The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 17, 2003
Filed:
Oct. 16, 2001
Michael J. Greenside, Granite Bay, CA (US);
Jay R. Forkas, Rocklin, CA (US);
Hewlett-Packard Company, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
A card cage having a series of circuit board slots may be modified using various components of a circuit board adapter. The card cage has a series of slots, each slot having common dimensions and including card guides adapted to house a full height circuit board card by holding a top end and a bottom end of the full height circuit board card. Each modified slot also includes a set of cooperating vertical support member guides located within the slot which cooperate to house the vertical support member within the slot by holding the top end and the bottom end thereof. The vertical support member supports an intermediate card guide which cooperates with at least one of the card guides to house a smaller circuit board within the slot by holding a top end and a bottom end therebetween. Thus, when the intermediate card guide is removed from the slot, a full vertical height circuit board card may be inserted within the slot. When the intermediate card guides are located within the slot, one or more smaller vertical height circuit card guides may be housed within the slot. As an example, a 6U compact PCI circuit board slot can be converted to house two 3U sized compact PCI circuit board cards. This is accomplished without impinging upon the dimensions of any of the adjacent slots. The circuit board adapter may be provided as an adapter kit for use in modifying a circuit board slot. In addition, a circuit board slot may be provided with a set of standard circuit board card guides and a set of vertical support member guides to allow its selective use with alternately sized circuit board cards. A method is also provided for adapting a circuit board slot to accommodate one or more smaller vertical height circuit boards utilizing the various components of the adapter.