Electrical Connector

The present invention relates to an electrical connector, and more particularly to an electrical connector wherein a housing has formed therethrough a plurality of bores, each provided with locking means for securely holding an electrical terminal therein, and a cover is mounted to the housing so as to engage a tail end portion of each of the electrical terminals in order to prevent the removal of the electrical terminals from the housing.

A known electrical connector falling into the above category comprises a housing and a cover which serves as a retainer. The housing has a peripheral wall including four side wall sections. In order to allow electric lead wires connected to electrical terminals to extend, the cover is formed with partitions defining therebetween grooves which extend inwardly from a portion of a peripheral wall thereof. The housing has projections on three side wall sections, while the cover is formed with cutouts which are adapted to receive therein the projections of the housing, respectively, when the cover is pressed toward the housing. This known electrical connector is illustrated in FIG. 13 on page 124 of Nissan Technical Journal, Dec., 1982. When the cover is mounted on the housing, the partitions engage with tail end portions of the terminals, preventing the removal of the terminals from the housing. However, the cover is likely to be removed from the housing if the lead wires are pulled away from the housing with a strong force, because the cover is engaged with the housing at three side wall sections of the housing only.

According to the present invention, there is provided an electrical connector wherein a cover is firmly mounted to a housing so that the cover is less likely to be removed from the housing even when electric lead wires connected to electrical terminals are pulled away from the housing with a strong force, but it is easy to mount the cover to the housing.

Specifically, according to the present invention, an electrical connector comprises a housing formed with a bore means opening in an end wall thereof and locking means for holding an electrical terminal in the bore means, and a cover formed with partition means defining groove means extending inwardly from a predetermined portion of the peripheral wall thereof. The cover is formed with projecting means on the predetermined portion of the peripheral wall. The cover is formed also with engaging means on the remaining portion of the peripheral wall thereof. The housing has slot means for receiving the projecting means and engaging means for engaging with the engaging means of the cover.

FIG. 1 is a schematic sectional view of a housing of an electrical connector taken through I--I of FIG. 3 with a cover mounted thereto;

FIG. 2 is a front elevation, partly broken away, of the housing as viewed along an arrow II in FIG. 3 or as viewed along an arrow II' in FIG. 4;

FIG. 3 is a plan view of the housing as viewed along an arrow III in FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a bottom plan view of the housing as viewed along an arrow IV in FIG. 2;

FIG. 5 is a bottom view of the cover;

FIG. 6 is a plan view of the cover;

FIG. 7 is a section of the cover taken through VII--VII of FIG. 5; and

FIG. 8 is a fragmentary section taken through VIII--VIII of FIG. 5.

Referring to FIGS. 1 to 8, an embodiment of an electrical connector according to the present invention is described.

Referring to FIGS. 1, 2, 3 and 4, the electric connector comprises a housing 1 of a resin material. The housing 1 includes an end wall 1a and a peripheral wall 1b connected to the end wall 1a and extending in a predetermined direction. The peripheral wall 1b has four side wall sections 1c, 1d, 1e and 1f as best seen FIG. 3. The housing 1 is formed with bore means 2 having one end opening in the end wall 1a and extending inwardly from the end wall 1a. The bore means includes eight elongate bores 2 in this embodiment. The housing 1 is formed also with locking means 4 for holding an electrical terminal 3 shown in phantom in FIG. 1 in the bore means 2. The locking means 4 extends into each of the bores 2, although for the sake of simplicity only one of the bores 2 is illustrated to have the locking means 4 in FIGS. 3 and 4. The locking means 4 biases the electrical terminal 3 against the bore wall so as to securely hold same in the bore 2. The electrical terminal 3 has a tail end portion 15 connected to an electric lead wire 8 shown in phantom in FIG. 1. The housing 1 has a wall portion 1' extending from the side wall section 1e beyond the level of the end wall 1a. This wall portion 1' has formed therein four slots 5. Three projections 6 are formed on the peripheral wall 1b of the housing 1 and are disposed on three side wall sections 1c, 1d and 1f respectively.

The electrical connector also comprises a cover 7 of a resin material serving as a retainer.

Referring to FIGS. 1, 5, 6, 7 and 8, the cover 7 includes an end wall 7a and a peripheral wall 13. The peripheral wall 13 includes three side wall sections 13a, 13b and 13c as best seen in FIG. 5. The cover 7 also includes partition means 11 defining five grooves 9 extending inwardly from a fourth side wall section 13e. The grooves 9 allow insertion of electric lead wires connected to the electrical terminals into the cover 7. The partition means includes a plurality of partitions 11. Four of the partitions 11 have projections 12 adapted to be inserted into the slots 5 formed in the wall section 1' of the housing 1. The cover 7 has three cutouts 14 formed in the side wall sections 13a, 13b and 13c extending inwardly from the end wall 7a. The cutouts 14 are adapted to engage with projections 6 formed on the side wall sections 1c, 1d and 1f of the housing 1. The partitions 11 are formed with projections 10 adapted to extend inwardly in the corresponding bores 2 so as to engage the tail end portions 15 of the electrical terminal for preventing removal of the electrical terminals 3 out of the bores 2, as best seen in FIG. 1. As best seen in FIG. 1, each of the projections 12 has a side 12a tapered upward as viewed in FIG. 1 so as to allow the cover 7 to be inserted into the slots 5 in a direction indicated by an arrow B.

Referring to FIG. 1, assembly of the electrical connector will be described.

The electrical terminals 3, each connected to electric lead wires 8, are inserted deeply into the bores 2 of the housing 1 until they are locked by the locking means 4. With the electric lead wires 8 inserted into the grooves 9, the cover 7 is inserted into slots 5 in the direction indicated by the arrow B in FIG. 1 and placed onto the end wall 1a of the housing 1. Then, the cover 7 is pressed toward the end wall 1a of the housing 1 until the projections 6 on the housing 1 fit in the cutouts 14 formed in the cover 7. In the process, the side wall sections 13a, 13b and 13c formed with cutouts 14 are slightly warped outwards as they engage the projections 6. To facilitate the warping of these side wall sections, each of the projections has a tapered side 6a as best seen in FIG. 2.

In the illustrated position in FIG. 8, a pair of projections 10 of the partitions 11 extending into each of the bores 2 engage with the tail end portion 15 of the electric terminal 3. This prevents removal electrical terminal 3 from the housing 1 when the electric lead wire 8 is pulled in the direction indicated by an arrow A in FIG. 1, thus allowing the locking means 4 to securely hold the electrical terminal in the proper position in the bore 2.

From the description as above, it will be appreciated that the cover 7 is firmly mounted to the housing 1 at four side wall sections of the peripheral wall 1b of the housing 1. Thus, the cover 7 is less likely to be removed from the housing 1 even when the electric lead wires are pulled away from the housing with a strong force. Furthermore one side wall section 13d of the cover 7 is engaged with the side wall section 1e of the housing 1 by inserting the projections 12 into the slots 5, thus facilitating mounting of the cover 7 onto the housing 1.

Because the cover 7 is a separate piece from the housing 1, the grooves 9 extend inwardly in parallel from one side wall section of the cover 7, and the projections 12 are to be inserted into the slots 5, it is now possible to place the cover 7 onto the end wall 1a of the housing 1 in the direction indicated by the arrow B in FIG. 1. This further facilitates assembly.

With the cover 7 firmly mounted to the housing 1 as described above, the electrical terminals 3, each being engaged by the projections 10 of the cover 7, are securely held in the housing 1.

According to the described embodiment of the electric connector, the cover 7 is a separate piece from the housing 1. Thus, the cover 7 can be easily mounted or removed from the housing 1, facilitating assembly or disassembly.

Furthermore, the fact that the cover 7 and housing 1 are separate pieces permits the use of compact metal molds in forming the cover 7 and the housing 1 because it is not necessary to prepare a large single metal mold for forming a unitary housing and cover structure. With the same metal mold, covers for housings of male and female connectors can be formed if the housing has a plan view whose profile is synmetrical about a plane extending in parallel and spaced equidistant from the parallel side wall sections. As a result, the effeciency in assembly procedures has been greatly increased.