Alignment fixture assembly for surface-mount connectors

Claim 1

An alignment fixture assembly for use in simultaneously mounted a plurality of surface-mount connector sections onto a printed circuit board comprising in combination: a plurality of through-hole connector sections each having a plurality of pins, a plate having a plurality of adjacent arrays of holes formed therein and situated along a common longitudinal centerline, said arrays having a predetermined positional tolerance relative to each other, each of said arrays of holes retaining the plurality of pins of one of said through-hole connector sections whereby said positional tolerance is imparted to said last mentioned sections, a printed circuit board having a plurality of electrically conductive surface pads disposed in proximity to at least one edge of said board, a plurality of surface-mount connector sections each having a plurality of leads, said surface-mount connector sections being plugged into corresponding mating through-hole connector sections so that said surface-mount connector sections become aligned for subsequent mounting onto the surface of said printed circuit board, means for securing the plugged-in surface-mount connector sections to said printed circuit board, whereupon said leads of said surface-mount connector sections are affixed to said pads of said printed circuit board, thereby transferring said positional tolerance from said through-hole connector sections to said surface-mount connector sections, and permitting the disengagement of the respective pluralities of through-hole and surface-mount connector sections.