Kabushiki Kaisha Tokai Rika Denki Seisakusho

Reiki Okamoto

Yoshiaki Kato

Harehide Sasaki

Masato Minakata

Atsushi Nishida

In a terminal manufacturing method of the present invention, first a thin plate-like body including a thin plate-like terminal portion and a thin plate-like leg portion is formed with a die. The thin plate-like terminal portion has a shape corresponding to a terminal portionof an upper-level terminaland a terminal portionof a lower-level terminal. The thin plate-like leg portion has the shape corresponding to a leg portionof the upper-level terminaland a leg portionof the lower-level terminal. Then, the upper-level terminalis formed by bending the thin plate-like leg portion toward one side of a plate-thickness direction. Also, the lower-level terminalis formed by bending the thin plate-like leg portion toward the other side of the plate-thickness direction. Thus, by simply changing the bending direction of the thin plate-like leg portion, either the upper-level terminalor the lower-level terminalcan be formed. According to the terminal manufacturing method of the invention, when the terminal includes a first terminal mounted in an upper-level mounting hole of a connector housing and a second terminal mounted in a lower-level mounting hole, these two terminals can share a blank material of the same type in common at the manufacturing stage thereof.

Method of manufacturing terminal

A female terminal, into which a male terminal is inserted and connected, is formed in a shape of a substantially square tube. Respective one portions, in an axial direction and between corner portions, of a ceiling wall, a floor wall, and a pair of left and right side walls, which are four wall portions, are plate spring portions which contact the male terminal while elastically deforming independently of one another. Because the wall portions themselves structure the plate spring portions, there is no need to provide a plate spring within a tube wall, and the female terminal can be made compact. Further, contact pressure is ensured because the respective plate spring portions contact the male terminal from different directions.

Female terminal

A connector in which a housing and a retainer are coupled with sufficient strength when the connector is reduced in scale. In this connector, provisional anchoring pieces and main anchoring pieces are provided at two end portions of an inner peripheral wall of an insertion hole formed in the housing, with lengths along a direction that intersects a direction of insertion of the retainer into the insertion hole. At outer sides of two end portions of the retainer, anchorage pawls, which are formed to be engageable with the main anchoring pieces and the provisional anchoring pieces, are provided with lengths along the intersecting direction. With this structure, when the retainer is inserted into the insertion hole of the housing, the anchorage pawls engage, at two end portions of the connector, with the provisional anchoring pieces and with the main anchoring pieces.

Connector

In order to prevent a fixing terminal from being dislocated from regular-mounting-position on a connector main body when force is applied from outside before placed on a substrate, a surface-mounted connector including a connector main body to be placed on a substrate, a fixing terminal that is temporarily fixed to a side wall of the connector main body by being press-fitted, along the side wall, from a side opposite to that in which the connector main body is placed on the substrate, and that, in the temporarily fixed state, is soldered to the substrate, thereby allowing the connector main body to be mounted on the substrate, and shielding walls provided integrally with the connector main body alongside the fixing terminal in the temporarily fixed state so as to correspond to the fixing terminal, and preventing the fixing terminal in the temporarily fixed state from being interfered from outside, is provided.

Surface-mounted connector

A connector enables a size reduction while maintaining a function of reliably preventing terminal members from falling out of terminal holes. In this connector, a plate spring piece is provided in a terminal hole of a connector housing, with a length thereof set to an axial direction of the terminal hole, and an engaging pawl protrudes from the plate spring piece. When a female terminal is inserted into the terminal hole, the engaging pawl engages with the female terminal and bends the plate spring piece downward, enabling the insertion. When the female terminal is inserted to a predetermined depth in the terminal hole, the plate spring piece returns and the engaging pawl moves into an engaging hole of the female terminal. The plate spring piece has a structure of which one length direction end portion and one side portion, along the length direction, are fixed to the connector housing.

Growing community of inventors

Aichi-ken, Japan

Reiki Okamoto