Electric Fence Insulator With Angled Shield Creepage
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing electric fence insulators face challenges in balancing sufficient creepage distance to prevent short circuits and arcing while maintaining a compact size, and in resisting attempts to breach the fence without creating points for wire hooking or entrapment.
Innovation Solution
The insulator design includes a body with a post connector portion and a wire attachment portion, featuring a shield with lateral portions that angle away from the wire attachment end, providing increased creepage distance and preventing wire contact with the fence post, while also incorporating a guide surface and ridges to ensure the wire slides into contact with the post, triggering an alarm if attempted to be hooked or breached.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the insulator is designed with sufficient creepage distance to prevent arcing, then electrical insulation performance is improved, but the overall size of the insulator increases
Solution Approach 1:
The insulator employs a multi-dimensional shield structure with lateral portions extending outwardly from the body at angles. This three-dimensional configuration increases the effective creepage distance through spatial arrangement rather than simply extending the insulator linearly, thereby improving electrical insulation without proportionally increasing overall volume.
Solution Approach 2:
The shield structure is integrated within and around the insulator body in a nested configuration. The lateral portions of the shield extend outwardly from the body and angle toward each other, creating a compact nested arrangement that maximizes creepage distance within a constrained volume, effectively solving the contradiction between insulation performance and size.
2Productivity
If the insulator size is reduced to maintain clearance between adjacent insulators, then device compactness is improved, but the creepage distance may become insufficient preventing arcing
Solution Approach 1:
By utilizing three-dimensional spatial arrangement with shields extending outwardly and laterally, the insulator achieves sufficient creepage distance within a compact footprint. This allows adjacent insulators to be spaced closer together while maintaining adequate electrical insulation performance through the angular configuration of the shield lateral portions.
3Reliability
If the insulator design includes features to resist breach attempts, then security performance is improved, but it may create points where wire can be hooked or entangled
Solution Approach 1:
The shield lateral portions are configured with asymmetric angular orientations that angle away from the second end toward the first end. This asymmetric design allows the structure to present a smooth, non-catchable surface to potential wire entrapment attempts while maintaining structural integrity and breach resistance, effectively preventing both wire hooking and entanglement.
Data Source
AI summary
An insulator for an electric fence having at least one wire is described. The insulator includes a body having a first end and a second end, a post connector portion at the first end of the body for connecting the insulator to a fence post, a wire attachment portion at the second end of the body, and at least one shield surrounding and extending outwardly from the body at a position away from the connector portion towards the second end, the shield including lateral portions on either side of the body. The lateral portions of the shield angle away from the second end of the body towards the first end of the body, such that when installed a straight section of the wire cannot bear against respective edges of both lateral portions simultaneously, and pass along their entire lengths, without contacting the fence post.