Electricity: circuit makers and breakers – Electric switch details – Contact
Patent
1998-12-09
2000-09-19
Friedhofer, Michael
Electricity: circuit makers and breakers
Electric switch details
Contact
218 22, 218 30, 218 32, 335 16, H01H 930
Patent
active
061215600
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The present invention relates to a switching contact system of a low-voltage circuit breaker having a bus and flexible cord conductors for connecting the bus to a movable switching contact.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Different versions of switching contact systems are known in the art. For example, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,583,065, flexible conductors are secured in recesses of a bus by a pressure welding process, i.e., without added soldering metal.
On the other hand, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,922,068, the ends of the flexible cord conductors are initially sealed using added soldering metal, and then these sealed ends are connected to the bus also by adding soldering metal. The sealed ends of the flexible conductor, together with a section of a foil-type soldering metal are placed on the bus, a stud or rivet serving to temporarily fasten the parts.
Furthermore, flexible conductors are known to be weldable under vacuum using an electron beam. By suitably designing the welding point, it can be achieved that the effect of heat remains confined to a small area and thus the properties of the flexible conductor are preserved (U.S. Pat. No. 5,093,988). This is essential for the service life of the switching contact arrangement.
In order to use the same semifinished part for all current intensities in a series of circuit breakers, a suitable type of flexible conductor selected can be uniformly used and adapted to the desired current intensity by using different numbers of sections of this conductor. Thus, switching contact systems for higher-intensity currents can not only have flexible conductor cords connected in series, but also a plurality of such conductor cords series connected in parallel. As described in PCT Application No. 95/28724, this large number of flexible conductors can be connected to the bus using an electron beam welding process. For this purpose, a reduced-cross-section end part of the bus is provided with a number of holes corresponding to the total number of flexible conductors needed, and suitably calibrated ends of the flexible conductors are inserted in those holes. Then the ends are welded so that the electron beam is guided over the end faces of the flexible conductors positioned approximately flush with the bus.
Regardless of which known soldering or welding process is used, the preparation for soldering or welding requires the major part of the labor expenditures at least when the number of flexible conductors is large and several parallel series of such conductors are needed. In this case, a similarly large number of recesses or holes must be provided to accommodate the flexible conductors.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to simplify the manufacture of switching contact arrangements having a plurality of flexible conductors.
This object is achieved according to the present invention by accommodating the flexible conductors between a connecting surface of the bus and an end piece that is connected to the bus. The end piece is in contact with the connecting surface of the bus with at least one contact surface, and the bus, the end piece, and the flexible conductors are permanently connected by thermal effect.
The end piece makes it possible to omit the previously required machining of the bus for producing the recesses or holes. Instead, these features can be associated with the end piece, which, being a relatively small part, can be machined by other, more cost-effective methods than the relatively large buses. In the first place, the end piece can be designed as a standard component that can be used for buses of different dimensions and also in multiple configurations if flexible conductors are needed in the conventional multiple-series configuration (PCT Application No. WO 95/28724). In this case, several end pieces can be placed one on top of the other and then connected to each other and to the bus using the selected soldering or welding process.
One contribution within the f
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Friedhofer Michael
Siemens Aktiengesellschaft
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