Alps Electric Co., Ltd.

Yoshiro Honda

Hiroyuki Bannai

Seishi Takahashi

Nobuo Matsuzaki

Kenichiro Nishikigi

Hideshi Sasaki

A rotary connector including a stationary housing, a rotating housing and a lock member. When the lock member is mounted on the rotary connector, both housings are reliably locked with no free rotation therebetween permitted. The lock member is easily broken at a thin portion to release the locked state. A holder having a slot is integrally formed with the outer cylindrical portion of the stationary housing, while a projection is formed on the top surface of the rotating housing. The lock member is integrally formed of a horizontally extending arm portion, a ring-shaped finger-hook portion integrally connected to one end of the arm portion, and a coupling portion that extends downward from the other end of the arm portion. Formed on the border between the arm portion and the coupling portion is a V-shaped groove, as the thin portion, which is mechanically weaker than the rest of the lock member. The coupling portion of the lock member is snapped in the slot while the hole formed in the arm portion receives the projection of the rotating housing, and thus a relative rotation between both housings is blocked. By pivoting upward the finger-hook portion and the arm portion about the thin portion as a fulcrum, the arm portion is broken at the thin portion away from the coupling portion, and the coupling portion remains snapped in the slot.

Rotary connector

Disclosed is a rotary connector mounting structure which involves no rattling after the mounting to thereby achieve a reduction in noise in spite of the adoption of a snap-in system, which allows the rotary connector to be easily mounted to the steering device of an automobile. A displacement absorbing member such as an elastic member 5 or a cushion member 13 is provided on the bottom surface of a first, stationary housing 1, and a mounting member 4 of the first housing 1 is snapped in on a switch casing 10 of a combination switch, which is the stationary member of a steering device. After this, the bottom surface of the stationary housing and the mounting surface of the stator member are biased by the displacement absorbing member such that they move away from each other, whereby rattling of the stationary housing is prevented.

Growing community of inventors

Miyagi-ken, Japan

Yoshiro Honda