Authors:
Hye Makley, Dan Kelaher, Tim Crockett, Kevin Gierl
Abstract:
Point of sale (POS) systems frequently have USB ports that provide additional power for certain devices like printers or hand scanners. These connectors are comprised of USB-A port on the bottom and a second row of pins for power above the USB-A part. The customer advantage of these USB connectors is that they have a latch to retain the cables unlike the typical USB-A connector which only has detents in the connector. Also, when this port is not used for a powered 12V or a 24V USB (P-USB) device, it can be used as a 5V USB port using the lower USB-A portion. We propose a novel way to utilize the 12V/24V connector alignment and latching features for USB-A cables plugged into these P-USB ports.
Background:
P-USB ports which have 12V and 24V connections have latch receptacles in the headers to accept a latch from the 12v and 24V P-USB cables. However many use cases for POS configurations do not require 12V or 24V connections and may require additional USB2 or USB3 connections through a USB-A connector. While a regular USB cable with a male USB-A connector can plug into these 12V and 24V USB headers, they suffer the same limitation as other USB-A connections in that there is no active latching feature. This is a potential point of disruption in a retail environment if the cable works its way loose from contact or vibration. In situations where accidental disconnection of a USB-A cable can be catastrophic to a POS system, a way to make the USB-A cable connections more robust when plugged into 12V or 24V headers in the system bulkhead is needed in the industry.
Description:
The solution is to use the plastic over mold and latch geometry of a P-USB connector but without the power pins populated in the connector. The lack of added power pins would allow the cable to work with standard 5V instead of the 12V or 24V. By removing the key in the 12V or 24V connector, this connector could be inserted into either a 12V or 24V port in the POS system.
See below:
TGCS Reference 00398
