Square D Company

John T Schultz

Clifford F Bishop

James W Dickens

A multipole circuit breaker having a housing with a top wall center recess receiving a center strut of an interior trim. An operating assembly is interconnected with a trip assembly through a transistor link passing beneath the center recess and is operable by the magnetic assembly to assist the operating assembly in separating the breaker contacts in response to a fault current. A closure member overlapped by the interior trim prevents access to the load wires. A voltage reject configuration is provided on the housing to prevent mounting in a panelboard designed to carry voltages higher than that for which the circuit breaker is rated and a jaw assembly for the breaker is disclosed having a plurality of contact positions with each leg of a U shaped bus stab.

Circuit breaker with snap action magnetic trip actuator

A multipole circuit breaker having a housing with a top wall center recess receiving a center strut of an interior trim. An operating assembly is interconnected with a trip assembly through a translator link passing beneath the center recess and is operable by the magnetic assembly to assist the operating assembly in separating the breaker contacts in response to a fault current. A closure member overlapped by the interior trim prevents access to the load wires. A voltage reject configuration is provided on the housing to prevent mounting in a panelboard designed to carry voltages higher than that for which the circuit breaker is rated and a jaw assembly for the breaker is disclosed having a plurality of contact positions with each leg of a U shaped bus stab.

Multipole circuit breaker

The following specification describes a bus stab for a panel-board assembly comprising a U shaped bus stab arranged to establish a connection to either a spring clip terminal of a plug-on type circuit breaker or to a bolt-on type terminal of a circuit breaker.

Bus stab for panelboard assembly

A multi-pole circuit breaker includes a wide toggle shaft which spans all of the poles of the breaker and which is electrically neutral. The lower links of the toggle mechanism are made of phenolic or other insulating material which thus electrically insulates the wide toggle shaft spanning all of the poles of the breaker and makes the toggle shaft electrically neutral. A plurality of short toggle springs may therefore be connected between the wide toggle shaft and a handle arm of corresponding width. The plurality of short toggle springs provide as much tripping energy as the longer single or double toggle springs of prior art circuit breakers in which the springs are clustered together in alignment with one pole of the breaker to which they are electrically connected and whose polarity the toggle springs in such prior art breakers accordingly take. Thus by providing a tripping mechanism which can utilize a plurality of short toggle springs in place of one or two long ones, a lower profile circuit breaker is possible. In addition, the movable contact blade of each pole of the multi-pole breaker of this invention is biased independently toward a contact closed position. Each contact blade is pivotally mounted to the lower end of its corresponding insulated lower toggle link, with the end of the contact blade opposite the contact end being biased in one direction by a cantilever spring to urge the contact end in the opposite direction to the contact closed position. The biasing force is selected to permit the movable contact of each contact pair to separate by virtue of electrodynamic and thermodynamic 'blow-apart' forces occurring during a severe short circuit in the phase in which such pole is connected.

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Cedar Rapids, IA, United States of America

John T Schultz