With the continuing trend toward compact electronic machines or apparatus, there is an ever increasing demand for miniaturized interconnection systems between the electronic components of the apparatus. An example is in disk drives for computer apparatus wherein there is a constant demand to reduce the thickness or height parameters of the disk drives. With the components mounted on a printed circuit board, the thickness or height parameters relate to the distance above the board in which desired interconnections are made and which constantly are being miniaturized.
One approach to such miniaturization is to completely eliminate the insulating header which mounts terminal pins in the printed circuit board as opposed to the header being a permanent fixture mounting the pins. Such "slip-off" header blocks have been used for locating or inserting the terminal pins into appropriate holes in the printed circuit board. The pins then are soldered to circuit traces on the board or in the holes, and the header block is slid off of the pins, whereby a complementary connector assembly is mounted directly onto the pins projecting from the board.
Various problems have been encountered in utilizing slip-off header blocks of the character described above. Most of the problems revolve around the dilemma of providing a sufficiently large header block which can provide stability for the pins during the insertion of the pins into the printed circuit board yet still permitting the header block to be removed from the pins in an efficient manner without damaging the pins or the solder connections between the pins and the circuit traces on the printed circuit board.
This invention is directed to solving the above problems by providing an improved slip-off header for locating and interconnecting terminal pins in appropriate holes in a printed circuit board.