The Whitaker Corporation

Daniel B Smith

Dan Alan Vance

Bruce Alan Barney

James Francis McIntire

Robert Lee Beckman

Larry Duane Stopper

A cable assembly (8, 80) including an electrical cable (10) having a flexible tubular jacket (12) and a reinforcing structure (14) attached to the outside of the jacket in a smooth sealing connection (30), and a method of using radio-frequency electrical energy, applied radially through the cable jacket (12) and the reinforcing structure (14), to make the connection (30). A shield conductor (26) inside the cable jacket (14) may be used as an RF electrode, with a second RF electrode (42, 44) circumscribing a portion of the cable (12) and the reinforcing structure (14) and shaping the outer surface of the connection. The RF energy may be used instead to activate an adhesive (108). An outer electrode (118) may be embedded in the reinforcing structure (116) in one variation of the invention.

Radio frequency heat sealing of cable assemblies

A multiconductor cable (10) including a large number of coaxial conductor pairs (16), with the coaxial conductor pairs arranged in groups (14) each including several of the coaxial conductor pairs arranged in a required order as a modular array (18) with each of the conductor pairs of each array being held in a required position with respect to the others and supported with a portion of each central conductor (54) and each shield conductor (47) exposed at a predetermined position, for connection of the array to a corresponding array (28) of terminal pads (24, 26) on a circuit board (30) or the like. Each array includes support bodies (32, 34) of flexible dielectric sheet material adhesively attached to the coaxial conductor pairs to support them in the required positions. Apertures (70, 76) are defined in the sheet material to expose the conductors for simultaneous soldering to, or unsoldering from, the terminal pads (24, 26), without removal of the support bodies (32, 34) from the coaxial conductors.

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Beaverton, OR, United States of America

Daniel B Smith