1. Field of the Invention
A connector arrangement connects the contacts of a stack of terminal blocks, including first conductive bridge means extending longitudinally above a given terminal block for selectively connecting together the contacts thereof, and second laterally-extending conductive bridge means connecting together corresponding contacts of various selected terminal blocks of the stack. Resilient fingers on the longitudinal and lateral conductive bridges respectively engage openings contained in offset tiered first and second contact areas contained in branch conductors that are connected with bus bars contained in the terminal blocks, respectively.
2. Description of Related Art
It is known in the prior art to provide means for connecting together the electrical contacts of a plurality of terminal blocks mounted in stacked parallel arrangement on a mounting rail. Each of the terminal blocks contains a plurality of bus bars that connect various electrical contacts of the terminal block. First external connector means connect together selected bus bars of a given terminal block, and second external connector means connect together a bus bar of one terminal block with corresponding bus bars of other selected terminal blocks of the stack.
By attaching or, respectively, inserting the connectors into the plug-in positions provided for them it will be possible to connect bus bars of two or more terminal blocks in the lateral direction in conductive fashion in order to realize a lateral distribution of one or several potentials in the transverse direction.
In this context it has been known to provide the lateral connectors with plugs separable at predetermined breaking points so that it will be possible to connect only certain of the terminal blocks with each other in conductive fashion. This generic arrangement per se has stood the test of time.
However, it is desirable to make possible the distribution of electrical power within the terminal block arrangement more varied in a simple manner to provide additional possibilities for a distribution of power as compared to the state of the art.
According to it, the generic arrangement is provided with additional plug-in positions and/or a design of the plug-in positions to accommodate at least one additional connector or several additional pluggable connectors for a distribution of one or several potentials within the respective terminal blocks.
The invention makes it possible to distribute potentials not only in the lateral direction between terminal blocks, but also to connect bus bars within each terminal block for distribution in a simple manner, quasi arbitrarily, so that the possibilities for a distribution of potential within the terminal block arrangement are clearly increased or, respectively, expanded. Within the framework of the present invention, lateral distribution is to be understood, on the one hand, as the lateral distribution in transverse direction across several terminal blocks, and, on the other hand, as a distribution within a given terminal block, thus in particular also a “vertical distribution” in the terminal block. Preferably, at least one of the connectors will therefore be designed as a lateral connector and at least one connector as a vertical connector.
Accordingly, a primary object of the invention is to provide a connector arrangement for connecting the contacts of a stack of terminal blocks, including a first conductive bridge extending longitudinally of a given terminal block for selectively connecting together the contacts thereof, and a second laterally-extending conductive bridge for connecting together corresponding contacts of various selected terminal blocks of the stack.
According to a more specific object of the invention, resilient fingers on the longitudinal and lateral conductive bridges respectively engage openings contained in offset tiered first and second contact areas contained in intermediate branch conductors that are connected with respective bus bars contained in the terminal blocks. In one embodiment, the intermediate branch conductors leading to the respective bus bars of a terminal block are carried by that terminal block. In a second embodiment, the intermediate branch conductors are carried by a separate connector attachment block that is attached to the stack of rail-mounted terminal blocks.
According to a more specific object, of the invention, the connections of the resilient fingers to the conductive bridges are frangible, thereby to permit the user to select the various bus bars and contacts of the stack that are to be connected together.
According to a further embodiment, the vertical branch lines from the bus bars of each terminal block terminate in pin contacts that are adapted for engagement with the female resilient clip contacts of a first plug connector that serves as the longitudinal conductive bridge. In this embodiment, the lateral conductive bridge between the terminal blocks of a stack is defined by a lateral conductor that is connected between one end of a given bus bar and the corresponding ends of bus bars of selected other terminal blocks of the stack. The other ends of the bus bars of each terminal block terminate in pin contacts that are arranged for engagement by the female clip contacts of an associated second plug connector.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent from a study of the following specification, when viewed in the light of the accompanying drawing, in which:
a is a perspective view of the preferred embodiment of the invention, and
Referring first more particularly to
The bus bars are electrically connected with the lower ends of vertical branch lines 23-26 the upper ends of which are connected with vertical intermediate branch lines 19a-19d, respectively. As best shown in
According to an important feature of the invention, each of the resilient fingers 17b and 18b is connected with its associated horizontal bridge portion 17a and 18a by a frangible connection, whereby upon simple breaking off of given resilient fingers, the user may select the specific bus bars and contacts of the stack of terminal blocks that are to be connected together by the conductive bridge means. In this manner, a so-called matrix of connections between the contacts may be achieved as desired.
It is apparent that the invention is suitable for use with terminal blocks having various types of electrical contacts, such as contacts including tension springs, or compression springs, tulip-type resilient contacts, clip-on contacts or the like.
The tiered design of the current rails 19 to accommodate the conductive bridges 17, 18 makes it easily possible to arrange in each case two of the connectors in quasi crosswise fashion on top of each other so that current rails or, respectively, potentials can be distributed in crosswise fashion within the terminal blocks in the lateral direction, on the one hand, and vertically to the lateral direction on the other hand.
The conductive bridges 17, 18 are preferably designed comb-shaped and in each case have a horizontal support area 17a, 18a, and preferably detachable resilient plug-in fingers 17b, 18b so that the most varied potential distributions can be realized by breaking away plug-n areas 17b.
For example, a maximum of four terminal blocks 2a, 2b, . . . can be connected with each other in the lateral direction by means of one connector 17 with four plug-in areas 17b in lateral direction. If now in each case one of the additional connectors 18 is arranged in each of the four in-line clips 2a, 2b, . . . that connects the current rails 3c, 4c, . . . with each other within the in-line clips 2a, 2b, 2c, 2d, a potential is connected to many—in this case sixteen—connections 3a, 3b, 4a, . . . in simple fashion. The number of connections is only an example. For each individual terminal block, up to eight connections 3a, 3b, . . . may be provided for with up to four connection planes 3-6.
In the modification shown in
In the embodiment of
While in accordance with the provisions of the Patent Statutes the preferred forms and embodiments of the invention have been illustrated and described, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that changes may be made without deviating from the invention described above.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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20 2007 014 863 U | Oct 2007 | DE | national |
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
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5853304 | Landreau et al. | Dec 1998 | A |
6146213 | Yoon | Nov 2000 | A |
6425770 | Lostoski et al. | Jul 2002 | B1 |
6485336 | Zebermann | Nov 2002 | B1 |
7232324 | Oesterhaus | Jun 2007 | B2 |
Number | Date | Country | |
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20090111334 A1 | Apr 2009 | US |