US1575903A

US1575903A - Contact support for relays

Info

Publication number: US1575903A
Application number: US659566A
Authority: US
Inventors: Farnum F Dorsey
Original assignee: NORTH EAST ELECTRIC CO
Current assignee: NORTH EAST ELECTRIC Co
Priority date: 1923-08-27
Filing date: 1923-08-27
Publication date: 1926-03-09
Anticipated expiration: 1943-03-09

Description

March 9 1926. j 1,575,903

' F. F. DORSEY CONTACT SUPPORT FOR RELAYS Filed August 27-, 1923 llnvemmm Patented Mar. 9, 1926.

units starts rares FARNUM F. DORSEY, or nccnns'rnn, new roan, Assrenon 'ro non'rrr Easr ELEC- TRIG COMPANY, OF Bocnnsrnn, NEW YORK, A CORPORATION on new YORK.

CONTACT SUPPORT FOR RELAYS.

Application filed August 27, 1923. Serial No. 859,566.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, FARNUM F. DonsnY, a citizen of the United States, residing at Rochester, in the county of Monroe and State of New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Contact Supports for Relays; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, suclras will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same.

This invention relates to means for supporting a contact in an electromagnetic instrument of the relay type.

In instruments of the type in question,-

particularly when used for regulating dynamo-electric machines, the contacts sometimes are made of carbon, with wide, flat faces, and in such cases it is desirable that the contacts be so adjusted as to meet squarely throughout their cooperative surfaces. It has heretofore been proposed to secure the result by mounting one of the contacts with a spherical joint capable of universal angular adjustment; and the object of the present invention is to providea contact-support in which this mode of adjustment is embodied in a simple, compact and effective manner.

To the foregoing end the invention consists in the contact-support illustrated in the accompanying drawlngs and hereinafter described, as it is defined in the annexed claims.

In the drawings, Fig. 1 is a side-elevation,

partly in section, of a contact-support embodying the present invention, together with adjacent parts of the relay in which it is used, and Fig. 2 is a cross-section of the contact-support on the line 2-2 in Fig. 1,

looking upward.

The invention is illustrated as embodied in a relay having two carbon contacts, 5 and 6, of which the former is carried and actuated by an armature 7. The contact 6 is embraced by a shell 8 drawn from sheetmetal, and the upper part of this shell has the form of a segment of a sphere, the center of curvature being located approximately at the middle of the contact-face.

The shell 8 is seated on the concave lower surface of a head 9 formed at the lower end of a stem 10. This stem is threaded through a termlnal-block 11, which may be mounted in any convenient way on a stationary part of the instrument.

The shell 8 is clamped to the head 9 by means of a bolt 12 which extends through an axial perforation in the stem 10. The shell portion and clamps it firmly to its seat in the head 9, the parts being tightened and iegured by a nut 14 on the upper end of the To prevent rotation of the bolt when the nut is turned, the head 9 is provided with a transverse slot, and a lug 15 is pressed out from the material of the bolt in position to engage the slot. The slot has another valuable function, resulting from the fact that it divides the head into two parts capable of a slight relative springing movement. When the bolt is tightened the convex surface of the shell 8 springs these parts away from each other, and altho the movement is very slight it tends to secure a resilient pressure and frictional engagement between the parts by which loosening of the bolt in consequence of vibration or of thermal expansion and contraction is prevented.

The terminal block 11 is cleft horizontally and provided with a clamp-screw 16 by which it may be caused to clamp the stem 10 in adjusted position.

When the contacts are to be adjusted the screw 16 and the nut 14 are both loosened, and the contact 6 then automatically accom modates itself to the angle of the contact 5 under the influence of the spring-pressure of the armature. The stem 10 may then be screwed up or down, if required, to adjust the air-gap of the instrument. The screw 16 and the nut 14 are then tightened, thus locking the parts in adjusted position.

The invention claimed is:

l. The combination, with a wide, flat contact, of a shell embracing the contact and having a spherically-curved, centrally-perforated rear portion; a stem axially perforated and provided with a head recessed to provide a seat for the spherical portion of the shell; and a bolt passing through the perforations in the stem and the shell and 1, in which said head issplit to provide a 10 having a head Within the latter and a nut plurality of relatively yielding resilient p01 at the remote end of the stem. tions.

2. A contact-support, as defined in claim 4. A contact-support, as defined in claim 5 1, comprising, further, a terminal-block, in 1, in which the head is transversely slotted which the stem is threaded, provided With and the bolt ispi'ovided with a lateral pro- 15 means for clamping the stem in adjusted jection engaging the slot. position therein.

3. A contact-snppoii't, as defined in claim FARNUM F. DORSEY.