CN108594969B - Electronic equipment and its switching device - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention discloses a switching device, which comprises at least two switching cards arranged side by side and a switching bracket for fixing the switching cards to a case; all the card slot sockets of the adapter cards face the same direction and are sequentially lowered, so that a plurality of expansion cards are sequentially inserted into different card slot sockets in the vertical direction. The plurality of expansion card slots are adopted for the same-direction switching, so that the installation space of the switching device is greatly saved, and the overall layout of the chassis is optimized. The invention discloses electronic equipment comprising the switching device.

Description

Electronic equipment and its switching device

Technical Field

The present invention relates to the field of computer hardware, and in particular to a computer switching device, and also to an electronic device comprising the switching device.

Background technique

An expansion card is a printed circuit board that plugs into an electronic connector or expansion slot on a computer motherboard, backplane, or riser card to add functionality to a computer system. Computer expansion cards have been around for many years and have now formed a complete industry standard that is constantly being upgraded.

At present, affected by the computer product architecture, in many cases, computer expansion cards cannot be directly inserted into the motherboard for application, and need to be transferred through an adapter card, which requires a corresponding fixed structure. Most current products use an adapter card installed vertically on the motherboard to install the expansion card horizontally. When the motherboard's card slots are close together and both card slots need to be transferred, the adapter card is often transferred back to back to both sides. This method requires a large amount of horizontal space in the chassis, and it is usually difficult to meet the transfer requirements.

How to design an adapter device for an expansion card so that when it is used to transfer multiple adjacent card slots, a small transfer space is required to meet the transfer requirements, which has become a problem to be solved by those skilled in the art.

Summary of the invention

The object of the present invention is to provide a switching device which takes up little space when switching between a plurality of adjacent card slots. Another object of the present invention is to provide an electronic device comprising the switching device.

To achieve the above-mentioned purpose, the present invention provides an adapter device, including at least two adapter cards arranged side by side and an adapter bracket for fixing the adapter cards to a chassis; the insertion directions of the card slots of all the adapter cards are facing the same direction, and the heights are gradually reduced, so that multiple expansion cards can be plugged into different card slots in sequence in the vertical direction.

Preferably, the adapter bracket includes a side wall extending along the parallel direction of the adapter card and used to fit with the side edge of the expansion card to prevent the expansion card from moving along the extension direction of the card slot.

Preferably, the adapter bracket further includes a vertical partition plate provided between any two adjacent adapter cards and used for fixing the two adjacent adapter cards.

Preferably, both the vertical partition and the adapter card are provided with mounting through holes, and fasteners pass through the mounting through holes to achieve fixation of the adapter card and the vertical partition.

Preferably, the adapter bracket further comprises a top cover plate disposed above the vertical partition plate and the adapter card, and one end of the top cover plate is connected to the top of the side wall.

Preferably, the side wall comprises a plurality of baffles arranged from top to bottom for respectively fitting with the side edge of each expansion card; the limiting portion comprises a plurality of baffle fixing members arranged from top to bottom for respectively abutting against the outer edge of each expansion card, and all the baffle fixing members are connected; wherein, the end of the baffle located at the top is provided with a slide groove having the same extension direction as the side wall; the baffle fixing member located at the top can slide relative to the slide groove; when the baffle fixing member located at the top slides relative to the slide groove and abuts against the outer edge of the expansion card located at the top, the remaining baffle fixing members abut against the outer edges of the remaining expansion cards respectively.

Preferably, the baffle fixing member located at the bottom is specifically a column that can move in a vertical direction relative to the limit bracket of the chassis, and the column is provided with a bracket limit pin for engaging with the limit groove of the limit bracket; when the bracket limit pin is engaged with the limit groove of the limit bracket, all of the baffle fixing members can respectively abut against the outer edges of all expansion cards to achieve the limiting of all expansion cards.

Preferably, the number of the blocking pieces is two, and the number of the blocking piece fixing members is two.

Compared with the above background technology, the present invention arranges the slots of different adapter cards in the same direction and lowers them in sequence, so that multiple expansion cards are stacked and inserted into the card slots of different heights of the adapter card. When there are two expansion cards, the space occupied by the stacked expansion cards is much smaller than the width of the two expansion cards; compared with the traditional adapter device, the card slots of the adapter card are back-to-back at the same height, which requires the space of the full width of two expansion cards when two expansion cards are inserted, the space occupied by the back-to-back card slot transfer is reduced. The width of the original two adapter cards is reduced to approximately the width of one adapter card, which greatly reduces the space occupied on the width of the chassis and meets the requirements when multiple card slots of the chassis need to be transferred.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the present invention or the technical solutions in the prior art, the drawings required for use in the embodiments or the description of the prior art will be briefly introduced below. Obviously, the drawings described below are only embodiments of the present invention. For ordinary technicians in this field, other drawings can be obtained based on the provided drawings without paying creative work.

FIG1 is a structural diagram of a switching device provided by the present invention;

FIG2 is a schematic diagram of the adapter card in FIG1 during installation;

FIG3 is a schematic diagram of a switching device in a specific embodiment 1 provided by the present invention;

FIG4 is a schematic diagram of the adapter device of FIG3 during installation;

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of the adapter device of FIG. 4 being fixed to a chassis.

Detailed ways

The following will be combined with the drawings in the embodiments of the present invention to clearly and completely describe the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention. Obviously, the described embodiments are only part of the embodiments of the present invention, not all of the embodiments. Based on the embodiments of the present invention, all other embodiments obtained by ordinary technicians in this field without creative work are within the scope of protection of the present invention.

In order to enable those skilled in the art to better understand the scheme of the present invention, the present invention is further described in detail below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and specific implementation methods.

Please refer to Figures 1 to 5, Figure 1 is a structural diagram of the adapter device provided by the present invention; Figure 2 is a schematic diagram of the adapter card in Figure 1 during installation; Figure 3 is a schematic diagram of the adapter device in specific embodiment 1 provided by the present invention; Figure 4 is a schematic diagram of the adapter device in Figure 3 during installation; Figure 5 is a schematic diagram of the adapter device in Figure 4 fixed to a chassis.

The expansion card adapter device provided by the present invention includes at least two adapter cards 3 arranged side by side and an adapter bracket 2 for fixing the adapter cards 3 to the chassis; the card slots 6 of the multiple adapter cards 3 face the same direction and are lowered along the direction of the card slots 6, so as to facilitate the insertion of multiple expansion cards 7 into different card slots 6 in the vertical direction. The multiple expansion cards 7 are distributed along the vertical direction and inserted in the horizontal direction. The multiple adapter cards 3 are transferred in the same direction, and the space occupied by the stacked expansion cards 7 is much smaller than the width occupied by the multiple expansion cards 7 arranged at the same height and on the same layer. When the number of expansion cards 7 is two, the adapter device provided by the present invention occupies a space much smaller than the width of two expansion cards 7 by stacking the expansion cards 7. Compared with the traditional adapter device that needs to occupy at least the width of two expansion cards 7 for back-to-back transfer, the space occupied by the adapter device is greatly saved. In addition, the conventional adapter device can only perform the back-to-back adapter of the slot 6 socket for two slots 6, while the adapter provided by the present invention can simultaneously perform the same-direction adapter for more than two slots 6 by arranging the slots 6 of different adapter cards 3 at different heights, where the directions of the sockets to the slots 6 in the same direction are the same, specifically refer to FIG3. The same-direction adapter and back-to-back adapter here are both for the socket directions of the slots 6 of the adapter card 3, and the same direction of the sockets of the slots 6 of multiple adapter cards 3 is called the same-direction adapter, and the opposite directions are called the back-to-back adapter.

Specific embodiment 1: The adapter device disclosed in the present invention includes a plurality of expansion cards 7, and two expansion cards 7 are taken as an example here. Correspondingly, the stopper 1 located at the end of the side wall 21 includes two baffles 211 and baffle fixing members, and the two baffles 211 are respectively an upper baffle 2111 for cooperating with the upper expansion card and a lower baffle 2112 for cooperating with the lower expansion card, which are sequentially installed on the side wall frame 212, and refer to FIG3 for details. The adapter bracket 2 has a side wall 21 and a top cover plate 22 substantially perpendicular to the side wall 21, one end of the top cover plate 22 is connected to the top of the side wall 21, and the cross section of the adapter bracket 2 is approximately L-shaped rotated 90° counterclockwise. A vertical partition plate 23 is also arranged below the top cover plate 22 of the adapter bracket 2, for respectively installing two adapter cards 3, and the vertical partition plate 23 is arranged at one end of the adapter bracket 2, and is respectively substantially perpendicular to the side wall 21 and the top cover plate 22 and is used to install adjacent adapter cards 3. The vertical partition 23 is fixedly connected to the side wall 21 and the top cover 22, and can also be made into an integrated structure. In particular, the adapter bracket 2 can also include two side walls 21, and the two side walls 21 are symmetrically distributed about the top cover 22. The adapter bracket 2 with a single side wall 21 is used here mainly for the sake of simple structure and material saving. The adapter card 3 can also be fixed in other ways, not only by the vertical partition 23, but also by the side wall 21.

The two riser cards 3 are arranged side by side, with an outer riser card 31 installed on the outer side of the vertical partition 23 and an inner riser card 32 installed on the inner side of the vertical partition 23. The side edges of the outer riser card 31 and the inner riser card 32 are against the side wall 21, and the card slots 6 of the outer riser card 31 and the inner riser card 3 are at different heights. The card slot 6 of the outer riser card 31 is higher than the card slot 6 of the inner riser card 32, and the insertion directions of the card slots 6 of the two riser cards 3 are both facing the inner side of the vertical partition 23, refer to FIG3. There is a strip space above the vertical partition 23 and the inner riser card 32 for the upper expansion card to pass through and insert into the card slot 6 of the outer riser card 31. The outer riser card 31, the inner riser card 32 and the two ends of the vertical partition 23 are provided with mounting through holes 4, so that the outer riser card 31 and the inner riser card 32 can be fixed to the vertical partition 23 by fasteners 5 through the mounting through holes 4. The fastener 5 is specifically a hand screw, and may also be other components such as a long bolt, etc. The vertical partition 23 and the outer riser card 31 and the inner riser card 32 may also be fixed in a matching connection manner such as plug-in.

The side of the expansion card 7 in contact with the side wall 21 is called the side edge of the expansion card 7, and the end of the expansion card 7 extending in the direction of the socket of the outer riser card 31 and the socket of the inner riser card 32 is called the outer edge of the expansion card 7. The side wall 21 of the adapter bracket 2 is also provided with a limiter 1 at the end of the side wall 21, which is used to abut against the outer edges of all the expansion cards 7 to prevent the expansion card 7 from moving in the extending direction of the side wall 21. The limiter 1 specifically includes: the end of the baffle 211 extending in the direction of the socket of the card slot 6 of the riser card 3, a plurality of baffle fixings provided on the outer edge of the expansion card 7, and a slide groove 101 at the top for the top baffle fixing 102 to slide. When the baffle fixing member 102 at the top slides relative to the slide slot 101 and abuts against the outer edge of the expansion card 7 at the top, the remaining baffle fixing members abut against the outer edges of the remaining expansion cards 7 respectively, and all the baffle fixing members are connected as a whole and fixed relative to the slide slot 101 by the baffle fixing member 102 at the top.

The expansion card 7 can also be fixed to the adapter bracket in this way. The baffle 2111 and the baffle 2112 are respectively installed on the side edges of the upper expansion card and the lower expansion card. The expansion card 7 is inserted into the adapter card slot 6 through the side wall frame 212. The baffle 2111 and the baffle 2112 are located in the groove of the side wall frame 212. The limit part 1 is against the baffles 2111 and 2112 to fix the expansion card 7.

When the baffle fixing member moves away from the baffle 211 along the slide slot 101, the baffle 211 can be taken out from the side wall 21; when the upper baffle fixing member 102 presses the baffle 211 and the outer edge of the expansion card 7 along the slide slot 101, a bracket limiting nail 8 is also provided on the side of the baffle fixing member that fixes the baffle 211 and the expansion card 7 in the direction of the side wall 21, and a limiting groove 91 is also provided on the side of the side wall direction of the limiting bracket 9 fixed to the chassis in the vertical direction to cooperate with the bracket limiting nail 8. The lower baffle fixing member is specifically a column 103 that can slide horizontally with the upper baffle fixing member 102 and move vertically with the adapter bracket 2 as a whole, and can also be other shapes such as a block that can realize the fixing of the baffle 211. The bracket limiting nail 8 can also be provided on one side of the upper baffle fixing member 103, or on one side of the column 103, and can fix the adapter device. The limiting bracket 9 is fixedly connected to the chassis, the adapter bracket 2 is overlapped by the limiting bracket 9 and the bracket limiting nail 8, and when the adapter card 3 is plugged into the card slot 6 on the chassis mainboard, the adapter device is fixed to the chassis.

When it is necessary to transfer two adjacent card slots 6 on the chassis, the adapter card 3 is fixed to the adapter bracket 2 through the vertical partition 23, and the outer adapter card 31 and the inner adapter card 32 are respectively inserted into the two card slots 6. The height of the card slot 6 of the inner adapter card 32 is lower than the height of the card slot 6 of the outer adapter card 31, and the expansion card can pass through the inner adapter card 32 from above and be inserted into the card slot 6 of the outer adapter card 31 without affecting the insertion of another expansion card into the inner adapter card 32. The baffle 211 is installed in the strip groove of the side wall 21 to fix the expansion card 7 and is pressed along the strip groove direction by the baffle fixing member, and the baffle fixing member simultaneously presses the outer edge of the expansion card 7. Other methods can also be used to fix the expansion card 7, such as installing two baffles 211 on the side edges of the two expansion cards 7 respectively, and the two expansion cards 7 are inserted through the card slot 6 on the adapter card 3, and then the baffle 211 is fixed by the limiting portion 5 of the baffle 211 to fix the expansion card 7. The bracket limiting pin 8 on the side wall of the baffle fixing member cooperates with the limiting groove 91 on the limiting bracket to fix the adapter.

The adapter device of this specific embodiment adopts two adapter cards 3 arranged side by side and an adapter bracket 2 for fixing the adapter card 3 to the chassis; the card slots 6 of all adapter cards 3 are facing the same direction and are lowered in sequence, so that two expansion cards 7 can be stacked and plugged into different card slots 6 in the vertical direction, greatly reducing the space occupied by the expansion card 7. Compared with the back-to-back transfer of the traditional expansion device, the same-direction transfer of the card slots 6 of the two adapter cards 3 saves about the width of an expansion card 7, that is, compared with the traditional back-to-back transfer of two adapter devices, which requires at least two expansion cards 7 The width of the space is saved by half. The movement of the expansion card 7 is limited by the limit part 1 located on the side wall 21, and the entire adapter device is fixed by the limit bracket 9 and the bracket limit pin 8, and the limit bracket 9 and the chassis. The stability of the adapter card 3 and the firmness of the expansion card 7 plugged into the adapter card 3 are improved, thereby improving the reliability of the chassis working state.

By making some improvements to the first embodiment, it is not difficult to obtain some other embodiments. The first embodiment The adapter card 3 is fixed to the adapter bracket 2 by the fastener 5. The installation and removal process requires the use of tools, which is inevitably inconvenient.

Specific embodiment 2: Specific embodiment 2 is obtained by making the following improvements to the fixing method of the adapter card 3. The adapter bracket 2 has a single side wall 21 and a top cover plate 22, refer to Figure 2. On this basis, another side wall 21 is added on the other side symmetrical to the original single side wall 21, and mounting grooves for fixing the adapter card 3 in the vertical direction are set on the inner sides of the two side walls 21. The mounting grooves are distributed along the direction of the insertion of the card slot 6 of the adapter card 3 at appropriate intervals. The appropriate interval here refers to the spacing of the card slot 6 on the computer motherboard. The adapter card 3 can be directly fixed to the adapter bracket 2 through the mounting groove. The specific method of fixing the adapter card 3 to the side wall 21 through the mounting groove can refer to the existing technology, and no detailed description will be given here.

The adapter provided in the second specific embodiment not only includes the space-saving advantage of the adapter in the specific embodiment, but also can be installed and removed without tools, thus greatly improving the usability of the adapter.

The adapter card included in the adapter device provided in the above specific embodiment is not limited to two, but can also be multiple. However, considering the design of the card slot on the mainboard in the chassis, generally only two adapter cards are included. The two expansion cards can not only be installed on the fixed bracket at the same time, but can also be installed separately, according to the actual situation and work needs. The adapter card is installed in the card slot at the same height on the mainboard. The technical means to achieve different heights of the adapter card slot plug is to use adapter cards of different widths (that is, the height when installed) according to the installation position of the adapter card. The width of the outer adapter card is greater than the width of the inner adapter card, so that the adapter card can be inserted into the outer adapter card from above the inner adapter card without affecting the operation of the inner adapter card.

An electronic device with the above-mentioned switching device provided by the present invention includes the switching device described in the above-mentioned specific embodiment; other parts of the electronic device adopting the above-mentioned switching device structure can refer to the existing technology and will not be elaborated in this article.

It should be noted that, in this specification, relational terms such as first and second are merely used to distinguish one entity from several other entities, and do not necessarily require or imply any actual relationship or order between these entities; in addition, the card slot in the figure mark refers only to the card slot structure and is not limited to the card slot of the adapter card, but also includes the card slot located on the computer motherboard.

The above is a detailed introduction to the adapter provided by the present invention and the electronic device including the above adapter. Specific examples are used in this article to illustrate the principles and implementation methods of the present invention. The description of the above embodiments is only used to help understand the method of the present invention and its core idea. It should be pointed out that for ordinary technicians in this technical field, without departing from the principle of the present invention, several improvements and modifications can be made to the present invention, and these improvements and modifications also fall within the scope of protection of the claims of the present invention.

Claims (5)

1. The switching device is characterized by comprising at least two switching cards (3) arranged side by side and a switching bracket (2) for fixing the switching cards (3) to a chassis; the directions of the insertion holes of the clamping grooves (6) of all the adapter cards (3) face the same direction, and the heights of the insertion holes are sequentially reduced, so that a plurality of expansion cards (7) are sequentially inserted into different clamping grooves (6) in the vertical direction;

the transfer support (2) comprises side walls (21) which extend along the side-by-side direction of the transfer cards (3) and are used for being attached to the side edges of the expansion cards (7) so as to prevent the expansion cards (7) from moving along the extending direction of the insertion openings of the clamping grooves (6); the switching support (2) comprises a vertical partition plate (23) which is arranged between any two adjacent switching cards (3) and used for fixing the two adjacent switching cards (3);

the transfer support (2) further comprises: a limit part (1) which is arranged at the end part of the side wall (21) and is used for abutting against the outer edges of all the expansion cards (7) so as to prevent the expansion cards (7) from moving along the extending direction of the side wall (21);

The side wall (21) comprises a plurality of baffle plates which are arranged from top to bottom and are respectively attached to the side edge of each expansion card (7); the limiting part (1) comprises a plurality of baffle fixing pieces which are arranged from top to bottom and are used for propping against the outer edge of each expansion card (7) respectively, and all the baffle fixing pieces are connected; wherein, the end part of the baffle plate (2111) positioned at the uppermost part is provided with a chute (101) with the same extending direction as the side wall (21); the baffle fixing piece (102) at the uppermost part can slide relative to the chute (101);

When the baffle fixing piece (102) at the uppermost part slides relative to the sliding groove (101) and is propped against the outer edge of the expansion card at the uppermost part, the rest baffle fixing pieces are respectively propped against the outer edges of the rest expansion cards;

The baffle fixing piece positioned at the lowest part is specifically a column body (103) which can move along the vertical direction relative to a limit bracket (9) of the case, and the column body (103) is provided with a bracket limit nail (8) which is used for being clamped and embedded with a limit groove (91) of the limit bracket (9);

When the support limiting nail clamp (11) is embedded in the limiting groove (91) of the limiting support (9), all the baffle fixing pieces can respectively abut against the outer edges of all the expansion cards (7) so as to limit all the expansion cards (7).

2. The adapter device according to claim 1, characterized in that the vertical partition (23) and the adapter card (3) are provided with mounting through holes (4), and fasteners (5) pass through the mounting through holes (4) to fix the adapter card (3) and the vertical partition (23).

3. The adapter according to claim 2, characterized in that the adapter bracket (2) further comprises a top cover plate (22) arranged above the vertical partition plate (23) and the adapter card (3), and one end of the top cover plate (22) is connected with the top of the side wall (21).

4. The adapter according to claim 1, wherein the number of the blocking pieces is two, and the number of the blocking piece fixing members is two.

5. An electronic device comprising a switching device according to any one of claims 1 to 4.