Protected Light Strip Contact Assembly for Correct Rail Insertion
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing contact devices for luminaires with elongated support rails face challenges in ensuring precise and reliable electrical connections between conductor wires due to the narrow spacing and alignment requirements, leading to potential incorrect contacts and safety hazards.
Innovation Solution
A contact device with a housing containing movable protective elements and an unlocking mechanism, featuring a linear guide and inclined surface sections, ensures precise alignment and prevents incorrect insertion by blocking movement in the rest position and allowing release only when correctly positioned on the conductor rail.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Volume of moving object
If contact units are arranged with narrow spacing to reduce device size, then the contact device becomes more compact, but the risk of incorrect contact and alignment errors increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by providing guide sections that guide the contact blades into the correct positions before actual contact is made. The guide sections are arranged to receive the contact blades in a predetermined sequence, ensuring proper alignment is established in advance, which prevents incorrect contacts even when spacing is narrow.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses guide sections as intermediary elements between the contact blades and the final contact positions. These guide sections act as mediators that gradually guide the contact blades into correct alignment, reducing the risk of incorrect contact while maintaining compact dimensions.
2Ease of operation
If protective elements are made movable to allow insertion, then ease of operation is improved, but the risk of incorrect insertion and safety hazards increases
Solution Approach 1:
The protective elements are designed with guide sections that perform preliminary alignment of the contact blades before they reach the contact points. This preliminary guiding action ensures that even though the protective elements are movable and easy to operate, incorrect insertion is prevented by the predetermined guidance path.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces complex mechanical locking mechanisms with a simpler guide-based system. The guide sections provide mechanical guidance through geometric constraints rather than complex locks, maintaining ease of operation while ensuring safety through predetermined paths.
3Device complexity
If multiple contact units are arranged in a compact array, then device complexity is reduced, but measurement and alignment precision becomes more difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the functions of multiple contact units into a single integrated housing structure with integrated guide sections. This combining approach reduces overall device complexity while maintaining precise alignment through the unified guide system that predetermines the positions of all contact blades simultaneously.
Solution Approach 2:
The guide sections are pre-positioned within the housing to establish predetermined paths for multiple contact blades. This preliminary arrangement of guides ensures that when the contact device is inserted, all contact blades are aligned precisely with their corresponding contact points without requiring complex adjustment mechanisms.
Data Source
Figure 1a~1b
Figure 1c~2a
Figure 2b~2c
AI summary
The invention relates to a contact device (1) having a housing (10) in which a plurality of contact units (11) are arranged, wherein the contact device (1) can be arranged with a contact side on an access side of a current conducting rail, with at least some of its contact units (11) being inserted along a plug-in direction (S) into one of the channels in each case, thereby contacting the conductor wires (4) arranged in these channels, wherein the contact device (1) has a protective device (7) having a protective element (70) which is mounted on the housing (10) so as to be movable relative to the housing (10) along the plug-in direction (S), which protective element covers the contact units (11) at least in sections to protect them and whose mobility is blocked in a rest position, wherein the protective device (7) has an unlocking element (71) with an unlocking arrangement,which is mounted on the protective element (70) in a linear guide formed by the protective element (70) in a displacement direction (V) defined by the linear guide and extending at least with a component perpendicular to the plug-in direction (S), and which comprises the locking section (717) of the protective device (7) and which forms an inclined surface section (711, 712) provided on the contact side of the protective device (7) and extending obliquely to the displacement direction (V) and obliquely to the plug-in direction (S), wherein pressing along the plug-in direction (S) from the contact side against the inclined surface section (711, 712) of the unlocking arrangement forces a displacement of the unlocking element (71) in the linear guide counter to the spring direction, thereby creating a release position in which the protective element (70) is movable along the plug-in direction (S) relative to the housing (10).