Quick-Connect Electrical Junction Box Modular Bus Module Design
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Commercial and residential electrical wiring systems are unnecessarily complicated due to hard-wiring scenarios requiring endless pig tails and adherence to various specifications, leading to increased time and labor costs in installation and maintenance.
Innovation Solution
The development of quick-connect electrical junction boxes, which include a front cover, bus module, and back cover configured to fit together, featuring sockets for electrical accessory modules and wire lugs for easy connection to circuit breakers, eliminating the need for pig tails and wire nuts by allowing plug-and-play functionality.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If traditional hard-wiring methods with pig tails and wiring nuts are used, then electrical connections can be made, but installation time and labor costs increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The electrical junction box is divided into modular components: a bus module with pre-attached wire lugs, a front cover with clamp tunnels, and a back cover. This segmentation allows the bus module to be pre-assembled and tested separately, then quickly integrated with the covers, eliminating the need for on-site pig tail fabrication and wiring nut assembly.
Solution Approach 2:
Wire lugs are pre-attached to the bus module in the factory before the junction box is assembled. This preliminary action eliminates the time-consuming step of attaching wire lugs to pig tails during installation, as the bus module arrives ready-to-install with all necessary connections pre-configured.
2Ease of operation
If traditional hard-wiring methods are used, then electrical connections can be established, but device complexity and difficulty of installation increase
Solution Approach 1:
The bus module combines multiple functions into a single integrated component: the bus structure, wire lugs for circuit breaker connections, and mounting features are all merged into one module. This eliminates the need for separate pig tails, wiring nuts, and mounting hardware, simplifying both the device structure and installation process.
Solution Approach 2:
The clamp tunnels in the front cover are designed to automatically restrain and secure the bus assembly clamps without requiring additional fasteners or adjustment. The geometry of the clamp tunnels provides self-contained retention, eliminating the need for separate securing mechanisms and reducing installation steps.
3Ease of repair
If traditional wiring methods with pig tails are used, then electrical connections can be made, but maintenance and modification become time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
The modular design allows the bus module to be independently accessed and replaced. If maintenance is needed, the front cover can be removed and the bus module swapped out as a single unit, eliminating the need to manually disconnect and reconfigure multiple pig tail connections.
Solution Approach 2:
The junction box design facilitates dynamic reconfiguration by allowing the front cover to be easily removed and reattached. This enables quick modification of the electrical configuration by simply swapping the bus module or adjusting the front cover position, rather than performing complex wire disconnections and reconnections.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This solution significantly reduces installation time and labor costs by enabling quick and easy wiring of buildings, allowing for flexible infrastructure and simplified addition of electrical accessory modules, while adhering to safety and standards specifications.
Implementation Method 1
The bus assembly can include a number of clamps correspondingly disposed in the number clamp tunnels forming the number sockets in the front face
Implementation Method 2
a number of bus assembly-connected wire lugs fixed to the bus-module back face configured for wiring the quick-connect electrical junction box to a circuit breaker or another quick-connect electrical junction box
Data Source
AI summary
Provided herein in some embodiments is an quick-connect electrical junction box including a front cover, a bus module, and a back cover configured to fit together and form the quick-connect electrical junction box. The front cover can include a front face including a number of sockets configured to accept a number of prongs of one or more electrical accessory modules. The front cover can also include a back face including a number of clamp tunnels corresponding to the number of sockets. The bus module can include a front face including a bus assembly fixed to the bus-module front face, wherein the bus assembly can include a number of clamps correspondingly disposed in the number clamp tunnels. The bus module can also include a back face including a number of bus assembly-connected wire lugs fixed thereto for wiring the quick-connect electrical junction box to a circuit breaker or another quick-connect electrical junction box.