Leviton Manufacturing Company, Inc.

Other

Paul Kadar

Leslie Lindenstraus

Denise Chan-Richter

Stanley R Swiencicki

Anthony C Tufano

Gerd Schmieta

Dennis A Oddsen

Steve Campolo

Stephen R Kurek

James J Sherman

Michael Meyer

Tim Langfitt

James Pearse, Legal Representative

Nick Garoffolo

An adapter having a front face with a flange portion and a centrally located opening. The opening has an inner dimension sized to accept at least a front face of a wiring device and the flange has an outer dimension sized to fit at least within an opening of a front face of a wall plate. The flange portion has a vertical surface contour along a vertical direction of the flange and a horizontal surface contour along a horizontal direction of the flange such that, when the adapter is installed, the contours of the flange result in a smooth transition from the wiring device to the wall plate.

Opening adapter

The present invention overcomes the deficiencies with respect to the prior art devices by providing a plurality of straps joined together with frangible members which can be separated to form a gang of one or more straps which are coupled together for mounting wiring modules to wall boxes. The number of straps in a gang of straps used to couple the wiring modules to the wall boxes is determined by the number of wall boxes that are being used. Each strap of the present invention has a single opening defined by two side members where each side member has projections interposed with recesses for capturing and holding a wiring module. The modular strap accurately positions, aligns and locates all of the wiring modules relative to each other and positions them to a flat plane.

Modular strap assembly for mounting wiring modules

Wall plate opening adapter

A double pole, single throw switch for high current applications employs two sets of contacts, closed or opened by a toggle lever operating movable contacts on resilient arms into and out of engagement with fixed contacts. The chambers containing the sets of contacts are separated from a spring chamber which contains a flat spring to control the orientation of the toggle lever. Barriers between the spring chamber and each of the contact chambers prevents flashover between the contact sets.

Switch activating mechanism

To prevent the contacts of an electrical switch bouncing when the switch is operated, with the attendant arcing and contact erosion, spring mass mechanisms are added adjacent the spring arms and contacts to engage such spring arms and contacts and transfer the vibrational energy to such spring mass mechanisms and permit the spring arms and contacts to operate without any contact bounce. An energy absorber can be used alternatively to absorb the vibrational energy. A combination of spring mass mechanism for one spring arm/contact assembly and an absorber for the second spring arm/contact assembly can be employed.

Zero bounce switch

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Seaford, NY, United States of America

Paul Kadar