Patent Application
20060213680
The present invention relates generally to electrical wire and cable. More specifically, the present invention relates to coupled building wire comprising more than one length of non-metallic sheathed cable, wherein the lengths of cable are coupled so that an electrician can pull more than one length of cable into a structure at a time.
Non-metallic (“NM”) sheathed cable is suitable for use in concealed or exposed, dry, protected areas (e.g., inside stud walls and on the sides of joists) and is commonly used to provide electrical power throughout homes built in the United States. NM cable is installed during the construction phase of a building, home, or other structure by pulling a length of cable from a coil into the structure and through openings or bores formed in the structure's internal framing elements, cutting the cable at its desired length, and connecting the cable to various components such as outlet boxes, junction boxes, switches, and fixtures.
Conventional NM cable is sold as a single unit, i.e., each coil contains one length of cable (a “circuit”) that has a uniform gauge or size. Consequently, when an electrician needs to install more than one circuit at once, he or she must pull each circuit from a separate coil. The use of multiple coils is a significant burden that requires extra set up time and often results in the undesirable entanglement of the two lengths of cable.
Because electricians frequently use more than one gauge of cable in the construction of a home, the burden of using multiple coils is commonly experienced. For example, in a typical home, each room has lighting elements that require one gauge of NM cable and electrical outlets that require a different gauge of NM cable. In particular, a 15-amp circuit used for lighting will employ a 14 American Wire Gauge (“AWG”) NM cable, but a 20-amp circuit used for electrical outlets will employ a 12 AWG NM cable. Thus, during construction, a length of 14 AWG NM cable and a length of 12 AWG NM cable will need to be pulled into each room, which conventionally requires the set up and use of more than one coil. As another example, a single room may need more than one dedicated 15-amp circuit, thereby requiring that more than one length of 14 AWG NM cable be pulled into the room. Here, as in the previous example, it would be preferable to be able to pull all of the necessary lengths of wire from a single coil to reduce the time needed to set up multiple coils and to eliminate the risk of entanglement.
Accordingly, a need therefore exists for a NM cable construction comprising more than one length of cable, wherein the lengths of cable are coupled so that an electrician can pull more than one length of cable into a structure at a time.
The present invention answers this need by providing a coupled building wire wherein more than one length of NM cable, having the same or different gauges, are coupled together so that an electrician may pull more than one length of cable into a structure from a single coil.
More specifically, the present invention relates to a coupled building wire comprising a first length of NM cable having a top surface and a bottom surface, and a second length NM cable having a top surface and a bottom surface, wherein the bottom surface of the first length of NM cable is coupled to the top surface of the second length of NM cable.
It is thus an advantage of the present invention to provide a coupled building wire that permits more than one length of cable to be dispensed simultaneously without entanglement.
It is another advantage of the present invention to a coupled building wire that permits an electrician to draw lengths of cable having different gauges simultaneously from a single coil and without entanglement.
These and further advantages of the present invention will become apparent after a review of the following detailed description of the disclosed embodiments.
With reference to
With reference to
In the depicted embodiment, the first gauge of the at least one circuit conductor 36 of the first length of NM cable 30 is substantially equal to the second gauge of the at least one circuit conductor 46 of the second length of NM cable 40. In other embodiments, the first gauge of the at least one circuit conductor 36 of the first length of NM cable 30 is unequal to the second gauge of the at least one circuit conductor 46 of the second length of NM cable 40.
With continuing reference to
With reference to
With reference to
With reference to
In another embodiment of the present invention, the bottom surface 34 of the first length of NM cable 30 is coupled to the top surface 42 of the second length of NM cable 40 using at least two complementary strips of Velcro®-like material 90, i.e., material having complementary parts which adhere to each other when pressed together and adapted for use as a fastener. In accordance with this embodiment, at least one strip of Velcro®-like material is placed along the bottom surface 34 of the first length of NM cable and at least one complementary strip of Velcro®-like material is placed along the top surface of the second length of NM cable. The bottom surface 34 of the first length of NM cable 30 and the top surface 42 of the second length of NM cable 40 are then pressed together to adhere the complementary parts of the Velcro®-like material to each other to form the coupled building wire 20.
In a further embodiment of the present invention, the bottom surface 34 of the first length of NM cable 30 is coupled to the top surface 42 of the second length of NM cable 40 using a self-locking threaded fastener. In accordance with this embodiment, a self-locking threaded fastener, such as that commonly known by the trademark ZIPLOC, is attached to the bottom surface 34 of the first length of NM cable 30 and to the top surface 42 of the second length of NM cable 40. The bottom surface 34 of the first length of NM cable 30 and the top surface 42 of the second length of NM cable 40 are then pressed together to lock the self-locking fastener and form the coupled building wire 20. It will be appreciated that the self-locking fastener could be attached during assembly of the coupled building wire 20 or formed into the outer sheath 6 of the first 30 and second 40 lengths of cable by incorporating the self-locking fastener into extrusion tooling.
In still further embodiments of the present invention, the bottom surface 34 of the first length of NM cable 30 is coupled to the top surface 42 of the second length of NM cable 40 using any other suitable adhesive material or other means, such as double-sided tape, an adhesive polymeric strip, a binding strip (constructed of mylar, polyester, string or the like), welding (such as hot air welding, ultrasonic welding, solvent bonding or the like), or any combination of the above.
It will be appreciated that each of the aforementioned embodiments allow for easy separation of the first length of NM cable 30 from the second length of NM cable 40 once the coupled building wire has been pulled into the building or home that is under construction. Further, the preferred bonded embodiments offer an inherent tangle-resistance feature thereby reducing and possibly eliminating the problems of multiple cables tangling up during installation. Because the tangling of NM cable is a result of the wire conductors' “radii memory,” i.e., the tendency to remain coiled and resist straightening, the present invention eliminates any competing radii memory by providing more than one circuit in the same package and stored with the same radius.
Testing
In order to test whether the coupled building wire 20 of the present invention provides an advantage over conventional single building wire constructions, electricians were asked to pull test cables into an eight (8) foot by sixteen (16) foot mock building using an electrical wiring diagram. To establish a baseline, electricians pulled circuits having a single length of NM cable into the mock building according to the diagram and the time to complete the tasks was recorded. Then, electricians pulled various embodiments of the coupled building wire 20 into the mock building according to the same diagram and the time to complete the tasks were recorded. As demonstrated by Tables 1-8 below, the use of the coupled building wire 20 of the present invention consistently reduced the time to install the test wiring.
Having thus described the invention in detail, it should be apparent that various modifications and changes may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention. Consequently, these and other modifications are contemplated to be within the spirit and scope of the following claims.
This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/955,436, filed Sep. 30, 2004, and claims the benefit of priority of U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 60/508,148, filed Oct. 1, 2003, and U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 60/517,851, filed Nov. 6, 2003, which are relied on and incorporated herein by reference.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 10955436 | Sep 2004 | US |
| Child | 11423193 | Jun 2006 | US |
