The present invention relates to an electrical connector, and particularly to an electrical connector having a retention system for facilitating mounting of the electrical connector to a printed circuit board.
It is well known to provide an electrical connector mountable to a printed circuit board (hereinafter PCB), in which the connector has terminals electrically engaging with respective electrical circuit traces on the PCB. The terminals may have solder tails projecting from the connector and inserted into holes in the PCB, or leg portions extending generally parallel to the PCB for surface mounting to circuit traces on the PCB. Such a connector has a problem that the electrical connections between the terminals and the circuit traces of the PCB often are subjected to external stresses, which sometimes will cause the solder tails or the leg portions of the connector separating electrically connects with the PCB. To resolve this problem, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,622,519, 5,217,381, 5,230,633, 5,178,557 and 4,679,883 disclose the use of board locks and posts to retain the connectors to the printed circuit boards.
However, with the ever-increasing miniaturization of electronic circuit, along with the consequent reduction in sizes of the connector and terminals, the board locks are often impractical and neither cost nor space effective.
Regarding the posts, which extend vertically from the dielectric housing of the electrical connector for insertion into the printed circuit board, the posts result in a difficulty in molding the housing. Because the housing has generally a mating port extending along a horizontal direction, a mold open direction of the mold for forming the housing His in a horizontal direction. To form the vertically extending posts, slide structure is necessary in the mold. The slide structure increases the cost and operating complication of the mold. Furthermore, for a board edge mounting electrical connector, a mating/unmating force of the connector will cause the connector to rotate, whereby the connections of the tails of the connector and the PCB are insecure. Hence, an improvement to resolve the problems of the prior art is required.
Accordingly, the object of the present invention is to provide an electrical connector for facilitating mounting of the electrical connector onto a PCB.
In order to achieve the object set forth, an electrical connector includes an insulative housing for being mounted to an edge of a printed circuit board and a plurality of contacts received in recesses defined in the insulative housing. The insulative housing has an elongated body portion, a mating portion projecting forwardly from the body portion and a pair of guide portions formed on a pair of lateral sides of the body portion. A pair of first retainers and a second retainer respectively extends rearwardly from the body portion. The first retainers are adjacent to the guide portions and the second retainer locates between both first retainers. Each retainer respectively comprises a top latch and a bottom latch, and a receiving slot is defined between the top and bottom latches. A plurality of locking tabs is formed on the bottom latch and extending into the receiving slot. The latches of the retainers can fix the PCB tightly and keep the PCB and the electrical connector steadily assemble together.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.