Electrical connector having a member preloading a contact to reduce an insertion force

摘要

An electrical connector comprises a cover insulator and a base insulator relatively movable with respect to each other in a first direction. The base insulator has a plurality of conductive contacts assembled to extend in a second direction perpendicular to the first direction. The cover insulator has a plurality of pin insertion holes in one-to-one correspondence to the contacts. A board has a plurality of conductive terminal pins to be inserted in the second direction into the pin insertion holes in one-to-one correspondence. Each contact has a pair of resilient contact pieces biased in a third direction perpendicular to the first and the second directions when the cover insulator is moved in the first direction. Each of the resilient contact pieces has a contacting portion to be contacted to or released from each of the terminal pins. The cover insulator is provided with a plurality of preload projections protruding from one surface thereof to preliminarily bias the resilient contact pieces until the terminal pins are moved to be received between the contacting portions. The terminal pin and the preload projection are in a positional relationship such that either one is located at a position corresponding to the contact and can be moved to another position where it is separated from the contact.