Fuse Contact Lips With Curved Tips for Offset Blade Insertion
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing contacts for flat blade fuses, such as those used in motor vehicles, often fail to maintain full contact due to manufacturing and material tolerances, leading to reduced electrical transmission capacity, especially when inserted at angles or offsets, which is inadequate for high current transmission required by the increasing electrification in automotive and mechanical sectors.
Innovation Solution
The contact design features convex contact tips and funnel-like plug-in guides, allowing for defined contact surfaces and multiple insertion directions, ensuring reliable high-current transmission even with deviations from the ideal position.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If contact lips are designed to taper toward each other in the mating direction, then ideal parallel alignment and large contact area are achieved, but manufacturing tolerances and material tolerances prevent full contact of both contact lips on the mating flat blade contact
Solution Approach 1:
The contact lips are designed with curved contact surfaces instead of flat surfaces. The curvature allows the contact lips to accommodate angular and lateral misalignments while maintaining adequate contact area with the mating flat blade contact, thereby improving reliability despite manufacturing tolerances.
Solution Approach 2:
The contact lip geometry is modified by changing the curvature radius and profile to optimize contact performance. By adjusting these geometric parameters, the contact lips can compensate for tolerance variations and ensure reliable current transmission across different insertion conditions.
2Adaptability or versatility
If the flat blade contact is inserted offset from the mating gap centerline or at an inclination, then full contact of both contact lips cannot be guaranteed, but the contact must accommodate various installation situations
Solution Approach 1:
Curved contact surfaces on the contact lips enable them to maintain adequate contact area even when the mating flat blade contact is inserted at angles or offset from the centerline, thereby accommodating various installation situations without sacrificing contact precision.
Solution Approach 2:
The contact lip design with curved surfaces provides universal adaptability to handle multiple insertion scenarios (centered, offset, angled) with a single geometric configuration, eliminating the need for precise alignment in all cases.
3Reliability
If only edges of contact lips contact the flat blade contact at diagonal positions, then contact surface is significantly reduced, but this is the result of tolerance accumulation in ideal parallel design
Solution Approach 1:
The curved contact surfaces are specifically designed to maintain adequate contact area across the full range of expected misalignments. The curvature ensures that even at diagonal contact positions, a sufficient surface area remains in contact, preventing edge-only contact and maintaining both stability and area.
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
AI summary
Described and illustrated is a contact with two opposing side walls, with a rear wall arranged between the side walls, wherein the side walls form a contact cage with the rear wall, and with a plug-in gap.The plug-in gap is formed by two opposing contact lips, each contact lip forming a contact surface, the contact surfaces of the contact lips facing each other, each contact lip being arranged in the contact cage so as to be substantially parallel to the side wall, each contact lip being formed by a side wall section bent into the contact cage, and the side wall section forming a free end facing away from its bending region, with a first plug-in direction along which a mating contact can be plugged into the plug-in gap, and each contact lip being equipped with at least one contact tip, the contact tips facing each other, and the contact tip of each contact lip forming the respective contact surface.