JPH04169028A - Circuit breaker - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To make effective use of an inside space and intend a smaller size by providing an approximately semicircular arm on the frame of an opening and closing mechanism to slide and rotationally move an operating lever on the outer periphery of the arm. CONSTITUTION:To open and close a current passage, operating a handle 3 allows an operating lever 4 fixing the handle 3 to be sliding on the outer periphery on the face side of an arm 15 provided on a frame to support a crossbar 12 and to rotationally move around the center axis of a cylinder as approximately semicircular part of the arm 15. With the rotational movement of the operating lever 4, a moving contact 6 at contact sections 6a, 7a has contact with or separation from a fixed contact 7 to open or close the current passage. As a result, the rotational movement radius of the operating lever 4 can be set longer without considering the configuration of an inside mechanism, so that the rotational movement of the handle 3 provided at the top of the operating lever 4 is directed similarly to straight reciprocating motion. Effective configuration in an inside space is thus allowed to realize a smaller circuit breaker.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a circuit breaker, and particularly to an improvement in a switching mechanism for switching on and off an electric circuit.

[Conventional technology]

The circuit breaker is configured such that by operating a handle protruding from the front of the case, a contact portion that interlocks with the handle is driven to open and close an electric circuit. The opening/closing mechanism that links the handle and the contact section is equipped with a transmission mechanism that reliably transmits the movement of the handle to the contact section, and a trip mechanism that can respond in the event of an overcurrent. occupies a large proportion of the limited internal space, and how to arrange this opening/closing mechanism is an important point in achieving a compact circuit breaker.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

In conventional circuit breakers, a handle that moves on an arc with a large center angle is provided inside the circuit breaker, which is essentially a rectangular parallelepiped, resulting in wasted space.
There is a problem in that a circuit breaker that houses a complicated opening/closing mechanism including a transmission mechanism, a trip mechanism, etc. is thick.

This invention was made to solve the above problems, and aims to effectively use the internal space of the circuit breaker and obtain a small circuit breaker.

[Means to solve the problem]

A circuit breaker according to the present invention includes: a case in which a handle for opening and closing an electric circuit protrudes from a hole formed on the front side; a fixed contact and a movable contact arranged in the case and connected to the electric circuit; a frame that rotatably supports a crossbar that is fixed to the back side of the case and drives the movable contact that moves into and out of contact with the fixed contact; The arm is provided on the frame and has a substantially semicircular arc cross section, which is obtained by cutting a cylinder having a central axis parallel to the rotational axis direction of the crossbar along a plane parallel to the central axis and removing a rear side portion. , an arm having a center axis of a substantially semicircular cylinder of the arm substantially at the same position as a rotation axis of the crossbar; and an arm rotating while sliding on a substantially semicircular front outer peripheral surface of the arm. and an operating lever to which the handle is fixed by moving the movable contact toward and away from the fixed contact.

[Effect]

In the circuit breaker according to the present invention, when the handle is operated to open and close the electric circuit, the operating lever to which the handle is fixed slides on the outer peripheral surface on the front side of the arm provided on the frame supporting the crossbar. At the same time, the arm rotates about the central axis of the cylinder forming a substantially semicircular arc shape. This rotation of the operating lever causes the movable contact of the contact portion to move toward and away from the fixed contact, thereby opening and closing the electric circuit.

〔Example〕

Hereinafter, one embodiment of the circuit breaker of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

1 and 2 are cross-sectional side views of a three-pole circuit breaker showing an embodiment of the present invention, with FIG. 1 showing the circuit breaker in an open state and FIG. 2 showing the circuit breaker in a closed state.

In the figure, the case l that constitutes the outside of the circuit breaker is made of an insulator, and the force t<-1 on the front side (upper side in Figure 1)
1 and a base [b] on the back side (lower side in Figure 1). The base lb has a connecting terminal 9 at one end for connecting to an electric circuit, and a fixed contact 7 at the other end.
A fixed conductor is formed or fixed. The movable contact 6, which has a movable contact 6a that moves toward and away from the fixed contact 7a of the fixed contact 7, is pivoted by a crossbar 12, and is configured such that the three-pole movable contact 6 is driven simultaneously. There is. This cross bar 12 is made of an insulating material, such as synthetic resin, and is rotatably held by a frame 5 fixed to the base tb. The frame 5 that holds the cross bar 12 rotatably supports the operating lever 4, and a hole is formed at the top (front end) of the operating lever 4 at approximately the center of the front of the cover 1a. 1c
A handle 3 protruding from is fixed. A link mechanism having a known toggle link and a spring is connected to the operating lever 4 to move the movable contact 6 toward and away from the contact, and the rotational movement of the handle 3 is reliably transmitted to the contact portion and the electric circuit is connected. It is opened and closed. The movable contactor 6 is electrically connected to an overcurrent response device IO via a flexible conductor 11, and this overcurrent response device IO is connected to a connection terminal 8 connected to an electric circuit.
It is connected to the. This overcurrent response device 10 is composed of an electromagnetic coil 16, a yoke 17, a movable iron piece I8, a tension spring 19, etc., and detects when an overcurrent of more than a predetermined value flows in the electric circuit, and It is intended to block the That is, when the overcurrent response device IO detects an overcurrent, the electromagnetic coil 16 attracts the movable iron piece 18 toward the electromagnetic coil against the biasing force of the tension spring 19 to operate the trip mechanism 20. . This trip mechanism 20
When activated, the movable contact 6 of the contact portion is instantly separated from the fixed contact 7.

The circuit breaker of this embodiment is configured as described above,
The aforementioned operating lever 4 in the opening/closing mechanism of this circuit breaker
The engagement state between the frame 5 and the frame 5 will be explained below.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing the frame 5 of the opening/closing mechanism, and FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing the operating lever 4.

As shown in FIG. 3, the frame 5 is bent into a substantially U-shape so as to have side surfaces of approximately the same shape, and both sides thereof have a shape having an approximately semicircular arc cross section. A holding arm 15 is provided in a protruding manner.

The shape of the arm 15 having a substantially semicircular arc cross section is obtained by cutting the cylindrical shape along a plane that is parallel to the central axis of the cylinder and substantially parallel to the back surface of the circuit breaker and removing the back side portion. It has the shape of The above-mentioned cross bar 12 is rotatably held by the inner peripheral surface 15b of the arm 15, and the operating lever 4 is supported by the outer peripheral surface 15a of the arm 15. On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 4, the operating lever 4 is formed such that the handle 3 is fixed to the top part 4b of the operating lever 4, and a substantially semicircular arc-shaped notch 4c is formed in the lower part 4a of the operating lever 4. ing. The shape of the notch 4c formed in the lower part 4a of the operating lever 4 is such that the arm 1 can slide on the outer peripheral surface 15a of the arm 15 provided on the frame 5.
It is formed in substantially the same shape as the outer circumferential surface 15a of No. 5.

That is, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the operating lever 4 is configured to rotate about the central axis of a cylinder forming an arm 15 having a substantially semicircular arc cross section. Therefore, the rotation radius of the operation lever 4 can be set long without considering the arrangement of the internal mechanism of the circuit breaker, etc., and the direction of rotation of the handle 3 provided at the top of the operation lever 4 is ,
Close to the direction of linear reciprocating motion (in the interior of the substantially rectangular circuit breaker, movement on a large arc of the central angle of the handle 3 causes unnecessary thickness direction (in the 11th N) Therefore, other opening/closing mechanisms and the like can be efficiently arranged in the internal space of the circuit breaker, and a small circuit breaker can be obtained.

In the above embodiment, the arm 15 has a substantially semicircular arc cross section.
The position of the center axis of the cylinder is substantially the same as the rotation axis which is the rotation center of the cross bar 12. However, as a modification, the position of the center axis of the arm 15 is set to the same position as the rotation axis of the cross bar 12. By placing the handle 3 on the back side, that is, by making the rotation radius of the handle 3 longer, the handle 3 of the circuit breaker
The rotational movement of can be made closer to linear movement. With this configuration, inside the circuit breaker, which is essentially a rectangular parallelepiped, it is possible to further reduce the unnecessary space that was previously required due to the movement of the handle on an arc. It becomes possible to use space more effectively.

Further, in the above embodiment, the shape of the arm 15 is simply changed to the frame 5.
As shown in the cross-sectional view of the frame 25 in FIG. It can be of any configuration.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, according to the present invention, the frame of the opening/closing mechanism is provided with a substantially semicircular arm, and the operating lever is configured to slide and rotate on the outer peripheral surface of this arm. Since the rotational movement of the fixed handle is more like a linear movement, there is no need for the conventional handle to move on an arc with a large center angle inside the essentially rectangular circuit breaker. This eliminates the space in the thickness direction, making it possible to effectively use the internal space of the circuit breaker, which has the effect of obtaining a thin circuit breaker.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

1 and 2 are cross-sectional side views of a circuit breaker showing an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the frame of this circuit breaker, and FIG. 4 is a view of the operating lever of this circuit breaker. The perspective view and FIG. 5 are cross-sectional views of a frame showing another embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, l is a case, lc is a hole, 3 is a handle, 4 is an operating lever, 5 is a frame, 6 is a movable contact, 7 is a fixed contact, 12 is a crossbar, and 115 is an arm. Note that the same reference numerals in each figure indicate the same or corresponding parts.

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) A case in which a handle for opening and closing an electric circuit protrudes from a hole formed on the front side, and a fixed contact and a movable contact arranged in the case and connected to the electric circuit, a contact portion that opens and closes; a frame that rotatably supports a cross bar that is fixed to the back side of the case and drives the movable contact that moves into and out of contact with the fixed contact; An arm having a substantially semicircular arc cross section obtained by cutting a cylinder having a central axis parallel to the direction of the rotational axis of the bar along a plane parallel to the central axis and removing the back side portion, the arm having a substantially semicircular arc shape. an arm whose central axis of a cylinder in cross section is located at substantially the same position as the rotational axis of the crossbar or at a position on the back side of the rotational axis of the crossbar; an approximately semicircular arc-shaped front side outer peripheral surface of the arm; What is claimed is: 1. A circuit breaker comprising: an operating lever to which the handle is fixed, the operating lever rotating while sliding on the top to cause the movable contact to move toward and away from the fixed contact.