Known card edge connectors are used for connecting electronic cards. The card edge connector includes a slender insulating body, multiple terminals and a pair of ear clips. The insulating body has a slot which is used for inserting the electronic card, and the multiple terminals are arranged at two sides of the slot. The insulating body is provided with a mounting portion at each of two ends of the slot, and the ear clips are installed in the mounting portions. Each ear clip has a main body, a withdrawing portion disposed at the lower end of the main body, and a buckle portion and an operating portion disposed at the upper end of the main body. The withdrawing portion and the buckle portion respectively protrude toward the slot direction, two sides of the main body are provided with two rotating shafts, and the mounting portions are correspondingly provided with rotating shaft holes cooperated with the rotating shafts.
When the card edge connector is in a release state, the withdrawing portion may obliquely protrude into the slot, so that when the electronic card is inserted into the slot, the bottom end (i.e. a mating end) of the electronic card may push the withdrawing portion to make the ear clips gradually become relatively vertical from inclination until the buckle portion is received in a notch at a side edge of the electronic card. At the moment, the card edge connector enters a locked state from the release state. The operating portion is pressed to trigger the ear clips, so that the buckle portion is separated from the notch on the electronic card, the ear clip rotates outward to a release position from the locked position further by means of the rotation of the rotating shafts, where the withdrawing portion may push the bottom end of the electronic card to be separated from the slot.
However, with the miniaturization trend of electronic products, the card edge connector also needs to be reduced correspondingly. For the withdrawing portion, the miniaturization design requires the thickness thereof to be thinned, and since the ear clip is generally a plastic member, the bearing capacity of the ear clip is sharply decreased. In actual use, the withdrawing portion may break due to the insufficient bearing capacity, thus further influencing the quality stability and the service life of the whole card edge connector.
In order to solve the aforementioned problems, the existing card edge connector employs a plate-shaped metal sheet embedded in the ear clip. The metal sheet extends in the main body and the withdrawing portion, so that the bearing capacity of the ear clip can be improved. As the rotating shafts are force supporting points when the withdrawing portion pushes the electronic card, the force at this position is relatively large. However, when the metal sheet is embedded in the ear clip, as the metal sheet is not provided with a through hole at the position corresponding to the rotating shafts, plastics at two sides of the metal sheet are divided into two halves at the positions of the rotating shafts, thus, the plastic connection strength between the rotating shafts at two sides of the main body is insufficient, and in the card withdrawing process, the rotating shafts are easy to break from the main body when being subjected to a force.
Therefore, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the art to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds