Shelf for housing printed circuit boards

摘要

A shelf for housing printed circuit boards in which a back plane has an extension in the form of a back plane extender printed circuit board electrically connected to the back plane and extending forwards from the back plane at one side of the shelf. In a location forwardly of the back plane, the extender printed circuit board carries a connector structure which extends outwards from the extender printed circuit board and has connectors outwards from the extender printed circuit board. These connectors are accessible either from the front or rear of the shelf dependent upon connector orientation. This structure avoids the need for connectors on the rear face of the back plane thus allowing for the back plane to be located further to the rear and permitting increase in size in circuit boards to be mounted within the shelf. The connector structure is preferably detachable so as to permit its replacement with a different design of connector structure. The connector structure may include its own printed circuit board which when changed for a board of different design may change the operation of the total circuit board arrangement including the back plane.