Electrical connectors – Contact comprising cutter – Insulation cutter
Patent
1993-08-23
1995-07-25
Howell, Daniel W.
Electrical connectors
Contact comprising cutter
Insulation cutter
439488, H01R 1302
Patent
active
054357470
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to an electrical connector, particularly one suitable for forming at least part of a telecommunications connector block, that is provided with electrical protection.
Connector blocks are used in telephone or other telecommunications systems as follows. A distribution cable containing, say, hundreds of pairs of conductors will leave a telephone central office and, perhaps after branching one or more times, will terminate in a small number of drop wires leading to subscribers. The branches will also end in drop wires to subscribers. These connections between the cable and a number of drop wires occur at a distribution point. Also, cables may need to be joined together in a way that allows their conductor interconnections to be rearranged. That occurs at a cross-connection point. Distribution points and cross-connection points may occur in ground level cabinets or pedestals, on a pole or suspended from a wire etc.
Rather than have a large number of loose connectors at a distribution or cross-connection point, it is normal to provide a terminal block or cross-connection block which can be used to connect a number of pairs, such as 3, 5, 10, 25 or 50. Terminal blocks will usually have incoming conductors permanently attached and outgoing conductors removable; and cross-connection blocks will usually have all conductors removable. The term "connector block" is used herein generically.
It is known that telecommunications lines are desirably provided with electrical protection, against for example lightning strike and mains voltage cross. In particular, so-called five-pin protectors can be used to provide over-current protection in series with each of the two conductors of each pair (sometimes referred to as tip and ring), and overvoltage protection between each conductor and ground.
Such a five-pin protector is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,733,325 (AT&T). Reference is made to a spark gap voltage protector, which generally includes a pair of spaced carbon electrodes or a gas discharge device. One of the electrodes is connected to an incoming telephone line and the other to ground. If a high voltage is impressed on the line it will bridge the gap between the electrodes and cause current to flow to ground, thus by-passing sensitive equipment that is associated with the line. Also mentioned are heat coils that include a high resistance wire which is wound on a metal sleeve inside of which a contact pin is held in a predetermined position by a fusible bonding material such as solder. Excessive currents on the telephone line cause heat to be generated in the coil to melt the solder and release the pin. Various other types of protection are also disclosed.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,741,711 (ADC Telecommunications) discloses a modular distribution frame which includes a module block having opposing rows of wire connectors having a wire terminating end and a spring contact finger end. The spring contact finger ends extend into apertures in the connector, as does an overload protector element. The protector element extends between opposing spring fingers to separate them, thus interposing between them circuitry of the protector element.
GB 2176062 (Egerton) discloses a terminal block including at least one pair of main contacts, an earth contact and a surge arrestor, the terminal block further comprising means operable automatically to connect the main contacts to earth when the surge arrestor is removed.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,617,602 (Siemens) discloses a protective element system including a distributor strip and a protective element pluggable into it. A grounding rail projects into receptacle chambers of the strip into which the element is plugged.
A plug-in connector with arrestors is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,420,792 (Krone). The connector has a cartridge-type housing having receptacles for the arrestors each of which is connected through a fuse and an earth contact to an earth strip.
A connector bank for telecommunications devices is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,822,306 (Krone). The bank has a series
REFERENCES:
patent: 4208084 (1980-06-01), Kali
patent: 4333701 (1982-06-01), Schick
patent: 4420792 (1983-12-01), Hegner et al.
patent: 4461528 (1984-07-01), Durand et al.
Franckx Joris I.
Zadno Reza
Burkard Herbert G.
Howell Daniel W.
N.V. Raychem S.A.
Zahrt II William D.
Zavell A. Stephen
LandOfFree
Electrically-protected connector does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Electrically-protected connector, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Electrically-protected connector will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-736824