Page:Gametronics Proceedings.djvu/77

 maintaining constant inward pressure to insure a gas-tight metal-to-metal contact. The terminal provides four independent points of contact to the terminated wire.

Strain relief for the wire is built into the plastic connector housing. As the wires are terminated plastic spring fingers collapse and allow the wires to pass through and become captivated. Lateral motion to the wire, therefore, is not transmitted to the points of termination because of the restraint provided by the plastic housing.

Both short and long term reliability of the termination technique is outstanding. The slotted beam concept is used in the telecommunications industry where such connections are required to maintain a stable resistance for a projected life of 1+0 years. The Lace-N-Lok connector is designed to accept #21+ and #22 AWG solid and fused stranded or #22 stranded wire. These wires will withstand a tensile of over 10 pounds for #21+ AWG and 15 pounds for #22 AWG in the axial direction, and approximately 8 pounds in the direction perpendicular to the normal wire position. The constant pressure exerted on the wire by the walls of the slot gives the technique the ability to maintain relatively constant forces over a very long period of time and a wide range of temperatures. Any wire creep that may take place is compensated for by the resiliency of the current structure. For applications requiring different wire sizes the slot dimension can be varied to accommodate them.



Available tooling varies from a manual hand tool for individual wire insertion, manual or pneumatic bench presses or fully automatic assembly equipment feeding discrete or ribbon cable, mass terminating one or both ends of the cable.

Single ended terminations may have discrete conductors with different and varying lengths at the other end.