Westinghouse Electric Corporation

Donald E Schlosser

Jere L McKee

Kurt A Grunert

William I Stephenson, Jr

John P Majcher

William E Smith

A push-to-trip button for a circuit breaker characterized by a circuit breaker within an insulating housing and having trip means for releasably holding a circuit breaker operating mechanism in an untripped position and including a trip bar biased in an untripped position, a trip delay member biased away from the trip bar and including an adjustment bar for applying a pressure on the member, a trip button extending through the housing and having a first surface contacting the trip bar, and the adjustment bar having a second surface for applying limited pressure on the trip button for holding the first surface in contact on the trip bar, without moving the trip bar to a tripped position.

Circuit breaker with push-to-trip button and trip bar

A circuit breaker characterized by a movable contact carrying arm movable about a pivot and a helical torsion spring movable on the arm to and from the pivot for applying a varying force as the arm moves from closed to open positions.

Circuit breaker contact arm with variable force pivot

The gap distance separating the contacts of a low-voltage circuit breaker in the tripped position is increased by utilizing resilient stop means which is located at the bottom wall of the breaker housing rather than at the top wall (or on the handle of the breaker) in accordance with prior art practice. The movable contact arm is pivotally mounted and structured to strike the stop means as the contacts are separated and being blown open during short circuit conditions and, after the circuit breaker is tripped, the collapsed toggle assembly of the operating mechanism shifts the movable contact arm away from the stop means and allows the arm to move an additional distance away from the fixed contact and thus increase the gap distance between the opened contacts.

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Beaver Falls, PA, United States of America

Donald E Schlosser