THEREOF CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims the benefit of Chinese Patent Application No. 200910132929.9 filed on March 31 , 2009 in the State Intellectual Property Office of China, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a field of electric connector, and in particular, to a flexible electric connector with flexibility. The present invention also relates to a method for manufacturing an electric connector.

Description of the Related Art

In the field of electric connectors, especially in the field of electric connectors for Flexible Printed Circuit or Cable (FPC), a FPC electrical connector generally includes a housing made of plastic and terminals made of metal disposed in the housing. Usually, the FPC electric connectors are used in electronic products such as mobile telephone, PDA, etc.. When in use, the FPC electric connectors are usually soldered onto a printed circuit board (PCB) by means of an Anisotropic Conductive Film (ACF) technology. The ACF technology involves extra process and occupies considerable space of the PCB. Further, by adopting the ACF technology, the FPC electric connector and the printed circuit board are not separable and detachable after the soldering operation is carried out. Nowadays, the FPC electric connectors as above have been widely applied to the electric appliances and electronic products.

With the development of technology in the electronic engineering, more and more electronic products have flexibility function. For example, some popular LCD screens are designed to be flexible so as to display pictures or photos in an optimal manner. As another example, some electronic readings are constructed to be compact and flexible. In such kinds of electronic products, flexible PCBs are adopted, and necessarily, FPCs and some similar flexible connecting cables are needed. However, the conventional FPC electric connector generally has an integral and rigid construction and can not be flexibly deflected. Specifically, the conventional FPC electric connector is generally configured to be an entire rigid device as the conventional FPC electric connector has an integral and rigid housing. Hence, even if the conventional FPC electric connector is connected to a flexible PCB, it cannot be used in electronic product where flexibility of the product is required. Accordingly, it is desirable in the art to provide a flexible electric connector with flexibility which can be used in a flexible electronic product.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention has been made to overcome or alleviate the above mentioned drawbacks or disadvantages in the art. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a flexible electric connector with flexibility which can be used with a flexible PCB. A further object of the present invention is to provide an electric connector, which can be easily produced at low cost.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided an electric connector. The electric connector comprises: a plurality of terminal units relatively independent from each other and arranged in a row at a predetermined pitch, the plurality of terminal units are connected together by a flexible connection band so that the terminal units can deflect from each other; each of the terminal units comprises: a housing, and a metal terminal embedded into the housing and adapted for electrically connecting a PCB and a cable. According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the flexible connection band is formed at a bottom side of the housing.

Particularly, the flexible connection band is made of plastic. According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, each of the metal terminals includes a cable receiving portion adapted for receiving the cable therein, a cable fixation portion extending from the cable receiving portion and adapted for fixing the cable, and a connecting portion extending from the cable receiving portion and adapted for electrically connecting with the PCB.

Specifically, the cable receiving portion is configured to have an " Ω " shape, a neck part of the cable receiving portion is adapted to elastically retain the cable therein so as to achieve electrical connection therebetween; the cable fixation portion and the connecting portion are extended from a side of the cable receiving portion, the cable fixation portion is configured to be a fixation hook which is engaged with a hole disposed in the cable so as to fix the cable; and the connecting portion extends from the housing and is configured to be a flat soldering piece adapted to facilitate connection with the PCB.

Further, the housing has a groove where the cable receiving portion of the metal terminal is accommodated, and the opening of the cable receiving portion is oriented in a same direction as the opening of the groove.

Furthermore, a transversely through passage for receiving the cable in formed in each housing.

In a preferred embodiment, all cable fixation portion of each of the metal terminals is located in a gap between every two adjacent housings, except that the cable fixation portion of the metal terminal located at one lateral side of the connector is exposed to the outside of the corresponding housing.

Preferably, the housing is made of plastic.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a manufacture method for a flexible electrical connector, comprising the steps of: molding a plurality of housings connected by the flexible connection band in a row at a predetermined pitch; press forming on a carrier tape a plurality of metal terminals in a row at the predetermined pitch; inserting the metal terminals attached by the carrier tape into the housings; and separating the metal terminals from each other by cutting off the carrier tape so that each of the metal terminals is separate from each other and respectively accommodated in the corresponding housing.

As apparent from the above, the present invention has at least the following advantages: the present invention provides a flexible electric connector with flexibility. In order to achieve the above object, the inventive concepts of the present invention are proposed as follows: to divide the whole connector into a plurality of single terminal units tied together by a flexible connection band. By this way, when the flexible electric connector is soldered onto the PCB, these terminal units can deflect to a certain extent along with the deflection of the flexible PCB. Therefore, the flexible electric connector of the present invention may be applied in some electronic products where flexibility of the product is required. Further, the present invention provides a manufacture method for the flexible electric connector, in which the metal terminals may directly be assembled with the housings only after a blanking step and a forming step, so as to simplify the manufacture process, lower cost, and enhance competitiveness of the product.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS These and/or other aspects and advantages of the invention will become apparent and more readily appreciated from the following description of the embodiments, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings of which:

Fig. 1 is a schematic view of a flexible electric connector according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention. Fig. 2 is a front view of the flexible electric connector in Fig.l.

Fig. 3 is another schematic view of the flexible electric connector according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention, illustrating a condition that the flexible electric connector is connected with the flexible cable.

Fig. 4 is a schematic view of a terminal unit of the flexible electric connector according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 5 is a schematic view of a metal terminal of the terminal unit of the flexible electric connector according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention. Fig. 6 is a side view of the metal terminal in Fig.5.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS OF THE IVENTION

Exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure will be described hereinafter in detail with reference to the attached drawings. The present disclosure may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as being limited to the embodiment set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided so that the present disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the concept of the disclosure to those skilled in the art.

The scope of the present invention will in no way be limited to the simply schematic views, the number of constituting components, the materials thereof, the shapes thereof, the relative arrangement thereof, etc., and are disclosed simply as an example of an embodiment. The present invention provides a flexible electric connector, which has flexibility. This flexible electric connector may be applied in flexible printed circuit board (PCB) to satisfy requirements of some latest electronic products, such as deflectable electronic readings, LCD screens with deflection function, etc. Hereafter, taking a flexible electric connector cooperated with a Flexible Printed Cable (FPC) as an example, the flexible electric connector of the present invention is illustrated and described in detail.

Refer to Fig. 1 and Fig. 2, according to the present invention, the flexible electric connector mainly comprises a plurality of terminal units 10 and a flexible connection band 20 which interlinks these terminal units 10. These terminal units 10 are relatively independent and arranged in a row at a predetermined pitch, and these terminal units 10 are connected by a flexible connection band 20, so that, in the flexible electric connector of the present invention, these terminal units 10 can deflect from each other to a certain extent because the flexible connection band 20 for interlinking these terminal units 10 together has certain flexibility and deformability characteristics. Specifically, each of the terminal units 10 comprises a housing 11 and a metal terminal 12 embedded into the housing 11 and adapted for electrically connecting a flexible PCB and a flexible cable (not shown). Hence, the flexible electric connector of the present invention may be soldered onto a flexible PCB to connecting the FPC cables to the flexible PCB, and to achieve flexibility. Fig. 3 is a schematic view which illustrates the flexible electric connector is connected to a FPC cable.

That is to say, the concept introduced in the present invention is to divide the entire electric connector into a plurality of connection units (namely terminal units 10) adapted for electrically connecting the PCB and the flexible cable, and keep these terminal units 10 interlinked together by a flexible connection band 20 to form an integrated FPC electric connector. By this way, these terminal units 10 can deflect from each other in a certain extent so that the electric connector may achieve the flexibility.

According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the flexible connection band 20 is formed at the bottom side of each housing 11. In this embodiment, both the housings 11 and the flexible connection band 20 are made of plastic. Further, the housings 11 and the flexible connection band 20 are formed in one piece. According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, as shown in Fig. 2, when these housings 11 are connected by the thin plastic connection band at the bottom side thereof, the housings 1 1 and the flexible connection band 20 of these terminal units 10 are formed as a whole housing of the flexible electric connector. This flexible electric connector being composed of a plurality of independent terminal units 10 not only is easy to be assembled but also achieves a flexibility. It is noted that, in this flexible electric connector which adopts the above structure, these terminal units 10 are connected by the flexible connection band 20. Accordingly, the degrees of the deflection among these terminal units 10 may be determined according to the requirements in the practical situation so as to satisfy the demands of various electronic products with various requirements on the flexibility.

According to the present invention, each terminal unit 10 comprises a housing 11 and a metal terminal 12. The housing 11 serves to hold and secure the metal terminal 12 to prevent short circuit among these metal terminals 12.

According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, as shown in Fig. 4, a groove 111 having an opening is formed on each housing 11 and is adapted to accommodate the metal terminal 12. Also, a transversely through groove 112 is formed in the housing 11 so as to define a passage transversely running through the respective housings 11 of the terminal units 10, along which the flat flexible cable can be inserted.

According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the specific structure of the metal terminal 12 for electrically connecting the flexible PCB and the flexible cable is shown in Fig. 5 and Fig. 6. Each of the metal terminals 12 includes: a cable receiving portion 121 adapted for receiving the cable therein, a cable fixation portion 122 extending from the cable receiving portion 121 and adapted for fixing the cable and a connecting portion 123 extending from the cable receiving portion 121 and adapted for electrically connecting with the PCB. According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the cable receiving portion 121, the cable fixation portion 122 and the connecting portion 123 are integrated into one piece. Specifically, as shown in Fig. 5 and Fig. 6, the cable receiving portion 121 is configured to have an " Ω " shape. A neck part of the cable receiving portion 121 is adapted to elastically retain the cable therein so as to achieve electric connection. The cable fixation portion 122 and the connecting portion 123 are extended from a side of the cable receiving portion 121. The cable fixation portion 122 is configured to be a fixation hook which is engaged with a hole 51 disposed in the cable 5 so as to fix the cable, as shown in Fig. 3. One end of the connecting portion 123 extends out of the housing 11 and is configured to be a flat soldering pad adapted to facilitate soldering to the PCB by means of surface mounting. Particularly, according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, in each terminal unit 10, the metal terminal 12 is accommodated in the groove 111 of the housing 11 and is adapted for electrically connecting the flexible cable and the flexible PCB. As shown in Fig. 4, the cable receiving portion 121 of the metal terminal 12 is accommodated in the groove 111, and the opening of the cable receiving portion 121 is oriented in the same direction as the opening of the groove 111. Specifically, as shown in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2, a passage 112 transversely running through the housings 11 of these terminal units 10 is formed, along which the flat flexible cable can be inserted. The cable fixation portion 122 of each of the metal terminals 12 is located in a gap between each two adjacent housings 11, except the cable fixation portion 122 of the metal terminal 12 located at one side of the connector is exposed to the outside of the correspond housing 11.

At the same time, according to the present invention, as shown in Fig. 3, for ensuring a stable electrical connection between the metal terminal 12 of the flexible electric connector and the flexible cable and for preventing the flexible cable from falling off or disengaging from the electric connector, a structure for connecting with the cable fixation portion 122 of the metal terminal 12 is provided on the flexible cable 5, and the structure is provided at a place corresponding to the cable fixation portion 122 of the metal terminal 12. In the preferred embodiment, the cable fixation portion 122 of the metal terminal 12 is configured to be a fixation hook, and the corresponding structure of the flexible cable 5 is an opening 51 for receiving the fixation hook 122 therein. As shown in Fig. 3 and Fig. 6, when a flat flexible cable 5 is inserted into the flexible electric connector, the cable fixation portion 122 of the metal terminal 12 of each of the terminal units 10 is snapped into the respective opening 51 of the flat flexible cable 5 so as to secure the connection between the flexible cable 5 and the flexible connector. It is noted that the retention force of the flexible cable should be taken into account when manufacturing of the flexible cable. Further, the present invention provides a manufacture method for the flexible electrical connector. The manufacture method mainly includes the following steps: molding a plurality of housings 11 connected by the flexible connection band 20 in a row at a predetermined pitch; blanking and forming a plurality of metal terminals 12 and attaching the metal terminals 12 by a carrier tape in a row at the predetermined pitch; inserting the metal terminals 12 attached by the carrier tape into the housings 11 ; and separating the metal terminals 12 from each other by cutting off the carrier tape so that the metal terminals 12 are relatively independent from each other and respectively accommodated in the housings 11.

It is noted that the manufacture of the metal terminals 12, according to the present invention, only needs the blanking and the forming steps, after the two steps, the metal terminals 12 may be directly embedded into the grooves 111 of the housings 11, and then, the carrier tape which connects these metal terminals 12 is cut off, so as to complete the assembly of these housings 11 and these metal terminals 12. Therefore, the flexible electric connector according to the present invention has simpler manufacture process and lower cost so as to enhance competitiveness of the finished product.

Although several exemplary embodiments have been shown and described, it would be appreciated by those skilled in the art that various changes or modifications may be made in these embodiments without departing from the principles and spirit of the disclosure, the scope of which is defined in the claims and their equivalents.