US3213226A

US3213226A - Safety impact switch to open electrical circuit

Info

Publication number: US3213226A
Application number: US329042A
Authority: US
Inventors: Joseph R Konderla
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 1963-12-09
Filing date: 1963-12-09
Publication date: 1965-10-19
Anticipated expiration: 1982-10-19

Description

Oct. 19, 1965 J KONDERLA 3,213,226

SAFETY IMPACT SWITCH TO OPEN ELECTRICAL CIRCUIT Filed Dec. 9, 1963 BY W 7 9 ATTORNEYS United States Patent 3,213,226 SAFETY IMPACT SWITCH TO OPEN ELECTRICAL CIRCUIT Joseph R. Konderla, Rte. 3, R0. Box 287, Seagoville, Tex. Filed Dec. 9, 1963, Ser. No. 329,342 4 Claims. (Cl. 20061.45)

My invention relates to safety impact switches and more particularly to an electric circuit breaker or maker which is to be used on or with any vehicle, whether a machine of any type or a motor vehicle, or in any situation where immediate disconnecting or connecting on impact is required.

It is an object of my invention to provide a novel and improved impact-responsive circuit breaker for disconnecting and deenergizing the electrical system of a vehicle in the event of a substantial impact or collision by the vehicle whereby the danger of fire in such an event is minimized.

A further object of the invention is to provide a novel and improved impact-responsive circuit breaker for disconnecting and deenergizing, or connecting and energizing, the electrical system of a vehicle in the event of a substantial impact or collision, the circuit breaker being inexpensive to manufacture, small of size and easily mounted upon the vehicle without the provision of special mounting brackets.

A further object of the invention is to provide a novel and improved impact-responsive circuit breaker having means to adjust the breaker to automatically operate at any desired amount of extremely sudden or violent movement of a vehicle.

Further aims, objects and advantages of this invention will appear from a consideration of the following description and the accompanying drawings showing for purely illustrative purposes embodiments of this invention. It is to be understood, however, that the description is not to be taken in a limiting sense, the scope of the invention being defined in the appended claims.

FIGURE 1 is a perspective view of the circuit breaker of the present invention mounted in a preferred manner on a vehicle battery;

FIGURE 2 is an exploded perspective view of the circuit breaker of the present invention showing the interrelationship of the various components of the breaker;

FIGURE 3 is a View in elevation of a section through the circuit breaker of the present invention taken along lines 33 of FIGURE 1;

FIGURE 4 is a perspective view of the circuit breaker of the present invention mounted upon the electrical coil of a motor vehicle.

In the drawings, wherein like reference numerals designate the corresponding parts throughout several figures, the impact responsive circuit breaker is designated generally by numeral 11 and comprises a pair of flat elongated arms 12, 13 made from a material having good electrical conductivity. Located at one end of the contact arms are enlarged

circular portions

14, 15 having respective centrally located apertures 16, 17. Disposed upon the

circular portions

14, 15 are three symmetrically located embossed contact points indicated by numeral 18 on contact arm 12, and numeral 19 on contact arm 13, The

contact points

18, 19 are embossed to such an oifset relation that the projection of each contact point from the flat planar surface into the intervening zone between the contact arms is just slightly more than half the thickness of the insulating spacer disk 21 mounted in the intervening zone between the contact arms 12, 13. Such a degree of offset of the

contact points

18, 19 allows the contact points to be in circuit closed position when the three contact points of contact arm 12 project into the same three holes,

hereinafter sometimes referred to as the switch-closed detent holes 22a, of the spacer disk 21 as do the three contact points 19 of arm 13.

An index notch 23 is provided in the outer periphery of contact arm 12 so as to be selectively aligned with an index notch 24 of contact arm 13 to position the

contact points

18, 19 in registry through respective holes 22a of the spacer disk 21, in which condition an electrical circuit is established between contact arms 12 and 13. When contact points 18 lies in alternate holes of disk 21 from those occupied by contact point 19, which alternate holes are termed switch open detent holes 22b, no current may flow through the circuit breaker.

Positioned upon the outer face of the circular portions 14, of contact arms 12, 13 are insulator fiber washers 25, 26 having respective

central apertures

27, 28 therethrough. The washers 25, 26 are of generally circular shape conforming to the diameter of the

circular portions

14, 15 of the contact arms except that each washer is provided with a relieved peripheral zone, defined for example by a Hat extending along a chord of the circle, indicated by numeral 29 on washer and numeral 31 on washer 26, to provide spaces whereby the index mark 23 may be easily seen when the circuit breaker is in assembled condition to facilitate alignment of the

index marks

23, 24 for circuit closed position. It should be noted that contact arm 12 has an index mark on its underside that corresponds in a relative position to the index mark 24 of arm 13, and that arm 13 has on its underside an index mark that corresponds in a relative position to index mark 23 of arm 12. This provision allows the circuit breaker 11 to be mounted in an up-side-down manner while still making the circuit position easily read.

Resiliently urging the circuit breaker components into an intimate close fitting relation are

spring washers

32, 33 having a convex exterior configuration and being positioned upon the outer faces of the fiber washers 25, 26. The

spring washers

32, 33 have a flat portion 34, 35 at one point about their peripheries similar to washers 25, 26 in order that they may be correspondingly oriented relative to the washers 25, 26 to provide easy viewing of the index mark 23.

The circuit breaker 11 of the present invention would normally be assembled as shown in FIGURE 3 wherein the contact arms 12, 13 would be positioned in flanking or sandwiching relation to spacer disk 21, and one of the washers 25, 26 would be mounted upon the outer face of each contact arm. To provide for central core support and insulation for the above resulting assembly, an insulating tube 36 is inserted in and extended through central apertures of each of the above mentioned components of the assembly. To maintain the complete circuit breaker assembly together and to provide tension to the

spring washers

32, 33, a bolt 37 extends through the spring washer 32, insulator tube 36 and spring Washer 33, terminating in nut 38. By adjusting the nut 38 upon bolt 37 a compressive force is applied to

spring washers

32, 33 thereby providing proper braking force or shear friction between the various components of the circuit breaker, and need of which will be later described.

An inertia member 39, of suitable weight and shape and having a threaded stud 41 projecting therefrom, is mounted upon one end of the elongated portion of contact arm 12 by extending stud 41 through hole 42 and securing it to the under side of arm 12 by suitable nut 43. As seen in FIGURE 2, the stud 41 is set within the inertia member 39 in an off center or eccentric manner for a purpose to be *later described.

In FIGURES 1 and 4, alternative methods of mounting the circuit breaker of the present invention upon motor vehicles are shown. In FIGURE 1 the circuit breaker z) is so mounted as to have contact arm 13 mounted upon terminal lug 44 of the vehicle battery 45, and the battery cable 46 is fixed to contact arm 12 by simply positioning its terminal lug over screw 41 and replacing nut 43. The second mounting alternative of FIGURE 4, shows the circuit breaker mounted upon the ignition coil 47 of the vehicle in a simple manner whereby, if desired, the supply of current to the electrical distribution system of the engine may be broken. Such a result is accomplished by supplying the output current of coil 47 through wire 48 to contact arm 13 which is mounted suitably upon insulation block 49. Connected to contact arm 12 by stud 41 and nut 43 is an electrical lead 51 that supplies the output coi-l current to the electrical distributing system (not shown) of the vehicle. It would be of definite advantage to use both methods of mounting the circuit breaker on all vehicles as shown in FIGURES 1 and 4, whereby upon sudden impact or collision of the vehicle the danger of fire is greatly reduced if both the battery and the ignition system are taken out of the electrical circuit. It is common knowledge that even if the battery is disconnected from the electrical system of a vehicle the engine can still continue running from power supplied from its own generating system and, therefore, it would be desirable to have a second circuit breaker within the electrical system to disconnect the ignition circuit at a suitable point such as between the ignition coil 47 and the distributor (not shown).

When mounting the circuit breaker 11 upon the vehicle it should be so positioned to allow the inertia member 39 and contact arm 12 to swing in an arc toward the impact point and only travel the shortest distance possible thereby preventing an unneeded buildup of momentum of inertia member 39. Since the spacer disk 21 has a plurality of six symmetrically located detent holes, 22a and 22b, the optimum amount of travel for mass member 39 and contact arm 12 would be 60 because it is easily seen in FIGURE 2 that if the circuit breaker is in switch closed position, a movement of 60 by contact arm 12 would move contact points 18 from switch closed detent holes 22a of spacer disk 21 to switch open detent holes 22b. A movement of more than 60 would give rise to the possibility that contact arm 12 would move 120 thereby putting the circuit breaker in switch closed position with contact points 18 again resting in detent holes 2211. As it is not always possible to anticipate the point of impact on a vehicle, the switch should be so positioned as to give optimum results in the direction of most likely impact, which normally would be in the front or in the rear of the vehicle. The circuit breaker so positioned will give adequate protection, not only from impacts at the front and rear of the vehicle, but also on impacts occurring around any portion of the periphery of the vehicle. To remove the possibility that an impact occurring at a point on the Vehicle and would be in line with the imaginary axis extending through the centers of hole 42 and aperture 16 of the contact arm 12, member 39 has stud 41 located eccentrically thereon so positioned that the center of the mass is located to one side of this imaginary axis, whereby upon an impact along this axis the moment arm of the inertia member 39 will be sufficient to cause inertia member 39 and contact arm 12 to rotate through a sufiicient arc to disengage the

contact points

18, 19.

An especially important feature of this invention is the means by which the circuit breaker may be adjusted to automatically operate at any degree of sudden or violent movement of the Vehicle. Obviously, it would not be desirable to have the circuit breaker disconnect the electrical system of the vehicle every time a sud-den or rapid stop was made due to existing tratfic conditions. Therefore, it is proposed that by tightening the nut 38 upon bolt 37 a greater degree of pressure will be exerted upon the

spring washers

32, 33 thereby resiliently urging them into greater frictional contact with fiber washers 25, 26 which in turn will force the contact arms 12 and 13 into greater frictional contact with spacer disk 21. By tightening up nut 38 it Will easily be seen that the tendency of inertia member 39 and contact arm 12 to overcome the frictional resistance exerted on the enlarged circular portion 14 of contact arm 12 and to move contact points 18 from detent holes 22a may be varied within a wide range of values. Thus the operator of the vehicle may adjust the circuit breaker to operate only at such a time as the vehicle is stopped with such suddenness as would approximate a collision or impact-'.

While I have particularly shown and described one particular embodiment of the invention, it is distinctly understood that the invention is not limited thereto but that modifications may be made within the scope of the invention and such variations as are covered by the scope of the appended claims.

What is claimed is:

1. An impact-responsive automatic circuit breaker for the electrical system of a vehicle comprising in combination, parallel first and second flat contact arms each having at one end an enlarged centrally apertured con tact portion, the contact portions being assembled in spaced parallelism and substantial registry with each other, a plurality of contact points on said contact portions, an insulating spacer disk positioned between said contact arms, said spacer disk having a plurality of detent apertures located therein, said detent apertures adapted to be in registry with said contact points, spring means for resiliently urging said contact points into said detent apertures of said spacer disk, and an inertia member positioned upon the first of said contact arms, said contact arms being adapted to be connected in series circuit relation with the vehicle electrical system with one of said contact arms fixed against movement relative to the Vehicle and with said contact points of said first contact arm in contact with the contact points of said second contact arm when said circuit breaker is in operative position and whereby upon impact of the vehicle the inertial forces on said inertia member produce rotation of the first contact arm toward the impact point a predetermined distance thereby disengaging the contact points of said contact arms and moving the contact points of the first contact arm to an insulative detent position in said spacer disk.

2. An impact-responsive automatic circuit breaker for the electrical system of a vehicle comprising in combination, parallel first and second flat contact arms each having at one end an enlarged centrally apertured contact portion, the contact portions being assembled in spaced parallelism and substantial registry with each other, a plurality of contact points placed on said contact portions projecting toward each other, a circular insulating spacer disk positioned between said contact arms, said spacer disk having a plurality of detent apertures therein, said detent apertures adapted to be in registry with said contact points, a circular insulating washer adapted to be positioned upon the outer face of each of said enlarged contact portions of said contact arms, spring means disposed in juxtaposition with each of said insulating washers, means for resiliently urging said spring means to seat said contact points in said detent apertures of said spacer disk, and an inertia member positioned upon one of said contact arms, said contact arms being adapted to be connected in series circuit relation with the vehicle electrical system, and means for mounting a portion of said circuit breaker to the vehicle, whereby when said contact points of said first contact arm are in contact with the contact points of second contact arm said circuit breaker is in operative position and whereby upon impact of the vehicle the interial forces on said inertia member produce rotation of the first contact arm toward the impact point a predetermined distance thereby disengaging the contact points of said contact arms and moving the contact points of the first contact arm to an insulative detent position in said spacer disk.

3. An impact-responsive automatic circuit breaker for the electrical system of a vehicle comprising in combination, parallel first and second flat contact arms each having at one end an enlarged centrally apertured contact portion, the contact portions being assembled in spaced parallelism and substantial registry with each other, a plurality of embossed contact points symmetrically placed on said contact portions projecting toward each other, a centrally apertured circular insulating spacer disk having a thickness greater than the length of said contact points and positioned between said contact arms, said spacer disk having a plurality of detent apertures symmetrically located about said centrally located aperture, said detent apertures adapted to be in registry with said embossed contact points, an insulating washer having a centrally located aperture therein adapted to be positioned upon the outer face of each of said enlarged contact portions of said contact arms, a pair of convex spring washers disposed in juxtaposition with each of said insulating washers, means for resiliently urging said spring washers to seat said contact points in said detent apertures of said spacer disk, and an inertia member positioned upon the outer end of the first of said contact arms, said contact arms being adapted to be connected in series circuit relation with the vehicle electrical system with one of said contact arms fixed against movement relative to the vehicle and with said embossed contact points of said first contact arm in contact through the detent apertures of said spacer disk with the embossed contact points of said second contact arm when said circuit breaker is in operative position and whereby upon impact of the vehicle the inertial forces on said inertia member produce rotation of the first contact arm to rotate toward the impact point a predetermined distance thereby disengaging the contact points of said contact arms and moving the contact points of the first contact arm to an insulative detent position in said spacer disk.

4. An impact responsive automatic circuit breaker for the electrical system of a vehicle comprising, first and second flat contact arms each having at one end a centrally apertured circular contact portion, said circular contact portions having a like number of embossed contact points thereon spaced symmetrically around the central aperture and projecting toward each other, said contact arms being in spaced parallelism to one another, the first said contact arm being adapted to secure an electrical lead of the vehicle electrical system thereto, the second said contact arm being adapted to be immovably fixed to an electrical terminal of said vehicle, an insulating tube member inserted through the central aperture in each of said contact arms to position said circular portions in registry, a circular insulating spacer disk between the circular contact portions of said contact arms having a thickness greater than the length of said embossed contact points and having a plurality of detent apertures equal to the sum of contact points on said contact arms symmetrically located about the central portion of said disk and adapted to be in registry with said embossed contact points, a circular insulating washer positioned upon the outer face of each of said enlarged circular contact portions of said contact arms, a convex spring washer disposed in juxtaposition with each of said insulating washers, means for resiliently urging said spring washers inwardly to seat said contact points in said detent apertures of said spacer disk, and an inertia member fixed upon the outer end of said first contact arm, whereby when said contact points of the first contact arm are in registry through said detent apertures of said spacer disk with said contact points of the second arm an electrical circuit is made and whereby upon impact of the vehicle the inertial forces on said inertia member produce rotation of said first contact arm toward the impact point thereby disengaging the contact points of the first arm from the contact points of the second arm and positioning the contact points in insulative relation in said spacer disks.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,862,117 6/32 Jacobi 20011 2,205,482 6/40 Krieger 200-11 2,806,915 9/57 Fowler 20061.45

BERNARD A. GILHEANY, Primary Examiner.

Claims

1. AN IMPACT-RESPONSIVE AUTOMATIC CIRCUIT BREAKER FOR THE ELECTRICAL SYSTEM OF A VEHICLE COMPRISING IN COMBINATION, PARALLEL FIRST AND SECOND FLAT CONTACT ARMS EACH HAVING AT ONE END AN ENLARGED CENTRALLY APERTURED CONTACT PORTION, THE CONTACT PORTIONS BEING ASSEMBLED IN SPACED PARALLELISM AND SUBSTANTIAL REGISTRY WITH EACH OTHER, A PLURALITY OF CONTACT POINTS ON SAID CONTACT PORTIONS, AN INSULATING SPACER DISK POSITIONED BETWEEN SAID CONTACT ARMS, SAID SPACER DISK HAVING A PLURALITY OF DETENT APERTURES LOCATED THEREIN, SAID DETENT APERTURES ADAPTED TO BE IN REGISTRY WITH SAID CONTACT POINTS, SPRING MEANS FOR RESILIENTLY URGING SAID CONTACT POINTS INTO SAID DETENT APERTURES OF SAID SPACER DISK, AND AN INERTIA MEMBER POSITIONED UPON THE FIRST OF SAID CONTACT ARMS, SAID CONTACT ARMS BEING ADAPTED TO BE CONNECTED IN SERIES CIRCUIT RELATION WITH THE VEHICLE ELECTRICAL SYSTEM WITH ONE OF SAID CONTACT ARMS FIXED AGAINST MOVEMENT RELATIVE TO THE VEHICLE AND WITH SAID CONTACT POINTS OF SAID FIRST CONTACT ARM IN CONTACT WITH THE POINTS OF SAID SECOND CONTACT ARM WHEN SAID CIRCUIT BREAKER IS IN OPERATIVE POSITION AND WHEREBY UPON IMPACT OF THE VEHICLE THE INERTIAL FORCES ON SAID INERTIA MEMBER PRODUCE ROTATION OF THE FIRST CONTACT ARM TOWARD THE IMPACT POINT A PREDETERMINED DISTANCE THEREBY DISENGAGING THE CONTACT POINTS OF SAID CONTACT ARMS AND MOVING THE CONTACT POINTS OF THE FIRST CONTACT ARM TO AN INSULATIVE DETENT POSITION IN SAID SPACER DISK.