1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to all-in-one card connectors, and more particularly, to a dual-slot card connector capable of avoiding erroneous insertion of two cards at once.
2. Description of the Related Art
Most of the current card connectors are structurally all-in-one, having multiple receiving chambers and terminals for accommodating and electrical connection with a variety of electronic cards, such as memory stick (MS) cards, smart media (SM) cards, multimedia cards (MMC), secure digital (SD) card, and extreme digital (XD) cards.
In some of the conventional all-in-one card connectors, no mutual interference is incurred while some cards are inserted into the same card connector at the same time. It indicates that the user can insert two kinds of cards into the card connector at the same time; namely, while one card has been inserted into the card connector, another card will not fail to be inserted into the same. However, under such circumstance, if the user accidentally inserts two cards into the card connector at once while the card connector is working, reading or writing errors may happen and even the whole card connector may malfunction or be damaged.
To overcome the above problem, the inventor used to invent an all-in-one single-slot card connector compatible with a variety of cards and such invention was granted as U.S. Pat. No. 6,908,321 This all-in-one single-slot card connector includes a base, two plate members, and a plurality of contact terminals. The base has an insertion slot, two lateral sections formed at bilateral sides of the insertion slot thereof, a guide groove formed at one of the two lateral sections, a movable guide member movably mounted in the guide groove for vertical movement forced externally, a springy member mounted between the movable guide member and the base for generating resilience keeping the movable guide member moving toward a given direction. The two plate members are mounted closely to the base. The contact terminals are mounted to the two plate members, each having a body portion extending through the opening for electrical connection with contact pads of an electronic card. In light of this, the movable guide member allows the card to pass therethrough and be pushed towards a direction by the card to stop insertion of another card while the card is inserted.
However, it is difficult to reduce the size of the whole card connector and for development of miniaturization of electronic devices because the movable guide member of that all-in-one card connector is mounted at bilateral sides inside the insertion slot for stopping insertion of another card only.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds