Northern Telecom Limited

Michael H Fitzpatrick

Michael Brown

Latching/ejecting levers for electronic circuit board

Faceplate for electronic circuit board

A latching lever for use with a printed circuit board and being of a width similar to that of a faceplate for the PCB, includes an actuating member and a hooked portion projecting therefrom. The actuating member is flexibly hinged to a body portion of the latching lever by a hinge formation which includes a thick section located in a plane of the hooked portion for defining a preferred resilience of the hinge, and a thinner section away from the thick section for stabilizing the actuating member in relation to the body portion. A stud carried by the PCB is engaged by the hooked portion to latch the lever. The hooked portion is disengaged from the stud by moving the actuating member thereby freeing the lever to rotate about its pivot point. A portion of the body remote from the actuating member and extending beyond the pivot point includes a stop formation for contacting an edge of the PCB to prevent unnecessarily extreme rotation.

Latching lever for printed circuit boards

A back plane for a shelf of electronic circuit modules includes back plane connectors for providing signal and power connections with circuit module connectors near a front face of the back plane and for providing connection with bus or cable connectors near a back face of the back plane. A connector shroud includes a body or base portion and side walls extending from the base portion for guiding the bus or cable connector in alignment with pins of the back plane connector. The base portion includes apertures for accepting the pins which protrude therethrough. Most of the apertures are of sufficient size to freely accept the pins and the remainder of the apertures are of a size to provide an interference fit with corresponding ones of the pins. A key member extends normal to the base portion in a direction opposite of the side walls. In assembly with the back plane, the key member extends through part of an elongated opening in the back plane adjacent the back plane connector. The key member is positioned to cooperate with a complementary structure in an electronic circuit module of a type acceptable for connection to the back plane connector. A keyway defined in one of the side walls of the shroud is of a predetermined position in relation to a particular position of the key member and defines which of the bus and/or cable connectors are connectable with the back plane connector. The key member also includes a releasable latch for retaining the connector shroud in assembly with the back plane.

Growing community of inventors

Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Michael H Fitzpatrick