GB621595A - Improvements in or relating to electrical plug and socket connectors - Google Patents

Abstract

621,595. Two-part couplings. WRIGHT, J. T. W., and MACGILTROW, L. E. Nov. 22, 1946, No. 34775. [Class 38 (i)] A plug-and-socket or like connector suitable for movable machines, is enclosed in a housing 7, and its movable element 20 is arranged to be disconnected automatically from the fixed element 6, and rendered dead before access can be had to it, by spring means operative either on removal of the housing cover 9 or when a retaining means is freed prior to removal of the cover. The fixed element 6 comprises a set of slidable spring socket-contact studs 12a sunk in an insulating block 11. The movable element, plug 20, comprises a metal housing 21 enclosing an insulator 22 supporting spring-loaded contacts 23a. Slots 29a in lugs 29 on the housing 21 slide on guide pillars 16 secured to the box 7 and extending freely through the block 11. These pillars carry spring-loaded thimbles 15 which bear on the lugs 29 and have travel-limiting flanges 15a. When a lever 32 is freed by undoing a catch 35, it withdraws a slidable plunger 27 from abutment with the plug, whereupon the springs 15 push the plug 20 from the socket and bring it to rest on stops 17, in readiness for removal by hand after the cover 9 is opened by slackening wing-nuts 10. The plug is re-connected by placing it on the pillar 16, closing the cover, and locking the lever 32. In a modification employing normal pins and sockets, Figs. 2, 3 (not shown), the lever is dispensed with, and the cover has a rigid stop bearing directly on the plug so as to free it when the cover is undone. In a further construction, Figs. 4-6 (not shown), employing the lever 32 of Fig. 8, the plug contacts are plate-shaped. An isolating switch may be incorporated to act automatically with, or independently of, the cover.