Sensata Technologies, Inc.

Anand Krishnamurthy

Stephen J Bryant

William J Bentley, Jr

A switchable thermal circuit breaker () has an automatically resettable, current carrying thermostatic disc () cantilever mounted in a housing () and carries a movable contact () into and out of electrical engagement with a stationary contact (). A disc coupling member () is pivotally mounted above the disc and has fingers () to capture opposed sides of the disc so that the disc coupling member pivots concomitantly with movement of the disc. A radially extending blade () of a pivot member is biased by a spring () into engagement with a stop surface () of the disc coupling member when the contacts are in the engaged position and is movable under the stop arm () when the disc moves to the contacts disengaged position to prevent reengagement of the contacts. Also, mounted on an end of the pivot body is a reset lever and indicator flag () that moves to a position indicative of the contacts disengaged position and can be moved, against to the bias of the spring, to a position in which the blade is moved from under the stop arm to allow the disc to move to the contacts engaged position, assuming the disc is at a suitable temperature. According to a feature of the invention, a pushbutton () can be provided to apply a force to the disc coupling member causing it to pivot in a contacts opening direction to manually switch the circuit breaker to the open circuit position.

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Norwood, MA, United States of America

Anand Krishnamurthy