The Whitaker Corporation

Kevin Hudson Snead

Roger Lee Thrush

Jess Britton Ferrill

Jess Britt Ferrill

An apparatus and method for preparing the end of a cable which may be used in the fabrication of a Category 5 patch cord cable assembly. The apparatus includes a cable clamp subassembly and bonding members located between wire combs that position the cable wires side by side. The wires are bonded by heating elements located in the bonding members. These heating elements comprise wires mounted on a printed circuit board. The printed circuit board heater members can be replaced so that wires with different insulation and/or different sizes can be prepared by the tool. Exposed wire pairs are untwisted and laced in the wire combs. A cable clamp prevents the portion of the wires remaining in the cable jacket from untwisting. An insert is placed between two of the wires and the other six wires to improve near end crosstalk performance. The upper bonding subassembly is then rotated into place and the ends of the wires are bonded. The cable clamp is then shifted, moving the wires, and the wires are cut to length. The bonded wire ends are then in the proper preselected order for insertion into an RJ-45 modular plug, for example, to fabricate a patch cord assembly meeting Category 5 requirements.

Fixture for use in preparing twisted pair cables for attachment to an

This invention is directed to a method and to a preferred fixture, for aligning and bonding a plurality of discrete insulation jacketed conductors to facilitate handling and insertion of the conductors into an electrical connector housing to be electrically terminated therein. The method comprises the steps of selecting plural discrete insulation jacketed conductors arranged in at least two different planes, arranging and aligning the ends of plural conductors in side-by-side fashion in a common plane on a fixture, and bonding the insulation jackets of adjacent wire ends to form a unitary ribbon type cable for ease of handling and termination. A preferred bonding procedure is by the application of localized heat to the wire ends to effect a melting and bonding of the insulation jackets.

Bonding discrete wires to form unitary ribbon cable

A socket for an electrical component comprises a dielectric housing (10) having contact retention cavities (12) and contacts (20) disposed in respective ones of the cavities. At least two of the contacts (20) each comprises a generally U-shaped configuration having first and second legs (21, 22) with a transverse element (23) joining together said legs. An extension (24) of the first leg (21) is bent back toward the second leg (22) and arranged to engage a lead of the electrical component. A tab (26) sheared from a center portion of the transverse element (23) and the first leg (21) extends downwardly from the second leg (22) through an aperture in a bottom of its respective cavity, thereby defining a slot (27) in the center portion of the transverse element and the first leg. An auxiliary electrical component (30) mounted on the socket has at least two leads (32) each of which is electrically terminated to a respective one of the at least two contacts by engagement between sides of the slot (27) in its respective contact.

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Greensboro, NC, United States of America

Kevin Hudson Snead