GB1148682A - Building Blocks for Electrical Assemblies. - Google Patents

Abstract

1,148,682. Educational appliances. INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ELECTRIC CORP. 30 Nov., 1966 [30 Nov., 1965; 2 Dec., 1965; 4 Dec., 1965; 9 Dec., 1965], No. 53639/66. Heading G5G. [Also in Divisions H1 and H2] In a plastics building block of the type met in children's toys and having spigots and sockets whereby the block may be interlocked with others to form an assembly, at least one spigot and socket are made electrically conducting and are electrically connected to one another for building up an electric circuit. Each block may contain an electrical component which may be anything from a piece of wire to a transistor. As shown in Fig. 1, wire 4 is bent to fit diagonally within a socket and is fixed to bolt 5 of conducting spigot 2. Alternatively a U-shaped or L-shaped metal strap may be fixed to the bolt (Fig. 2, not shown) or the conducting spigot may be screwed into it (Fig. 3, not shown). The block may comprise a bridge element with two spigots and two sockets electrically connected. As shown in Fig. 5, in such a block the internal surfaces of the sockets and guide tenon 4 have a metallized coating 2 which extends through apertures 6 in spigots 3 to cover the spigots. The sockets may have spring members to provide a snapfastener connection (Fig. 7, not shown) or the adhesion of the blocks may rely on magnets in the shaft of the spigot (Fig. 13, not shown).