GB1521843A - Contact arrangement in a vacuum switch - Google Patents

Abstract

1521843 Vacuum switches SPRECHER & SCHUH AG 4 March 1976 [16 July 1975] 08732/76 Addition to 1497578 Heading H1N In a vacuum switch wherein both the fixed 1 and movable 2 contact assemblies each comprise two electrically interconnected tubular contacts 6 and 8, 12 and 13, respectively coaxially arranged one within the other, the outer tubular contact of the movable contact assembly provides a guide surface 24 for the inner tubular contact during relative movement between them and is itself guided during movement by a stationary guide 27, both the guide surface 24 and the stationary guide 27 being outside the evacuated housing of the vacuum switch, and separated therefrom by bellows 26, 28, so that they can be satisfactorily lubricated. The movable contact assembly comprises an outer contact 12 having at its contact making surface a flexible slotted ring 15 forming separated contact elements and an inner contact 13 with sheet metal arcing electrodes 18 radially arranged and internally spaced. The inner contact 8 of the fixed contact assembly has similar sheet-metal arcing electrodes 10. A compression spring 25 between the inner and outer movable contacts forces the inner movable contact surface 17 into engagement with the inner fixed contact surface 9 in the contacts closed position, and on contact opening the outer contacts open first due to the action of this spring until the outer movable contact 14 entrains a flange 22 on the inner movable contact 13, any arc between the movable and fixed contacts thus being passed to the arcing electrodes 10, 18 for extinction. It is said that both contact assemblies may be movable when both will be similarly constructed.