Electrical header assembly for a printed circuit board

Claim 2

A header assembly for a printed circuit board, in which a housing (12) of thermoplastics material has a mating end (18), an opposite conductor end (20) and a plurality of longitudinal cavities (16) which extend longitudinally through the housing from the mating-end to the conductor end, the housing has anvil means (40; 42) at the conductor ends of the cavities, and a plurality of metallic conductor pins (14) are disposed in the respective cavities, the conductor pins having bent tails (38) which engage the anvil means to secure the conductor pins in a longitudinal direction, characterised in that a longitudinal locator plate (44) is disposed at the conductor end (20) of the housing (12) and is spaced from the anvil means (40, 42) in the transverse direction and extends beyond the anvil means in the longitudinal direction, the locator plate has a plurality of longitudinal slots (46), each of which is aligned with at least one cavity (16) and each of which has at least one detent (48, 50) therein, and the bent tails (38) project through the slots (46) in the locator plate and are retained in a prearranged pattern by the detents (48, 50) therein.

Claim 3

A header assembly according to claim 1, characterised in that the detents in the slots (46) in the locator plate (44) comprise grooves (48, 50) in the walls of the respective slots.

Claim 4

A header assembly according to claim 1 or 2, characterised in that.the longitudinal cavities (16) each have a forward portion (30) opening at the mating end (18) of the housing (12) and an enlarged rearward portion (32) opening at the conductor end of the housing, the conductor pins (14) have lateral projections which are embedded in or otherwise engage the forward portions of the cavities, and means for accommodating differential thermal expansion between the housing

Claim 5

(12) and the conductor pins (14)comprises a spacing

Claim 6

(12) and the conductor pins (14)comprises a spacing

Claim 7

(34) around the portions of the conductor pins disposed in the enlarged rearward portions (32) of the cavities, and a slip fit of the bent tails (38) in the detents (48, 50). 4. A header assembly according to any one of claims 1 to 3, characterised in that the longitudinal cavities (16) in the housing (12) are arranged in an upper row and a lower row, with each of the cavities in the upper row being transversely aligned with a corresponding cavity in the lower row, the anvil means comprise first and second anvil means (40 and 42) at the conductor ends of the cavities in the upper row and the lower row respectively, the locator plate (44) is disposed beneath the lower row of cavities, and extends beyond the first and second anvil means, each of the longitudinal slots (46) in the locator plate is transversely aligned with a cavity in each row, and each cavity has first and second detents (48 and 50) as aforesaid longitudinally spaced therein, and the bent tails (38) of the conductor pins (14) engage one of the first and second anvil means to secure the conductor pins in the longitudinal direction, the bent tails of the conductor pins disposed in the cavities of the upper row being retained in the slots in the locator plate by the first detent (48), and the bent tails of the conductor pins disposed in the cavities of the lower row being retained in the slots in the locator plate by the second detents (50).

Claim 8

A header assembly according to claim 4, characterised in that the first and second anvil means comprise forward and rearward anvil rails (42 and 40) at the conductor ends of the cavities (16) in the lower row and the upper row, respectively, with the locator plate (44) extending beyond the rearward anvil rail (40), the first and second detents comprise forward and rearward detents (48 and 50) constituted by grooves in the walls of the respective slots (46), the conductor pins (14) have lateral projections (36) which are embedded in the forward portions of the cavities (16) in the housing (12), and the bent tails (38) of the conductor pins disposed in the cavities of the upper row are retained in the slots in the locator plate by the rearward detents (5 0 ), the bent tails of the conductor pins disposed in the cavities of the lower row being retained in the slots in the locator plate by the forward detents (48).