Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
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BACKGROUND OF INVENTION
(a) Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a novel cover
arrangement for a connector and the end of a cable
connected to the connector. More specifically, the
invention relates to such an arrangement including a
novel strain relief means.
(b) Description of Prior Art
In modern electronic systems, the conn~ction
between one black box and another typically requires
a large number of wires. To facilitate such connec-
tions, each black box is outfitted with one or more
single connector terminals having a large number of
connection points. The wires for connecting the black
boxes are bound in a cable, and each cable end is
terminated in a connector such, for example, a D-
type 25 pin connector, by connecting the wires of the
cable to respective pins of the connectors.
The cable ends and the respective connec-
tors must then be covered both for aesthetic reasons,
for protection against the environment and for grasp-
ing when connecting or disconnecting the connector.
As the connections between the wires of the cable ends
and the respective connectors are relatively fragile,
if someone attempts to disconnect a cable from the
black box by yanking on the cable instead of p~lling
on the cover arrangement, there is a possibility that
some of t-he wires will be disconnected from their res-
pective pins. To protect against this, the cover
arrangement must include a strain relief means. With
such a strain relief means, when the wire is yanked,
the force of the yank would be transmitted to the strain
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relief means and thence to the cover arrangement
rather than to the connected ends of the wires. Accor-
dingly, the strain relief means must be disposed be-
tween the connector and the cable extending outward-
ly of the cover arrangement.
The cover arrangements are typically box-
like arrangements with an opening for holding the
connector in one wall thereof and an opening through
which the cable can pass in another wall thereof. The
box-like arrangements are usually made in two mating
halves. In assembling the cover arrangement, the
connector along with the connected cable is disposed
in one half, the other half is then mounted on the first
half. The two mating cover halves are held together
by screws or other means.
In early such cover arrangements, the
opening through which the cable passed was larger
than the size of the cable. To provide strain relief
at this opening, tape was wound around the cable at the
place where it would pass through the opening until
the diameter of the wound tape was greater than the
dimensions of the opening. When the two halves were
then screwed together, pressure would be applied at this
opening because of the smaller size of the opening, and
this pressure provided the strain relief.
The problem with this method is that it
requires a good deal of manual la~our to provide the
strain relief means. This manual la~our is, of course,
expensive. In addition, the entire approach has an
amateurish appearance.
In the above approach, the strain relief
mean~ i~ provided in the wall of the box-like arrange-
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ment through which the cable extends. ~his approach
is characterized by its lack of easy adjustability
to different sized cables.
To provide easier adjustability for different
sized cables, another approach consists of a strain
relief means disposed within the housing of the box-
like arrangement. In this approach, the opening,
the wall through which the cable extends is made
large enough to receive a large number of different
sizes of cables. A screw extends through a wall at
right angles to this wall, and the free end of the
screw is terminated in a wedge-like means. Both
the screw and the wedge are guided by guide means with-
in the box-like arrangemcnt, and when the screw is
turned in one direction, the wedge-like means advances
towards the cable. In assembling the arrangement, the
two halves are screwed together, and then the adjust-
ment screw is tightened until the wedge applies a
proper amount of pres~ure on the end on a side of the
cable~
The difficulty with this arrangement is that
there are a large number of parts which must all be
assembled by hand. Again, this is an awkward and time-
consuming procedure. In addition, the wedge will often
twist and turn in undesirable ways if the cable is
too large or too small, so that adjustment of the strain
relief can be difficult. This adjustment procedure
must also be performed manually making the assembly of
this type of cover member very expensive. Further,
after the arrangement is assembled, the screw can
come loose so that the strain relief is completely
lost. Finally, the cost of the parts is high.
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SUMMARY OF INVENTIO~
It is therefore an object of the invention
to provide a cover arrangement for a connector and the
end of a cable connected to said connector which
overcomes the above disadvantages~
It is a more specific object of the invention
to provide such an arrangement which is inexpensive
to produce and to assemble.
It is a still mor~ specific object of the
invention to provide such an arrangement with a
strain relief means which can accommodate different
sized cables.
It is a still further object of the invention
to provide such a strain relief means within the arrange-
ment wherein the arrangement comprises two half
members, the strain relief means comprising at least one
insert for placement in the interior of one of the
half members which insert contacts and clamps the cable
when the arrangement is in its closed position.
In accordance with the invention, a cover
arrangement for a connector and the end of a cable
connected to said connector and extending rearwardly
therefrom comprises: a first half member and a mating
second half member forming together, when in a closed
position, an enclosure having a front side wall and at
least one other side wall, a front opening in said
front side wall for holdingly receiving said connector
so that the front face sf said connector faces out-
wardly of said cover arrangement; a side opening in
said other side wall through w,hich said cable is adapted
to extend outwardly of said connector, said side
opening ~eing formed partially by a first opening in
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said other side wall of said first half member and being
formed partiall~ by a second opening in said other
side wall of said second half member, said first and
second openings being aligned when said cover arrange-
ment is in said closed position: a plurality of
different sized insert members, means in the interior
of said first half member adapted to hold one of said
insert members: whereby, when said insert member is
held by said means, and said arrangement is closed,
said insert contacts said cable whereby to clamp said
cable and provide strain relief.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS
The invention will be better understood by
an examination of the following description together
with the accompanying drawings in which:
FIGURE 1 is an outside perspective view of
the cover arrangement in accord-
ance with the invention
. FIGURE 2 is an inside perspective view of
one half member of the cover
arrangement;
FIGURE 3 is an inside perspective view of the
other half member of the arrangement,
and
FIGURE 4 is an inside view of the cover
arrangement illustrating the living
hinge adjoining both halves.
DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
Referring now to Figure 1, the cover arrange-
ment in accordance with the invention, illustrated
generally at 1, includes a first half member 3 and a
mating second half member 5. In the illustrated drawings,
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the first half member is a bottom half member and
the second half member is a top half member.
With the cover arrangement closed as shown
in Figure 1, the cover arrangement forms an enclosure
having a front side wall 7 and three other side walls
9, 11 and 13. In the illustrated embodiment, wall 9
is a rear side wall.
Disposed in the front side wall is a means
15 for holdingly receiving the connector. The means -
comprises slots 17 into which would be inserted the
plate (not shown) of the connector, and the connector
is disposed in the front side wall so that the front
face of the connector faces outwardly of the cover
arrangement.
The arrangement includes a top surface 19
having therein a recess 21 for receiving a name plate
or the like.
Turning now to Figure 2, the bottom half
member 3 includes a plurality of standards 23A to
23C for receiving screws.
Cut out of the rear side wall 9 is an opening
in the shape of an arced recess 25. The opening is
formed in a means 24 for receiving an insert. The
means 24 comprises spaced walls 26 and 28 forming be-
tween them an insert receiving slot 30. As can be
seen, wall 26 is integral with, and forms a part of,
wall 9.
The cover arrangement will include a plur-
ality of inserts 29, 31 and 33. The inserts, during
shipping, may be carried on a Christmas tree arrange-
ment 27. In the illustrated embodiment, each insert
comprises a flat plate-like member having a straight
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bottom edge and an arced recess in the top edge thereof.
As can be seen~ each of the inserts is of
a different size in that it has a different size
arced recess cut into it. Thus, by inserting a diff-
erent one of the inserts into the slot 30, the size
of the arced recess 25 i-s varied.
It will of course be appreciated that al-
though the arced recess for the inserts is the most con-
venient and most logical shape for the recess, the
inserts could nevertheless be made with different
shaped openings in practicing the invention. It is
only necessary that, by inserting a different one of
the inserts into the slot 30, a different size of
opening results.
Turning now to Figure 3 of the drawings,
the other half member 5, in this case; the top half
member, includes a like plurality of mating standards
35A to 35C for receiving screws. In particular7 stan-
dard 35A mates with qtandard 23A and standards 35A
and C mate with standards 23A and C, respectively.
The top half'member also includes an
opening 37 which is also in the shape of an arced
recess and which is disposed along the rear wall
theren such as to be aligned with the opening 25 of
the bottom half member when the arrangement is in its
closed position.
As seen in Figure 4, the top half member
and the bottom half me~ber are joined together by a
living hinge 39 which extends along the length of the
connector.
In operation, the cover arrangement works
as follows:
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In order to connect a plurality of wires to
a single connector, the wire ends are connected to
respective pins of the connector as is well known in
the art. The wires are then bound together to form a
cable which cable extends rearwardly from the connector.
The connector and cable end are then inserted into the
cover arrangement by first inserting the connector such
that the front face of the connector faces outwardly
of the front side wall of the cover arrangement when
the cover arrangement is closed~ The cable then ex-
tends rearwardly of the connector and passes out of
the cover through the opening formed by openings 25
and 37.
It can thus be seen that the opening in the
rear wall, which, in the illustrated embodiment,
is annular in shape, is partially formed by the aligned
openings 25 and 37 when the connector is in its closed
position.
The cover arrangement is then closed, and
screws are inserted through the bottom of the
bottom half member 3 through openings coinciding with
standards 23. The ~crews are then secured so that the
top and bottom half members are held tightly together.
As the size of the rear opening is adjusted
so that the height of the opening is smaller than the
diameter of the cable, the rim of the insert will
press against the cable, and the pressure of the rim
will provide strain relief in the event that the cable,
instead of the connector, is yanked to pull out the
connector.
It can be seen that the cover arrangement
in accordance with the invention provides effective
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strain relief with adjustability for different sizes
of cable. At the same time, the structure of the
cover arrangement is simple, and the assembly of the
cover arrangement requires very little manual labour.
In fact, the only manual labour required is the in-
sertion of the correct insert and the screwing of
the cover by the usual means.
As will be appreciated, only one type of
connector receiving means was illustrated. This con-
nector receiving means is adapted to receive a par-
ti~ular type of connector. Obviously, if different
types of connectors are used, then different types of
receiving means will be used without departing from
the spirit and scope of the present invention.
Again, although the cover arrangement of the
illustrated embodiment employs a living hinge, other
types of hinges could be used, or no hinge need be
employed at all, without depàrting from the ~pirit
of the present invention. Nor is the particular
shape of the cover arrangement as illustrated a part
~f the invention. It merely represents one embodiment
of the invention.
Finally, although the insert is shown
mounted in a slot 30 which slot is adjacent to the wall
9, it will be appreciated that this is only one posc-
ible location for the insert. Thus, the insert could
be mounted in the top half member. Again, the insert
could be mounted inwardly in the bottom half member,
for example, as at A in Figure 2. For this purpo~e~
a ~lot or rece~s could be provided at A. Alternatively,
the insert could simply be adhesively, or otherwise,
secured at A without further structural support.
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Although a single embodiment has been
described, this was for the purpose of illustrating,
but not limiting, the invention. Various modifications,
which will come readily to the mind of one skilled
in the art, are within the scope of the invention
as defined in the appended claims.
