Gm Global Technolgoy Operations, Inc.

United Technologies Automotive Inc.

Framatome Connectors Interlock, Inc.

Other

Framatone Connectors Interlock, Inc.

Robert G Plyler

Lyle B Suverison

Joseph Howard Gladd

Charles R Nestor

John A Yurtin

William E Cross

Jay Harold Garretson

Kenneth P Cope

Terry A Rice

Robert D Kennedy, Deceased

Mark C Sellnau

Robert E Steele

Andrew Frank Rodondi

Joseph Matthew Senk

Bruce J Serbin

Emil J Tolnar, Jr

Andrew M Spisak

Stephan H Schramme

Chong H Yi

Jerrold Scott Glynn

Paul S Ghirardi

Thomas Edward Lazor

Theodore H Horrell, Jr

John J Pavlak

Bruce N Sech

Herbert R Lilley

David R Heilman

George F Seagreaves

John J Merva

Raymond C Seiffert

Jeffrey L Ziegler

Jeanne E Hillestad

An electrical connector having a housing that includes a conductive piece and a plastic piece, electrical contacts mounted to the housing, and a circuit assembly connected to the contacts. The circuit assembly comprises circuit elements and a lead frame. The lead frame is formed from a bandolier used to carry the contacts and the circuit elements prior to insertion into the housing. One portion of the lead frame may form a ground plane and may be joined to the conductive housing piece. Bandolier index holes may be used for attaching the ground plane portion to posts on the conductive housing piece. An uncut section of the lead frame may form a bridge for grounding a contact. The lead frame may also be mounted onto a ferrite block.

Electrical contact and bandolier assembly

A connector assembly having a male connector body engagable with a female connector body. At least one female terminal is mounted in one of the connector bodies and the terminal includes a contact portion having a generally cylindrical shape with opposing ends and a plurality of contact beams extending between the ends to define a reduced effective diameter located between the ends. The assembly also includes a preassembled terminal position assurance mechanism, which for providing an indicia of whether the terminal is fully seated within the connector body, and a preassembled connector position assurance mechanism, which provides an indicia of whether the connector bodies are fully engaged with one another.

Connector assembly

An electrical connector assembly employs a connector position assurance device to detect and interlockably secure complete mating of a pair of electrical connectors. In one aspect of the present invention, the connector position assurance device has a yoke which traps a cantilevered beam to a locking member. In another aspect of the present invention, a connector position assurance device has a yoke and a flexible arm. In yet another aspect of the present invention, a method of mating, installing and disengaging a pair of electrical connectors and a connection position assurance device is provided.

Electrical connector assembly employing a connector position assurance

An electrical connector assembly employing a connector position assurance device to aid in the retention of and signal full insertion of a pair of mating electrical connectors.

An electrical connector assembly having a terminal stuffer member for securely maintaining a plurality of terminal members within a connector body. The terminal stuffer member includes a plurality of flexible locking arm members. The connector body includes a plurality of openings adapted to slidably receive a corresponding plurality of terminal members therein. At least one wall portion of the connector body includes a plurality of recessed portions associated with the openings for the terminal members, with each of the recessed portions having a ramped portion associated therewith. When the terminal stuffer member is slidably inserted into a first, preloaded position, the locking arm members are slidably received within the recessed portions and therefore do not interfere with the openings into which the terminal members are inserted. Accordingly, the terminal members may be inserted into the connector body when the terminal stuffer member is in the preloaded position. When the terminal member is further slidably engaged into a second, locked position with the connector body, the ramped portions urge the locking arm members outwardly into abutting engagement with a portion of each terminal member, thus securely holding the terminal member within the connector body. In the preferred embodiments a pair of flexible latching arm members are formed on the terminal stuffer member.

Secondary terminal lock plug through stuffer

A cylinder pressure sensor of the annular insert type disposed within an access well to measure the flexure of a first wall relative to a second wall along a response axis has low-cost components thereof requiring only simple sequential assembly in axial stacked fashion providing contaminant protection and electrical shielding of the sensing element.

Non-intrusive cylinder pressure sensor

An electrical female terminal of two piece construction comprising a base terminal and a spring member. The base terminal is stamped and formed from a blank strip of relatively soft copper alloy and includes a round, smooth, protrusion-free contact end in the form of a rolled socket that is attached to conventional crimp wings by an intermediate cylindrical neck of a rolled cylindrical form. The rolled socket has an annular lip at its front end defining an entrance for plugging a terminal pin into the socket and a pair of contacts near the front end that are formed from the material of the socket. The spring member is stamped and bent from a sheet of spring material into a generally T-shaped configuration comprising a spring finger that is attached to the middle of a c-shaped support at one end. The spring member is located entirely inside the rolled socket by the deformed portions of the rolled socket in cooperation with the c-shaped collar so that the spring finger biases a terminal pin plugged into the rolled socket into engagement with the contact portions.

Two piece electrical female terminal

An electrical connector comprising a multiple terminal connector body has a sturdy and easily installed end cap that is secured to the connector body for sealing the cable end. The end cap includes a seal chamber that is disposed in a common cavity at the cable end of the connector body and contains a compliant sealing material which seals the open ends of the terminal cavities and encapsulates projecting ends of the electric terminals and trailing portions of the electric cables. The end cap is configured to maintain the integrity of the seal chamber, to permit the electric cables to pass out of the common cavity at the cable end of the connector body, to assure that the electric terminals are properly located in the terminal cavities of the connector body and to provide a strain relief in cooperation with portions of the connector body.

Electrical connector

A fiber-optic connection system comprises three interfitting plastic parts. A two-piece cable terminal includes a cable receiving body and a terminal body. The terminal body has two spaced projections which mount the fiber ends and has a pair of converging cable guide walls. The cable receiving body has walls with gripper teeth complementary to the guide walls. When two cable strands are introduced and the bodies are interconnected to form the terminal connector, the walls trap the cables. The fiber ends are finished by hot plate melting. The terminal connector is inserted into a header having pockets to mount electro-optical devices. The pockets have integral spring rails to force the devices into contact with the projections containing the fiber ends upon assembly. A series of integral lock tangs and shoulders retain the component parts interconnected to prevent inadvertant disassembly.

Fiber optic connection system and method

An electrical connector comprises a connector body and an elastomeric seal of one piece construction which seals the conductor end of the connector body and provides an interface seal when the connector body is plugged into a mating connector. The elastomeric seal is held in place by a backshell which provides a protective shroud for the interface sealing portion of the elastomeric seal. A lock arm is incorporated into the backshell which also provides a strain relief and a mount for a connector position assurance device.

An electrical connector has dielectric connector bodies which are coupled and locked together by a resilient lock member of one connector body which snaps past and engages a lock member of the other connector body. The resilient lock member includes a slot which extends through one end and a lock shoulder which faces the opposite end. The other lock member includes a lock shoulder and a loop which passes through the slot of the resilient lock member and cooperatively forms a gauge hole of predetermined minimum size with the resilient lock member when the connector bodies are coupled and locked together by the lock shoulders. A gauge pin having a shank of substantially the same predetermined minimum size is disposed in the gauge hole to indicate that the connector bodies are locked together by the lock shoulders.

Electrical connector lock with gauge pin

An electrical connector socket comprises a sleeve member of conducting material, a support member having two juxtaposed pieces coaxially surrounding the sleeve member, and resilient contact means in the form of a stamped sheet metal cylinder. The stamped sheet metal cylinder has a pair of longitudinally spaced bands which are connected to each other by a plurality of resilient longitudinal contact strips which extend obliquely to the longitudinal axis of the sleeve when the stamped sheet metal cylinder is secured to the sleeve member in a twisted condition by the two juxtaposed pieces of the support member.

Electrical connector having resilient contact means

An electrical connector comprises a connector body having two rows of terminal cavities which extend axially through the connector body. The connector body has a nose portion which comprises a plurality of ribs which define channels at the forward portions of the terminal cavities. An elastomeric seal ring is mounted on the connector body and extends across the channels to bias the terminals against the bottoms of the channels and into interference positions with respect to lock shoulders which retain the terminals in the rearward direction. A cap member mounted on the nose portion of the connector body retains the terminals in the forward direction, holds the terminals in their interference positions in the terminal cavities and fastens the elastomeric seal ring in the axial direction.

A fuse package for a vehicle handles a row of plug-in type fuses in a simple and convenient fashion. An insulator block includes a plurality of terminals arrayed so that a row of fuses held in a cover will plug into the terminals as the cover is installed on the block. The terminals grip the fuses more strongly than the fuses are held within the cover so that the terminals will be pulled out of the cover and stay plugged in to the terminals as the cover is removed, giving easy servicing access to the fuses. The fuses are not held within the cover strongly enough to stay with the cover as the cover is handled, however. A retainer fits within the cover strongly enough to maintain the cover and fuses as a unitary assembly that can be separately handled and installed. The retainer also includes a locking means that interengages with a locking means on the block as the cover assembly is installed to cooperatively keep the cover on the block. The locking force is also strong enough to pull the retainer out of the cover as the cover is removed. The retainer therefore stays with the block so as to let the fuses by easily accessed.

Growing community of inventors

Vienna, OH, United States of America

Robert G Plyler