Terminal connectors and method of making the same

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Considering first FIGS.
1-7, the improved method of making a terminal for use in a wire termination system is illustrated by showing successive steps in the formation of the terminal.
Such terminals are especially useful as solderless terminations in high density connectors, particularly those used in miniturized electrical and electronic components.
It will be recognized that the metal used in the formation of such terminals, particularly those of the present invention, is quite thin but only slightly ductile.
One especially suitable metal is a cadmium bronze alloy 961 in 0.
006 inch sheets.
Ordinarily the tensile strength of this material is on the order of 73,000 psi.
, and it has an elongation capability of about 6-8%, preferably with a minimum of 7%.
FIG.
1 shows a series of terminal blanks of conductive metal on which successive steps of formation have been carried out in accordance with the present invention.
A progressive die blank 2 is stamped to form foldable configuration such as the configuration 4 which are ultimately folded into terminals such as terminal 6.
Sheet 2 may be as long as necessary to fit both the stamping operation and the terminal forming dies to be described later.
Stems such as those shown at 8 and 10 maintain the foldable and folded configurations evenly disposed throughout the length of the metal blank.
The stems 8 may be finally severed, as at stem end 12, from a strip 14 at the outer edge of blank 2, and the stems 10 may similarly be severed from a strip 16 in the center of blank 2.
A completely finished and separated terminal 6 is shown as 6A in FIG.
8.
As shown in FIG.
1, the center strip 16 of the metal blank 2 includes a plurality of regularly spaced apertures 18 which function as an indexing means for moving blank 2, including the foldable configurations 4, between terminal forming progressive die faces.
It should be understood that although the foldable configurations 4 are illustrated in FIG.
1 in individual and successively more finished form from left to right, it is possible to shape those configurations in groups having the same form so that groups of the configurations 4 would be shaped identically