Shin-etsu Polymer Co., Ltd.

Ryoichi Sado

Kazutoki Tahara

Akio Nakamura

Koichi Nei

Takekuni Okamoto

Yoshitusgu Morikawa

Shigeru Matumoto

Kenichi Okada

Naoki Kodama

The invention provides a novel and improved method for manufacturing an elongated piece of a composite body composed of a rubber or plastic body of an elongated form and a plurality of electroconductive linear bodies embedded in or bonded on the surface of the elongated rubber or plastic body in alignment, each of the linear bodies extending in the transverse direction of the elongated body in substantial parallelism with each other and being in a curved, bent or corrugated form useful as a connector, electromagnetic shielding gasket and the like. Different from conventional known methods, the invention proposes a method in which the linear bodies are first integrated with the sheet of rubber or plastic followed by corrugating the linear bodies together with the sheet and chopping of the thus corrugated composite body into pieces in a plane perpendicular to the longitudinal direction of the linear bodies.

Method for manufacturing an elastic composite body with metal wires

The adjustable and readily solderable sheet-like connector of the invention is composed of an insulating sheet-like elastic body, a plurality of parallel-running wires of a soft and plastically deformable metal or alloy integrally bonded to the surface of the sheet-like body forming an array of parallel electroconductive paths and a soldering layer at least partly covering the exposed array of the metal wires as formed of a composite material composed of a plastically flowable material such as a hot-melt adhesive and particles or chopped fibers of a solder alloy dispersed therein. The connector is easily bent and left in the bent form just like an adjustable ruler to comply with any curved surface of a printed circuit board and readily bonded to the printed circuit board by heating and pressing between hot plates to cause melting of and soldering with the particles or chopped fibers of the solder alloy contained in the soldering layer at the portions just between each set of the metal wires and the connecting terminals on the printed circuit board due to the better heat conduction there than in the other portions at which the soldering layer is left electrically insulating.

Adjustable and readily solderable sheet-like connectors

The invention provides an improvement in a socket-type connector used for making electric connection between two circuit units. Unlike a conventional socket-type connector in which a contacting element made of a metal piece in a form of something like a spring is fixed in a rigid socket, at least a part of the socket of the inventive connector is made of an electrically insulating and elastically resilient material so that a pin plug inserted into the socket is held firmly and in good reliable contact with the contacting element by virtue of the elastic resilience given by the part of the socket made of the elastically resilient material where the socket is deformed by the insertion of the pin plug to exhibit rubbery resilience.

Socket-type connectors for electric connectors

A novel press-contact type interconnector is proposed which is formed by comprising (a) a rectangular connecting piece of a woven cloth, the woof fibers being conductive and the warp fibers being non-conductive, having antisotropical electroconductivity in the direction substantially parallel to one edge line thereof and (b) a couple of holder members made of an electrically insulating material holding said rectangular connecting piece as sandwiched therebetween in such a manner that the two opposite peripheral portions of the rectangular piece along the edge lines perpendicular to the direction of the anisotropical electroconductivity are each extended out of the surfaces of the holder members in the direction forming an angle between 10.degree. and 80.degree. with said surface of the holder member by a height not smaller than the thickness of the rectangular connecting piece. The above described inventive interconnector is advantageous in the reliability of the electric connection without any special supporting means even when the printed circuit boards or display units to be connected with the interconnector are of a relatively large size where otherwise considerably large contacting pressure is required.

Interconnectors

The invention provides a push button switch covering member integrally made of a rubbery elastomeric material having an improved structure with which a much larger key stroke is obtained before a snapping action takes place in the covering member when the member is pushed at the center portion leading to the contact of the contact points than in the conventional ones. The covering member is constructed of (a) a central pushing part, (b) a first annular portion which may be in a form of a truncated cone or a cup laid upside down and is connected to the central pushing part at the upper end, (c) a second annular portion encircling and connected to the first annular portion and (d) a base flat connected to the second annular portion, at which the covering member is mounted on the base board of the switch, the relationship between the strengths of the first and the second annular portions being such that the first annular portion does not undergo a buckling deformation before the second annular portion is substantially deformed or bent around the connecting line between the second annular portion and the base flat.

Rubber-made covering member for push button switches

The invention provides a novel composition capable of giving an electrically conductive, flexible shaped body having stability in the applied voltage vs. current performance. The composition comprises an electrically insulating polymeric material having flexibility such as a diorganopolysiloxane, a finely divided particulate or fibrous metallic silicon such as a finely powdered semiconductor grade high purity metallic silicon dispersed in the insulating polymeric material as the matrix and an organosilicon compound having at least one functional group directly bonded to the silicon atom or at least one peroxy linkage directly bonded to the silicon atom in a molecule.

Flexible resistor compositions

The invention provides a novel key-board switch unit comprising a printed circuit board having fixed contact points and fixed terminals formed thereon and a covering sheet member having patch-like flexible contacting sheet members bonded on the lower surface thereof and fastened together by means of screw bolts or the like means with a spacer sheet having openings sandwiched therebetween, each of the flexible contacting sheet members being large enough to cover at least one fixed contact point and at least one fixed terminal. Different from conventional ones, the inventive switch unit is assembled together by fastening with screw bolts penetrating the fixed terminals on the printed circuit board so that most reliable electric connection is obtained across the opening in the spacer sheet between the fixed terminal and the flexible contacting sheet member on the covering sheet member which also serves as a movable contact point with the fixed contact point on the printed circuit board.

Key-board switch unit

The invention provides a novel key board switch unit with illumination in the pushing areas, e.g. push buttons. Different from conventional ones, the pushing areas in the inventive unit are illuminated indirectly with the light emitted from a lamp positioned at a remote place not directly visible from above the pushing areas and, instead, an optical conductor member made of a transparent material is provided between the lamp and the pushing areas to be illuminated. The inventive key board switch unit can be very compactly designed despite the sufficiently high but not glaring intensity of illumination facilitating the operation of the switches even in a dark place.

Key board switch unit with illumination

A sheet member of silicone rubber suitable for use in gas-exchange such as oxygenation and decarbonation of blood in an oxygenator of a mechanical heart and lung is proposed. The sheet member of the invention is provided with a plurality of capillary pores extending in parallel and each opening at both ends thereof. The oxygenator is constructed with a plurality of the inventive sheet members arranged in parallel and air is passed through the spaces between the adjacent sheet members while blood is passed through the capillary pores in the sheet members. The efficiency of the gas exchange by use of the above sheet members is further enhanced by providing the sheet member with capillary pores each having an undulating longitudinal cross section comprised of an alternating repetition of wider portions and narrower portions.

Gas-exchange sheet members

The invention provides a novel interconnector of presscontact type of a rod-like configuration used as sandwiched between two circuit boards for electric connection therebetween. Different from the conventional interconnectors of the similar types composed of a rod-like member of an insulating rubbery elastomer and a plurality of linear conductive bodies embedded in the rod member penetrating therethrough, the inventive interconnector is further provided with at least one insulating sheet member made of a material with higer rigidity than the rubbery elastomer as embedded within or bonded to the surface of the rod member extending longitudinally. By virtue of the sheet member, the Poisson deformation of the rod member in the longitudinal direction under a compression is prevented so as to improve the reliability of the electric connection. Further, the sheet member is bent or curved as viewed in the longitudinal direction so as to facilitate absorption of the local stress in the rod member under compression in contribution to further improvement of the stability in the electric connection with the interconnector.

Press-contact type interconnectors

The invention provides a novel push-button switching means for producing an electric signal free from the problems of chattering or bouncing unavoidable in the conventional switches relying on the principle of mechanical contacting and coming apart of the contact points. The inventive push-button switching means comprises a pressure-sensitive unit composed of a resistor body formed of an electroconductive rubbery elastomer exhibiting a minimum in its electric resistivity when subjected to compression with an increasing pushing force reaching a strength in excess of a certain critical strength and a pair of electrodes provided on the surface of the resistor body. When the pressure-sensitive unit is pushed with a force in excess of the critical strength to compress the resistor body and then released, the resistivity of the resistor body exhibits two minimum values in the courses of the pushing and releasing and, correspondingly, two maxima are obtained in the electric current through the resistor body with application of a predetermined voltage between the electrodes. These two successive peaks of current are detected by a detecting circuit which produces a single electric signal in response thereto.

Method for generating electric signals and a push-button switch means

The invention provides a novel key-board switching unit used, for example, in pocketable electronic calculators for producing binary-coded signals corresponding to contacting of movable contact points on the bottom surface of a keyboard covering pad and fixed contact points on the printed circuit board on which the covering pad is mounted when pushed with a finger tip or a pushing means. The printed circuit board in the inventive switching unit has a so fine and complicated circuit pattern that, in the prior art, one or more of jumping circuits crossing over a printed base pattern are indispensable resulting in much increased production costs while, in the inventive switching unit, the circuit pattern on the circuit board per se may be incomplete by the lack of such jumping circuits and, instead, the covering pad is provided with conductive connections corresponding to the lacking jumping circuits on the circuit board to form necessary jumping circuits when the covering pad is mounted on the circuit board.

Key-board switching unit

The invention provides a key-board switch unit used, for example, in pocketable electronic calculators comprising a base plate having at least one pair of switch electrodes and a covering pad made of an insulating rubber and provided with at least one contact member made of an electroconductive rubber and bonded on the lower surface thereof to face the electrodes coming into contact therewith when the pad is depressed. The contact member is embedded in the covering pad in such a manner that the surface of it is coplanar with the surface of the covering pad at least along the peripheries in conjunction with the covering pad and the contact member is sufficiently small so as to be confined within the area of the covering pad facing the void space formed between the base plate and the covering pad at the portion of the electrodes. The hardness relationship between the rubbery materials of the covering pad and the contact member is also of essential importance for reliable switching and durability of the switch unit.

A novel press-contact type interconnector is proposed which is formed by comprising (a) a rectangular connecting piece made of a film or sheet of an elastic material having anisotropical electroconductivity in the direction substantially parallel to one edge line thereof and (b) a couple of holder members made of an electrically insulating material holding said rectangular connecting piece as sandwiched therebetween in such a manner that the two opposite peripheral portions of the rectangular piece along the edge lines perpendicular to the direction of the anisotropical electroconductivity are each extended out of the surfaces of the holder members in the direction forming an angle between 10.degree. and 80.degree. with said surface of the holder member by a height not smaller than the thickness of the rectangular connecting piece. The above described inventive interconnector is advantageous in the reliability of the electric connection without any special supporting means even when the printed circuit boards or display units to be connected with the interconnector are of a relatively large size where otherwise considerably large contacting pressure is required.

A novel keyboard switch covering pad suitable for use in, for example, a pocketable electronic calculator is proposed which is safe from the danger of failure or erroneous operation of the LSI or other electronic devices built in the instrument when two or more of the key switches are pushed simultaneously. The keyboard switch covering pad of the invention comprises an electrically conductive rubber sheet divided into a desired number of sections and an electrically insulating sheet which serves as a common lining for the divided sections of the rubber sheet, on which the divided sections are bonded keeping an electrically insulating air gap space between each other.

Growing community of inventors

Saitama, Japan

Ryoichi Sado