GB1227285A - - Google Patents

Abstract

1,227,285. Electric circuit-breakers. CONTINENTALE ET GARNIER. 21 Aug., 1969 [27 Aug., 1968; 7 Aug., 1969], No. 41759/69. Heading H1N. A circuit-breaker employs a "floating lever", 1 one end of which can engage a stop 8a that moves clear when a fault arises and which controls the movable contact member 2 to cooperate with a fixed contact 4 as a toggle linkage formed by an operating lever 15 and connecting link 17 is operated with the connecting link 17 coupled to the lever 1 by a pivot pin 19 movable in a curved slot 20 in the lever 1. A main spring 7 biases the contact member 2 for movement limited by a stop 6 about a pivot 3 in the lever 1 which is thus biased in a clockwise direction about the pin 19 which extends between guide surfaces 22, 23 of the circuit-breaker housing 5. In the closed position shown in Fig. 2 the force of the spring 7 maintains the toggle joint formed by members 19, 17 over centre against the bias of a resetting spring 21. Under fault conditions a bimetal strip 12 or the armature 14 of an electromagnet 13 may move a lever 8 away from a stop 11 so that the stop 8a on the lever 8 disengages the end of the lever 1 which will then rotate about the pin 1 and as the contacts 2, 4 open the lever 1 is guided by a pin 24 thereon engaged in a housing slot 25 so that the pin 19 moves between surfaces 22, 23 and the lever is rotated to an angle at which the pin moves along the slot 20 before the mechanism is reset in the circuit open position (Fig. 1, not shown). A multipole circuit breaker may have circuitbreakers as described above with additional cam members (Figs. 7 and 8, not shown) coupled together and located so as to be rotated by any lever 1 which is released from its cooperating stop 8a and to rotate to move the levers 8 of the other circuit-breakers.