mounting member 70 for connecting drain wires 6 in multiple cables 2A and 2B through traces on printed circuit board subassemblies 12 to a ground reference. Each printed circuit board subassembly 12 includes an input electrical connector 30 and an output electrical connector 40, each of which can connect corresponding wire pairs 4 in four single pair shielded or screened cables, such as T1 cables. The connectors 30, 40 are mounted on the front of a printed circuit board 14 for easy access, and each connector includes a pivoting stuffer 36, 46. Disconnectable shunting connectors 60, mounted between the input and output connectors, normally connect corresponding wires in the two cables 2A, 2B, but can be removed to provide test posts for each pair circuit. The mounting member 70 includes a mounting track 72 for supporting multiple printed circuit board assemblies 12 in a row, and the ground bus 74 on the mounting track 72 engages ground traces 26 on the bottom of the printed circuit board assemblies 12.

Wire pair disconnect module

Cable television wall outlet

A communications outlet comprises a base which is mountable on an outlet box to permit interconnections with wires in the outlet box. The base has a mounting cage in which an electrical connector having insulation displacement terminals can be mounted after the wires are terminated to the terminals, and a support platform on which the connector can be seated during insulation displacement termination of the wires to the terminals.

Communications outlet having termination aid platform

A protective housing for an electrical device includes a base and a cover. The base has a mounting station for the electrical device, and the cover can be installed over the base with the electrical device received inside the cover. The cover has an open bottom which permits air to circulate inside the cover in order to dry any condensation which might form on the electrical device. The cover is made from an air and water impermeable material. Should flooding occur, air trapped within the cover prevents floodwater from rising into the cover, thereby protecting the electrical device from immersion.

Protective housing for an electrical device

This invention is directed to a patch cord cable assembly for use in a high speed transmission cable network, more particularly to an electrical connector which gives the assembly the capability of transmitting data at 100 MHz frequency while offering near-end crosstalk (NEXT) at EIA/TIA 568-A Category 5 performance levels. The preferred electrical connector comprises a pair of interfitting housing members, and a plurality of side-by-side electrical terminals positioned between the housing members for establishing electrical contact with the individual wires of a cable. The terminals are arranged at essentially one end of the housing members and the cable is caused to enter said housing members from an opposite end thereof. One of the housing members includes a cable jacket stop intermediate the ends and plural, spaced-apart posts between the cable jacket stop and the one end. The jacketed cable is fed into one housing member and the jacket about the cable seats in the cable jacket stop with selected pairs of twisted wire continuing toward the one end. Further, the respective pairs of wires are separated from adjacent pairs and spaced apart by the plural posts. Finally, the twists are maintained, and the respective ends of individual wires are positioned for termination to respective electrical terminals.

Patch cord assembly

Invention is directed to a high performance, shielded electrical connector which exceeds EIA/TIA 568-A requirements for Category 5 applications. A preferred connector is a modular jack, such as an array of modular jacks mounted to a printed circuit board, grounded within a metal housing. The connector comprises a dielectric housing having a top surface, a printed circuit board engaging surface, a pair of side walls, and a front surface, and at least one cavity extending interiorly from the front surface thereof for electrically engaging a complementary electrical connector. The connector includes a one-piece shielding member, stamped and formed from a sheet metal blank, to offer low resistance grounding of the connector. The shielding member is adapted to lie contiguous with at least the top surface and the side walls, and includes a plurality of cantilevered tabs struck from the walls of the metal shielding member. The tabs are elongated and extend from an internal location toward the front surface. Finally, the tabs are further characterized by a free end having a reverse bend therein which, in a resiled position, extends above the plane of the respective walls of the formed shielding member.

High performance shielded connector

The invention relates to an electrical connector, or wire connecting block, of the type for electrically interconnecting a set of first conductors to an associated set of second conductors. The connector comprises a dielectric housing defined by a pair of side walls and containing a plurality of through cavities therebetween. The cavities for slidably receiving a like plurality of slotted beam contacts are characterized by a first uniform width over a portion of its length, a second portion having a uniform width greater than the first uniform width, and an angled wall transition portion between the uniform portions. Externally, the housing is provided with a like plurality of thin walled sections along one of the side walls, where each said thin walled section is aligned with a corresponding angled wall transition portion within a given cavity. Into the cavity a slotted beam planar contact is received, where the contact comprises a mid body portion and a pair of opposing end portions each containing an insulation displacing slot for receiving a conductor. The mid body portion includes a lance struck therefrom and angled to abut the angled wall transition portion, whereby to secure the contact against movement in a first direction. Finally, after loading the contact into the cavity, the thin walled section is partially severed, such as by a sharp tool, to allow hinging movement of the section into its respective cavity adjacent said lances, whereby to secure the contact against movement in a second direction.

Electrical connector with slotted beam contact

This invention relates to electrical connector terminal arrays, having interference canceling characteristics that meet or exceed the performance requirements of Category 5 components. The arrays are suited for producing connectors of the type for mounting to a printed circuit board. The connectors comprise a dielectric housing into which are mounted four pairs of electrical conductors. The conductors are arranged essentially in parallel fashion where the respective one ends thereof are spaced apart a first uniform distance, and the other respective ends thereof are spaced apart a second uniform distance greater than the first uniform distance. The conductors are further characterized by being arranged in a non-contact overlapping arrangement with the respective conductors of each outer pair in a single overlap of each other. The respective conductors of the center pair cross each other and then each crosses the adjacent conductor twice. By this arrangement, for an 8-conductor connector of the plug and receptacle type, the inner pairs of conductors exhibit a NEXT Loss of at least 45.00 at 100 MHz.

Communications connector terminal arrays having noise cancelling

The disclosure is directed to a method of manufacturing a shorting bar insert for placement in a modular jack assembly to provide for the selective shorting of predetermined contacts during periods of nonelectrical engagement, with a modular plug, such as for an 8 position miniature modular jack in accordance with USOC STYLE RJ48X, for example. The method comprises the steps of preparing a strip of stamped contacts from a planar sheet metal blank joined together by a removable carrier strip having a front face and a back face, where the contacts are formed in pairs in parallel relationship and joined together at their ends remote from the carrier strip, the carrier strip including registration means, such as holes, offset from the centerline of each respective pair of contacts. Thereafter, placing a pair of contact containing carrier strips in back-to-back relationship with the registration means aligned, whereby the contacts are realigned in overlapping relationship, and insert molding a dielectric material about the joined ends of the overlapping sets of contacts. Finally, removal of the carrier strips will reveal a modular jack assembly insert having projecting parallel contacts matching the modular jack contact slot spacing.

Method for producing contact shorting bar insert for modular jack

An electrical connector (4) terminated to signal wires (SW) of a shielded electrical cable (C) having a drain wire (DW), has an insulating housing (8) containing electrical terminals having contacts (40) electrically connected to the signal wires of the shielded electrical cable (C). A metal shield (14) covering the lower part of the housing (8) has a grounding clip (48) connected to the rear wall (28) of the shield (14) by means of a strap (62). The grounding clip receives an end portion of the cable (C) from which the signal wires (SW) extend to the contacts (40) of the connector (4). The drain wire (DW) is wound in a circuitous path about tabs (58) of the grounding clip (48). The grounding clip can be bent about the strap (62) to line in a channel (36) between two rows of the contacts (40) of the connector (4), after the grounding clip has been wound about with insulative tape (T). The drain wire (DW) accordingly provides strain relief, if the cable (C) is inadvertently pulled, for the electrical connections between the contacts (40) and the signal wires (SW).

Cable strain relief for shielded electrical connector

A contact assembly for a modular receptacle includes an array of substantially coplanar contacts which are held in position by first and second insulators. The contacts are exposed between the two insulators, and a latch mechanism holds the two insulators in the desired transversely oriented relationship with respect to one another. This contact assembly can be formed by insert molding the insulators around the contacts in a substantially coplanar configuration, and then bending the exposed central portions of the contacts to latch the two insulators into the final transverse orientation.

Contact assembly and method for making same

An electrical device intended for surface mounting has an insulating body and leads extending from the body. Each lead has an integral spring portion and an end portion. The insulating body has an aligning or locating stop and the lead adjacent to its end is biased against the locating stop by the integral spring. The locating stop thus ensures that the extreme ends of the leads will be in aligned coplanar relationship. The terminals are also formed with an integral spring which spring biases the lead portions against the stop means and spring biases a retention barb further into retentive condition.

Electrical device having improved leads for surface mounting on a

A connector assembly comprising a modular jack receiving a modular plug for interconnecting multiple contact elements in contact terminals located laterally in a row is disclosed. Nonadjacent contact elements in one of the connectors can be shunted by at least one separate shunting element. Interengagement of the two connectors can shift the shunting element to disconnect the bridged contact elements. The shunting elements are positioned such that a mating connector having a width no greater than the spacing of the shunting elements will not disengage the bridged connection.

Growing community of inventors

Clemmons, NC, United States of America

Carl G Reed