GB1484833A - Welding electrical contact members - Google Patents

Abstract

1484833 Welding by pressure; making electrical contacts INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ELECTRIC CORP 26 Feb 1976 [4 March 1975] 07620/76 Headings B3R and B3A In a method of punching electrical contacts 5 from a metal strip 4 and welding them to a metal workpiece (e.g. a contact spring 20), the contacts are punched and forced through a die 15 by a punch 14 and held, by a clamp 17, in abutting relationship with a first welding electrode 12 (e.g. a disc electrode), the punch is retracted and the first electrode, the contact and the clamp are then aligned with a second welding electrode 19 which presses the workpiece which has been fed between the second electrode and the surface of the contact having the punching lever (8, Fig. 1, not shown), against the contact to effect welding when current is supplied. In apparatus for carrying out the method, the clamp may partially surround the disc shaped first electrode, the clamp and the first electrode being movable along the axis of the disc to align with the second electrode (Figs. 6-9, not shown), or, as shown, the clamp may have a jaw 18 adajcent each flat surface of the first electrode, the clamp and the electrode being rotatable about the axis of the disc into alignment with the second electrode (dotted lines, Fig. 4). To provide for uniformity of first electrode wear, in Figs. 6-9 said first electrode is rotated by the width of a contact between welds and is also arranged to be axially adjusted so that when it has completed one revolution it has been axially displaced by one contact length, or, in the embodiment shown, the first electrode rotational angle is so chosen that after a number of welds it is displaced from its original position by a contact width. To reduce wastage, one edge of the metal strip 4 may simultaneously form the limit of the narrow front of the contact 5 (Figs. 6-9, not shown).