Molex Corporation

Thomas C Hoover

Kent E Regnier

Alan S Walse

A connector arrangement for electrically connecting circuit elements disposed on two printed circuit boards and spaced apart at centerlines of about 0.050 of an inch or less is described which includes a pitch controlling contact locator cooperating between the mating edge of an edge card and the connector housing. The pitch controlling contact locator includes a resilient supported spring member disposed in the connector cavity generally at the midpoint of the terminal array which is resilient in a vertical direction and substantially rigid in a horizontal direction. It further includes a mating cutout disposed in the mating edge generally at the midpoint of an array of contact pads which is adapted to engage the spring member with two points of contact when the edge card is inserted into the connector cavity. The pitch controlling contact locator effectively reduces lateral mating misalignments introduced in the arrangement by stacking of manufacturing tolerances and vertical mating misalignments caused by mother board warpage introduced by exposure to high temperature wave soldering processing.

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Lisle, IL, United States of America

Thomas C Hoover