Electrical connectors – With selectable circuit – e.g. – plug board – Coupling part with selectably oriented mating part
Patent
1986-04-03
1988-05-10
McQuade, John
Electrical connectors
With selectable circuit, e.g., plug board
Coupling part with selectably oriented mating part
446 91, A63H 3304
Patent
active
047432020
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention concerns a building element for a building set, said element comprising a plurality of contiguous module units, at least some of which have a coupling stud protruding co-axially with a central axis of the module unit so that the mutual centre-to-centre distance of the coupling studs is equal to a multiple of the module measure, said element further comprising complementary coupling means for cooperation with coupling studs on an adjacent element for coupling the elements together mechanically in a plurality of possible mutual angular positions, said element having a first current path connected to first contact areas designed to establish electrical connection with first contact areas in an adjacent element, said element also having a second current path electrically insulated from the first current path and connected to second contact areas designed to establish electrical connection with second contact areas in an adjacent element.
For example the Swiss Patent Specification No. 455 606 discloses a toy building set, whose building blocks are provided with conductive areas for conduction of electric current when the building elements are coupled together. This conduction, however, just concerns unipolar current, but it is known in principle from the German Offenlegungsschrift No. 25 52 587 that a building block may contain several current paths, where, of course, short circuiting between these current paths is to be avoided. How the short circuiting is to be avoided in practice, however, is not known.
The object of the invention is to provide a building element of the present type where the contact areas for the current paths are so positioned as to provide, on one hand, security against short circuiting and, on the other, such location of the contact areas as allows the element to be manufactured fully automatically in a very rapid and inexpensive manner.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This object is achieved in that the first and the second contact areas are disposed in respective first and second angle sectors which do not overlap each other irrespective of mutual angular rotations corresponding to the said possible angular positions, and that contact areas are provided which are disposed around adjacent central axes in mutually different angle sectors. It will readily be appreciated that each of the building elements might be provided with a plurality of multi-plug means, each of which comprises e.g. eight contact points evenly spaced along a circle, where every other contact point is associated with its respective one of two electric current paths. If the elements can be coupled together in only four mutually perpendicular positions, it will be appreciated that short circuiting can never take place in the mentioned structure. However, the mentioned structure is inapplicable in practice because of the many contact points, and the invention is based on the finding that the contact points belonging to the mentioned multi-plug means can be distributed over a greater area of the building element, said area being normally covered when two building elements are coupled together so that, for one thing, contact is obtained between the respective current paths--without any risk of short circuiting--and, for another, the density of contact points is reduced significantly so that the structure of the building element is simplified considerably.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The invention will be explained more fully by the following description of some embodiments with reference to the drawing, in which
FIGS. 1 and 2 are top and bottom views, respectively, of a portion of a known building element,
FIG. 3 is a schematic top view of a building element, provided with electric connecting means,
FIG. 4 is a schematic view of a building element in which the electric connecting means are distributed over a plurality of coupling studs on the building element,
FIG. 5 shows a first embodiment of the location of primary contact areas on the building element,
FIG. 6 shows a loca
REFERENCES:
patent: 3237341 (1966-03-01), Janning
patent: 3484984 (1969-12-01), Fischer
patent: 3652976 (1972-03-01), Tymkewicz
patent: 4340268 (1982-07-01), Scalera
patent: 4423465 (1983-12-01), Teng-ching et al.
patent: 4552541 (1985-11-01), Bolli
patent: 4556393 (1985-12-01), Bolli
patent: 4589715 (1986-05-01), Weisenburger
Interlego A.G.
McQuade John
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