SECURING ELECTRICAL CONDUCTORS.

摘要

An elongated electrical cable (30) or flexible circuit board (1500) includes an electrically conductive path (36, 1509) and an insulating body (632) encompassing and electrically isolating the conductive path, the insulating body including an exposed surface (624) having an array of fastener elements (622) extending therefrom, the fastener elements arranged and constructed to engage mating fastener elements associated with a supporting surface (16, 16 ) to selectively secure the cable or flexible circuit board to the supporting surface. The fastener elements can be loop-engageable fasteners (622) and/or loops (144). Such a cable or flexible circuit board is continuously formed by introducing an electrical insulating material including a thermoplastic resin into a gap (102, 202) formed adjacent a peripheral surface of a rotating mold roll (104), the mold roll defining an array of cavities (134) therein, the insulating material being introduced under pressure and temperature conditions selected to cause the insulating material to at least partially fill the cavities to form fastener element stems (623, 622 ) integrally with and extending from one broad side (624) of a strip of said insulation material; while introducing conductive wires (678) and/or a conductive path (1409, 1509) formed on or within a substrate (1401, 1501) to the gap so as to cause the insulating material to envelop and electrically isolate the conductive path and/or to cause the conductive path to become an integral part of the strip of insulation material from which the fastener element stems extend.