US544335A - Telephone-switch - Google Patents

Description

Patented Aug. 13, 1895.

P. R. WHITNEY.

TELEPHONE SWITCH.

(No Model.)

Wi/haSsM fiw 6% W UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

FRANK R. WHITNEY, OF LEWISTON, MAINE.

TELEPHONE-SWITCH.

PEGIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 544,335, dated August 13, 1895.

Application filed June 30, 1894. Serial No. (N0 m l- Y My invention relates to the class of switches which are used to connect the line-wire with either the signaling-circuit or the talking-circuit.

The object of my invention is to provide a device which shall be inexpensive in construction and reliable in operation and shall have the least possible liability toderangement or injurious wear. Such switches are usually designed to act automatically, so as to insure that the line will be at all timesproperly connected for the use which is to be made of it.

The action of my device does not depend upon such an automatic or necessary action of the mechanism itself, but employs instead a combination of parts by which the usual and habitual movements of the operators hand shifts the switch, while a slightly-different manipulation removes the telephone without disturbing the switch or moves the switch without disturbing the telephone.'

In the accompanying drawings, Figure 1 is a perspective view of the device attached to the inside of the bottom of a box, which may also contain signaling devices. Only so much of the box is shown as is necessary in explaining the construction of the device. Fig. 2 is a plan of the combined telephone-holder and switch-arm. Fig. 3 is a detail of Fig. 2.

' Fig. 4 shows a modification of my device in which the switch-arm is pivoted at the farther end.

In the drawings, A is a box.

B is a piece which forms the arm of the switch and the principal part of the telephoneholder. I

b is the movable part of the telephoneholder; .9, the spring which presses inward against the telephone-handle.

O and D are the contact-plates of the switch.

L is the wire leading to the line.

M is the wire leading to the magnets or other signaling device; T, the wire leading to the receiving-telephone.

F is the pivot on which E swings, and H is a socket in which B may be pivoted.

For the most convenient working of my invention the stiffness of the spring 8, WlllGh presses in the jaw I), must be adjusted to exceed the frictional resistance of the switcharm B upon the contact-plates G or D. This frictional resistance may be that caused by the weight of B or it may be increased by adjusting the socket H so that B willbear with spring-pressure upon 0 and D.

When I wish to use my invention I press the handle R of the telephone-receiver against the jaws B and I). They open and close about the handle R; but before they open the piece B swings upon the pivot F and moves its arm from O to D, thus putting the signaling apparatus in connection with the line. Then when I wish to use the telephone I pull it out from between the spring-jaws B and b; but before they yield B swings back upon its pivot F and carries its arm back from D to 0, thus putting the receiving-telephone in connection with the line.

As the working of the switch does not depend in any way upon the presence of the telephone in the holder, it can be shifted back and forth as desired without replacingthe telephone.

When I wishto remove or replace the telephone without disturbing the switch I press upon the telephone-holder in the opposite direction from that in which the vtelephone is moving with the thumb or a finger of the hand which grasps it, or, if desired, the pressure of the spring 3 may be adjusted so closely to the frictional resistance that if the telephone is inserted or withdrawn with a slight rolling motion or in an angular direction the switch will not be shifted.

hat I claim as my invention, and desire FRANK. R. WHITNEY.

Witnesses: C. M. PLUMMER, J. E. FLAGG. v

Images