METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR HOT PLUGGING/UNPLUGGING A SUB-SYSTEM TO AN ELECTRICALLY POWERED SYSTEM

摘要

The present invention provides an "alert" interface for a component which can be safely"hot-plugged/unplugged" to an "alert" interconnect of an electrically powered system. The alertinterface has a mating edge which includes daughter precharge/ground connectors, a daughter(engage) warning connector, a number of daughter signal connectors and a daughter engage con-nector. The alert interconnect includes corresponding mother connectors. The respective connec-tors of the interconnect and the interface are arranged so that they mate in the following exemplaryorder when the interface is hot-plugged/unplugged to the interconnect: precharge/ground connec-tors, warning connectors, signal connectors and finally engage connectors. When the daughter(engage) warning connector mates with the mother warning connector, the component sends an"engage warning" signal to the powered system. Eventually, all the signal connectors mate followedby the engage connectors, enabling the component to send an "engaged" signal to the systemindicating that all the signal connectors have completely mated. In accordance with another aspectof the invention, the component canal so be safely "hot-unplugged" by first, substantially increasingthe degree of recess of the daughter engage connector relative to the daughter signal connectorsalong the mating edge, and second, doubling the daughter engage connector to function as a daughterdisengage warning connector. As a result, when the component begins to unplug from the poweredsystem, a "disengage warning" signal can be sent to the system indicating that the signal connectorsare about to uncouple. In addition, since the daughter engage warning connector protrudes sub-stantially relative to the daughter signal connectors, by doubling the daughter engage warningconnector as a daughter disengage connector, the component is able to send a "disengaged" signalto the system indicating that all the signal connectors have completely uncoupled.