Electric wire branching connector device

Claim 1

An electric wire branching connector device for forming branching circuits in a wire harness system, comprising: an upper case and a lower case adapted to clamp therebetween a first group of electric wires extracted from said wire harness system and arranged in a side-by-side fashion; and a plurality of terminal strips inserted into corresponding holes formed in a regular pattern in said upper case, each of said terminal strips being provided at its one end with at least one male terminal adapted to be received in a corresponding one of said holes and at its other end with a wire grip portion having a U-shaped slot, the male terminals of said terminal strips being projected through said holes above the upper surface of said upper case such as to form plugs for receptacle connectors to which are connected electric wires of a second group also extracted from said wire harness system, while said wire grip portions are projected below the underside of said upper case such that the electric wires of said first group are forcibly received in said U-shaped slots, whereby the electric wires of said first group and the electric wires of said second group can be electrically connected to each other through said terminal strips, thereby forming the desired branching circuits, said terminal strips being of at least two types each having a different number of male terminals, and said at least two types of terminal strips being arranged in corresponding ones of said holes in said upper case selectively in accordance with the patterns and the number of the branching circuits.