JP4215625B2 - Circuit breaker - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a circuit breaker for wiring breakers, earth leakage breakers, and the like, and more particularly to the structure and function of a trip button provided in the circuit breaker.

The circuit breakers and earth leakage circuit breakers listed above detect the abnormal current when an overload, short circuit current, or earth leakage current flows in the main circuit, and open the main circuit contacts. The main circuit contact (movable and fixed contact), the main circuit contact switching mechanism (toggle link mechanism stored by the switching spring), and the tripping device linked to the switching mechanism via the latch mechanism (overload) The functional parts of various tripping devices that can handle current, short-circuit current, and leakage current are combined into a circuit breaker case.
In addition, this circuit breaker is equipped with a test button called “trip button” to test whether the trip operation of the breaker functions normally or not. By manually pushing in, the latch mechanism is released to open the main circuit contact (see, for example, Patent Document 1).

  5 (a) and 5 (b) are block diagrams of a conventional circuit breaker equipped with the above trip button. In the figure, 1 is a circuit breaker case (resin mold case) comprising a lower case 2 and an upper cover 3. Reference numeral 4 is a main circuit terminal (U, V, W phase), and 5 is an opening / closing operation handle. Although not shown, the circuit breaker case 1 incorporates functional parts such as the main circuit contacts and the switching mechanism described above. It is. The circuit breaker case 1 is equipped with the trip button 6 described above. As shown in FIG. 5B, the trip button 6 is a resin molded product in which a top push button portion 6a, a shaft portion 6b, and an operation portion 6c are formed, and is described in detail in the above-mentioned Patent Document 1. In this manner, the push button portion 6a is combined with the return spring (not shown) so that the push button portion 6a faces the hole opened on the upper surface of the cover 3 and is installed in the circuit breaker case 1, and the operating portion 6c at the tip is latched in the device at this position. To confront.

When the trip function of the circuit breaker is tested, when the push button portion 6a is manually pushed, the operation portion 6c at the tip releases the latch mechanism, and the open / close spring of the open / close mechanism in the stored state is released. Open the main circuit contact.
On the other hand, an external accessory (optional) voltage trip device used in combination with this circuit breaker (applying an electrical signal from the outside to trip the circuit breaker by its operation) or an undervoltage trip device (main The output terminal (trip lever) of the circuit breaker that trips when the circuit voltage drops below the set voltage is linked to the trip button 6 to provide a voltage trip device or an undervoltage trip device. The circuit breaker that has been tripped by pressing the trip button during the operation is commercialized, and the state of use of the conventional product is shown in FIG.

In FIG. 6, reference numeral 7 denotes a voltage trip device (or an undervoltage trip device). The trip device 7 is mounted on the side wall of the circuit breaker case 1 of the circuit breaker as shown in the drawing, and the trip device 7 is pulled at this mounting position. Trip button equipped with a trip lever 7a projecting sideways from the top of the tripping device 7 (the trip lever is driven by an electromagnetic solenoid incorporated in the tripping device) on the circuit breaker case 1 of the circuit breaker It faces the upper surface of 6. In the circuit breaker case 1 of the circuit breaker, a wedge-shaped engagement groove 3a for attaching an externally attached tripping device 7 is formed on the side edges of the front and rear ends of the cover 3 as shown in FIG. The engaging protrusion 7b provided on the case side wall of the tripping device 7 is fitted into the engaging groove from the upper side and attached to a fixed position.
When the tripping device 7 operates in this state of use, the trip lever 7a pushes the trip button 6 of the circuit breaker (the push button portion 6a shown in FIG. 5 (b)) downward to trip the circuit breaker. Let
Utility Model Registration No. 2559969

By the way, as a trip button of a circuit breaker, a tripping device 7 attached to the outside as shown in FIG. When used in combination (voltage trip device or undervoltage trip device), the upper surface of trip button 6 is tripped and output lever 7a of device 7 is obscured. For this reason, the trip button 6 is manually pressed directly to check whether the circuit breaker normally trips or not, and the original test function of the trip button itself cannot be performed.
The present invention has been made in view of the above points. The object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems and to secure a test function for tripping the circuit breaker by directly operating the trip button manually, and at the same time interrupting the circuit. To provide an improved circuit breaker so that the circuit breaker can be tripped by transmitting its operation output to the trip button when the external voltage trip device attached to the device or the undervoltage trip device is used. It is in.

To achieve the above object, according to the present invention, a trip button is attached to a circuit breaker case equipped with a main circuit contact, a switching mechanism for the main circuit contact, and a tripping device linked to the switching mechanism via a latch mechanism. In a circuit breaker that releases the latch mechanism by pushing the trip button and opens the main circuit contact,
The trip button is provided with an operation projection that protrudes to the side of the shaft separately from the push button on the top of the trip button, and the side wall of the circuit breaker case is made to correspond to the trip device attached to the outside. It is arranged so as to face the window hole opened in (Claim 1), and specifically, it is carried out in the following manner.
(1) With the trip device attached externally attached to the side wall of the circuit breaker case, the trip lever of the trip device faces the upper side of the operation projection provided on the trip button through the window hole of the circuit breaker case, When the external attached trip device is operated, the trip button is pushed to open the main circuit contact (claim 2).

  (2) The external tripping device attached to the circuit breaker is used with a voltage trip provided with a trip lever protruding from the side of the case toward the operation projection of the trip button provided on the circuit breaker. A disconnecting device or an undervoltage tripping device.

  According to the above configuration, even when the circuit breaker is equipped with an external voltage trip device or an undervoltage trip device, the circuit breaker is not disturbed by the external trip device. A trip operation test can be performed at any time by manually pressing the trip button. In addition, when the tripping device attached to the outside is in operation, the trip lever can push the operating projection formed on the trip button to trip the circuit breaker, thereby ensuring the original test function of the trip button. At the same time, this trip button can be used to trip the circuit breaker by operating an externally attached tripping device, thereby improving usability.

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below based on the examples shown in FIGS. In the drawing of the embodiment, members corresponding to those in FIG. 5 and FIG.
In the illustrated embodiment, the trip button 6 provided in the circuit breaker case 1 of the circuit breaker has an operation protrusion protruding from the top push button portion 6a to the side of the shaft portion 6b as shown in FIG. 1 (b). 6 d is integrally formed, and the trip button 6 is arranged with the operation projection 6 d facing the window hole 3 b opened in the cover side wall of the circuit breaker case 1.
On the other hand, the external voltage trip device 7 (or the undervoltage trip device) used by attaching to the circuit breaker of the illustrated embodiment has a trip lever 7a protruding from the case to the side as shown in FIG. In addition, wedge-shaped engaging projections 7b are formed on the same case side surface side by side. When the voltage trip device 7 is mounted on the circuit breaker, the auxiliary cover 3c provided on the upper surface of the circuit breaker case 1 is opened and the engaging groove 3a formed on the side surface of the cover (FIG. 1). The engagement protrusion 7b is inserted from above into the reference), and the voltage tripping device 7 is mounted on the side surface of the circuit breaker case 1 as an external accessory device of the circuit breaker as shown in FIG.

In this mounted state, as shown in the sectional view of FIG. 4, the trip lever 7a protruding sideways from the case of the voltage trip device 7 is trip button through a window hole 3b (see FIG. 1) opened in the cover side wall of the circuit breaker. 6 is opposed to the upper surface of the operation projection 6d. Here, when a trip signal is given to the voltage trip device 7, the trip lever 7a is lowered by driving of an electromagnetic solenoid incorporated in the case, and the operation projection 6d of the trip button 6 is pushed down, thereby circuit breaker. Is tripped.
Even when the voltage tripping device 7 is mounted on the circuit breaker (see FIG. 2), the trip button 6 has the top push button portion 6a exposed on the upper surface of the cover of the breaker case 1, so that the voltage tripping Without being interrupted by the device 7, when necessary, the trip button 6 can be manually pushed directly to perform a trip operation test of the circuit breaker.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS It is a block diagram of the Example of this invention, (a) is the external appearance perspective view of the whole circuit breaker, (b) is the expanded external view of a trip button. External perspective view of the circuit breaker in Fig. 1 (a) with the attached external voltage trip device FIG. 2 is an external perspective view of the voltage trip device in FIG. 2 viewed from the mounting surface side. FIG. 2 is an enlarged sectional view taken along line XX in FIG. It is a block diagram of a conventional circuit breaker, (a) is a perspective view of the overall appearance, (b) is an enlarged outline view of a trip button. External perspective view of the circuit breaker shown in Fig. 5 (a) with a conventional external voltage trip device installed.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Circuit breaker case 3 Cover 3b Window hole 6 Trip button 6a Push button part 6b Shaft part 6d Operation protrusion part 7 Voltage trip device (external accessory device)
7a Trip lever

Claims (3)

A trip button is attached to the circuit breaker case equipped with a trip circuit linked to the opening / closing mechanism via the main circuit contact, the opening / closing mechanism of the main circuit contact, and the latch mechanism, and the latch mechanism is released by pushing the trip button. In the circuit breaker that opens the main circuit contact,
The trip button is provided with an operation projection that protrudes to the side of the shaft separately from the push button on the top of the trip button, and the side wall of the circuit breaker case is made to correspond to the trip device attached to the outside. A circuit breaker characterized by being placed facing the window hole opened in the window. 2. The circuit breaker according to claim 1, wherein the trip lever of the tripping device is provided on the trip button through the window hole of the circuit breaker case in a state where the externally attached tripping device is mounted on the side wall of the circuit breaker case. A circuit breaker that faces the upper side of the protrusion and pushes the trip button to open the main circuit contact during operation of the external attached trip device. 3. The circuit breaker according to claim 2, wherein the tripping device attached to the circuit breaker for use is provided with a trip lever protruding from the side of the case toward the operation projection of the trip button provided on the circuit breaker. A circuit breaker comprising a voltage trip device provided or an undervoltage trip device.

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