Electricity: electrical systems and devices – Housing or mounting assemblies with diverse electrical... – Wire distribution
Reexamination Certificate
1999-06-04
2001-09-04
Gandhi, Jayprakash N. (Department: 2841)
Electricity: electrical systems and devices
Housing or mounting assemblies with diverse electrical...
Wire distribution
C361S825000, C174S064000, C206S702000, C248S220210
Reexamination Certificate
active
06285565
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND
The present invention relates to a cable support for use in a structure for accommodating electronic equipment, for example printed circuit boards in a subrack, said support comprising an elongate rail with cable guiding surfaces for guiding a cable along said structure, and at least one pair of equipment operators fingers arranged with mutual interval at an angle to the longitudinal axis of said rail.
Printed circuit boards are often housed in subracks that are mounted in a larger support frame, e.g. a rack or a cabinet. Cable runways are used in the rack or cabinet to support cables connecting these circuit boards. Additional mechanical support must be provided for the cables between the rack cable runway and the point of connection at the front of the circuit board. These cables can be sensitive to sharp bending which means that the mechanical support also shall enable the use of a large bending radius.
Prior art solutions include the use of cable supports with guiding fingers for allowing correct positioning of each cable in the horizontal plane, in line with the circuit board to which it is going to be connected. However, using these fingers only for horizontal alignment with the circuit board, means that the cable is easily bent also outside the support, i.e. in practice, the exit opening between two fingers allows the cable to pivot in any direction. Also, a cover is often used over this type of support, which makes it more space consuming and makes installation work more difficult.
Another solution is to use cable straps for strapping cables together without any additional mechanical support, or to any convenient nearby support member. In this manner the quality of the installation of cables depends upon the skillfulness of equipment operators and also upon the available time for this work. The resulting cable bundle will often be visible.
Thus, a cable support is needed at the subrack which provides room for a number of cables and also allows fixing of individual cables. It would be advantageous to have a compact cable support that does not consume so much space, especially in case of it being used by few or no cables. Preferably, the cable support allows easy and quick installation to facilitate the work of equipment operators.
SUMMARY
What is needed is therefore a cable support that eliminates the above described problems. The cable support according to the invention is characterized in that a tongue is located in the interval between two adjacent fingers.
In a particular embodiment of the cable support, the tongue is provided with a retaining means for cooperation with a cable strap. This retaining means may form a bar for the cable strap at the end of the tongue.
According to a preferable embodiment of the invention, the retaining means is formed by transverse protrusions at the end of the tongue.
The rail may be provided with an L-shaped cross section and the fingers may be transverse to the longitudinal direction of the rail. The fingers may also be provided with tips that are bent away from the longitudinal axis of the fingers.
Preferably, the L-shaped rail is complemented by the fingers and the tongues to form an U-shaped cable channel. The bottom of the U-shaped profile channel, along the line of fingers and tongues, may be bent slightly in the direction of the opening of the U-shaped profile.
The rail may be adapted to cooperate with an edge portion of a subrack to form a substantially closed section cable cannel.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5023404 (1991-06-01), Hudson et al.
patent: 5168999 (1992-12-01), Lee et al.
patent: 5307243 (1994-04-01), Sharp et al.
patent: 5448015 (1995-09-01), Jamet et al.
patent: 94 12 724 7 (1994-10-01), None
Åberg Göran
Ivarsson Thomas
Burns Doane Swecker & Mathis L.L.P.
Gandhi Jayprakash N.
Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ)
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