AU756625B2

AU756625B2 - Electromechanical contactor

Info

Publication number: AU756625B2
Application number: AU13935/00A
Authority: AU
Inventors: Patrick Comtois; Patrick Larcher; Alain Moreux; Regis Perrocheau
Original assignee: Schneider Electric Industries SAS
Current assignee: Schneider Electric Industries SAS
Priority date: 1998-12-04
Filing date: 1999-12-02
Publication date: 2003-01-16
Anticipated expiration: 2019-12-02
Also published as: ATE327566T1; CN1174452C; TR200002280T1; BR9909321B1; ES2263299T3; PT1053554E; AR021543A1; CN1291341A; KR100384341B1; JP4808805B2; BR9909321A; FR2786922A1; AU1393500A; JP2002532825A; DE69931468T2; EP1053554A1; FR2786922B1; KR20010040619A; JP2010045044A; EP1053554B1

Description

1 ELECTROMECHANICAL CONTACTOR The present invention relates to an electromechanical contactor comprising an outer casing fitted with components for fastening it to a base and which houses an electromagnet consisting of a coil and a contact-holder that is displaced when moved by the coil, said contactor comprising power terminals connected to fixed contacts and separable from movable contacts mounted on the contact-holder, and command terminals connected to the coil.

Users are increasingly demanding a variety of power terminals, for example screw-type terminals, elastic cage-type terminals, moving insulator terminals, etc. The contactor must therefore enable different types of terminals to be contained in the body. It is therefore desirable that the contactor should be designed to meet this need as simply and cheaply as possible while facilitating the connection of external cables to the terminals.

The aim of the invention is thus to structure a contactor so that it can be fitted easily and cheaply with different types of power connection terminals.

It is a further aim of the invention to structure this type of contactor such that its control and command wiring is facilitated.

According to the invention the contact-holder is contained inside a housing that is invariable, i.e.

that is independent of the type of power terminals it contains the power terminals are disposed in housings of a power terminal that constitutes one part of the 2 body of the contactor, the measurements of the housing being dependent on the type of terminals used while the power terminal block includes partitions between the terminals that are dependent on the types of power terminals used and form an abutment with the matching shapes of the housing; preferably the shapes are guiding and stop grooves that are independent of the types of power terminals used.

The contactor may thus be composed by assembling an invariable arc housing with variable power terminals depending on the type of power terminals used.

Preferably the rear section of the body of the contactor is fitted with a fastening base housing the coil and the fixed arm of the electromagnet and its power terminal block in the forward section. Said power terminal block is mounted on the base while the invariable unit is a specific arc unit located inside the body, 15 and particularly fitted inside the power terminal block.

Preferably the contact-holder includes control contacts located forward of the power contacts, a control unit then being included in the power terminal block to operate in conjunction with the control contacts.

The following description is of a non-limitative example of the invention and refers to the attached drawings where Figure 1 is a schematic side view of the contactor of the invention.

Figure 2 is a similar exploded view of the contactor.

Figure 3 is an enlarged schematic side view of arc unit and the power terminal block.

Figure 4 is a side view of a cross section of the contactor.

Figure 5 is a perspective view of the internal components of the contactor seen from the right-hand side.

Figure 6 is a perspective view of the arc unit seen from the left-hand side.

Figure 7 is an exploded perspective view of the arc unit, the contact-holder, the power terminal block and the control/command terminal block, the fixed and movable contacts being absent.

Figure 8 is a perspective view of the base and the power and control/command terminal blocks seen from the right-hand side.

Figures 9 and 10 show front views of two types of embodiment of the power terminal block.

The multi-pole electromechanical contactor shown comprises a body, i.e. an outer casing 10 having a forward section 10a and a rear section 10b. Forward section 10a houses the power terminals A, command terminals B and control terminals C. Rear section has the usual components 11 required to fasten it to a base and contains an electromagnet 20. Body incorporates power wires 12 cut in two places. Said power wires 12 have fixed conducting parts 13 bearing fixed power contacts 14 together with movable power contacts 15 located on contact bridges 16. The movable contact bridges 16 are housed in a contact-holder 17

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-1 r that moves under the influence of the coil 21 of electromagnet In the forward section 10a of body 10 the power terminals A are located in a principle circuit PA to allow for insertion of cables leading to a power supply and a charge in order to power the wires 13. In addition, forward section 10a contains command terminals B constituting a command circuit PB located forward of circuit PA to allow for insertion of cables connected to a command circuit, said terminals being connected inside the contactor to coil 21 of electromagnet 20. Lastly, forward section 10a contains control terminals C constituting a circuit PC located forward of circuit PA and, for example, incorporated in circuit PB, said terminals being connected by cables or a bus to a control, signaling or analog circuit.

To go into more detail, the body or outer casing of the contactor includes a base 30 made of an insulating material and shaped like a rectangular box.

This base constitutes most of the above-mentioned rear section 10b and is therefore fitted with fastening components 11 and houses coil 21 of electromagnet together with E-shaped fixed arm 22, the core of the E being placed vertically.

Body 10 houses an arc unit 40 made of a suitable insulating material and housing part of E-shaped movable arm 23 of electromagnet 20 and contact-holder 17. Contact-holder 17 (see figures 4, 5 and 7) houses contact bridges 16 each bearing the two movable power contacts 15 of the respective pole. Facing the movable contacts are the respective power contacts 14 that are connected by conducting parts 13 to power terminals A, parts 13 being provided with threaded fastening sections 13a. Contact-holder 17 comprises a rear section 17a housing contact bridges 16 and a forward section 17b housing movable control contacts 18 designed to operate in conjunction with fixed control contacts 19 as will be explained below. Contact-holder 17 has recess shapes 17c designed to activate contacts belonging to an additional part fastened to the forward section of the contactor.

Coil 21 has an insulating body 24 bearing a coil and fitted with two terminals of coil 26 designed to be connected to command terminals B. This connected is made by means of connector blocks 27 respectively oriented more or less perpendicular to the front panel of the contactor, said connector blocks being housed in lateral grooves 28 provided on the outside of the arc unit Arc unit 40 is constructed in stages, namely one stage defining the circuit PA that ensures the contact between the power contacts and the power terminals and covered by a power terminal block 50, and another stage defining the circuit PB, PC that ensures the contact between the control/command contacts and the control/command terminals and covered by a control/command terminal 60. Arc unit 40 is constructed by assembling two half-units 40a, 40b in a horizontal plane which may be the median plane Q of the contactor or a plane parallel to Q. Each half-unit 40a, includes internal partitions 41 designed to insulate the power contacts of the different poles from one another but has no external insulating partitions between the power terminals each half-unit is fitted with guides and grooves 42 for fitting and positioning the inter-terminal insulating partitions 51 provided in the power terminal 50. Shaped parts 44 are positioned forward of the arc unit 40 to enable a frontal add-on to be attached to the contactor.

As can be seen from figure 3 and, to a lesser degree figures 6 and 7, each partition 51 has a rear component 51a that fits into a matching groove 42a located behind the adjacent fastening surfaces 13 partition 51 also has a section 51b that is set back and fits into a matching groove 42b located near the active part bow screw, elastic cage, etc.) of power terminal A. The part of the partition located near the median plane Q of the contactor comprises two sliders 51c that operate in conjunction with horizontal grooves 42c (see also figures 9, 10). It will be seen that grooves 42a, 42b, 42c, together with the associated components of partitions 51, constitute chicanes that increase the insulating distance between conducting parts. The power terminal block has a surface 52 in plane Q' that is parallel to the median plane Q of the contactor and acting as a base plane for the terminal.

It should be noted that power terminal 50 may be modified to different types of connector without the arc unit being modified. For example, figures 9 and show respectively a terminal block 50-1 with elastic terminals Al and a terminal block 50-2 with screw-type terminals A2. As can be seen from figures 3, 9 and the height of the space 53 allocated to the active section of terminal A that moves between surface 52 and the adjacent outer surface 54 of plane Q" of the terminal block is variable in height (direction Y) and depth (direction X) while the arc unit remains the same. The terminal block has frontal openings 55 to allow access for a tool for moving the terminals and the upper or lower apertures 56 located in the plane of circuit PA and used to introduce power cables, openings 55, 56 opening into space 53. A decompression space 57 is formed between the surface 52 of the terminal block and a parallel surface 43 of the arc unit that is provided with ventilation holes. The front of terminal block 50 has a window 58 through which the forward section of arc unit 40 passes.

A command/control terminal block 60 is fitted to the from of the contactor body. This terminal block has frontal apertures 61 to allow access for a tool for moving the terminals and the upper or lower apertures 62 located in the plane of circuit PB, PC and used to introduce command and control cables. Terminal 60 has a shape that enables it to be housed in the window 58 of power terminal block 50 and has a frontal aperture 63 to allow passage of the front section of arc unit It should be noted that the body of the contactor is constructed by assembling the power terminal block and the base so that these two parts form the outer body of the contactor and completely envelope the arc unit. Power terminal block 50 is fastened by any known means to the base 30 and the command/control terminal 8 block 60 is fastened by any known means to the terminal block 50 and/or arc unit Comprises/comprising and grammatical variations thereof when used in this specification are to be taken to specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps or components or groups thereof, but not to preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, components or groups thereof.

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Claims

1. Electromechanical contactor including an outer casing fitted with components for fastening it to a base and which houses an electromagnet consisting of a coil and a contact-holder that is displaced when moved by the coil, said contactor including power terminals to fixed contacts and separable from movable contacts mounted on the contact-holder, and command terminals connected to the coil, characterized in that: the contact-holder is contained inside an unit that is independent of the type of power terminals it contains; the power terminals are disposed in housings of a power terminal that housing being dependent on the type of terminals used; :the power terminal includes partitions between the terminals that are dependent on the types of power terminals used and form an abutment with the matching shapes of the unit independent of the types of power terminals used.

2. Contactor of claim 1, characterized in that the shapes of the unit that operate in conjunction with partitions of the power terminal are guiding and stop grooves.

Contactor of claim 1, characterized in that the rear section of body includes a base housing the coil and the fixed arm of the electromagnet and the forward section the power terminal block, the latter being fastened to the base while the unit is a specific arc unit located inside body.

4. Contactor of claim 1, characterized in that the unit fits into the power terminal block, the body of the contactor being composed by assembling the power terminal block to a base housing the coil and the fixed arm of the electromagnet.

Contactor of claim 1, characterized in that the contact-holder includes control contacts located forward of the power contacts, and that a control terminal block is installed on the power terminal block to operate in conjunction with the control contacts.

6. Contactor of claim 5, characterized in that the unit is composed of two half- units assembled together and having, once joined together, a separating surface parallel to the front panel of the contactor to separate the control contacts from the power contacts.

7. An electromechanical contactor substantially as herein described with reference to any one of the embodiments of the invention illustrated in the accompanying drawings. DATED this 4th day of November 2002 SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC INDUSTRIES SA WATERMARK PATENT TRADE MARK ATTORNEYS 290 BURWOOD ROAD HAWTHORN VICTORIA 3122 FAUSTRALIA PNF/AALCMM