Patent attributes
An electrical connector is made up of a series of stacked headers. The headers may all be made from similar contact arrays initially held together by carriers, with the contact arrays and the carriers stamped from a single piece of sheet metal. After the stamping a header body is overmolded onto the contacts of a header. For some of the headers the carrier is then separated from all of the contacts, and is removed. For other of the headers the carrier remains secured to some of the contacts, while being separated from other of the contacts. The retained carrier functions to electrically connect together all of the contacts that remain secured to it, for example for use as a common ground. The contacts may have beams or clips, bent portions that are used for receiving spring-loaded pins.
