Safety device for electrical appliances
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing safety devices for emergency shutdown of electric water heaters and heat pumps require significant assembly effort and precise placement of components, leading to complexity and potential misalignment, which can result in inefficiencies and increased size.
Innovation Solution
The safety device features a housing design with guide pins and wall elements for precise alignment and stabilization, allowing for easy assembly by securing components within the cover, reducing the need for additional stabilizing elements and ensuring correct contact positioning, thereby simplifying the assembly process and reducing the device's size.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If contact carriers are soldered onto the circuit board with precise positioning, then contact alignment is ensured, but assembly effort and complexity increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The housing is divided into a cover and a base element that can be assembled separately. Contact carriers are first arranged in the cover, then the base element is attached to secure them. This segmentation allows preliminary arrangement without requiring precise soldering onto the circuit board, reducing assembly complexity while maintaining contact alignment precision.
Solution Approach 2:
Contact carriers and other components are pre-positioned in the cover before the base element is attached. Guide pins and positioning elements are pre-installed to ensure correct alignment. This preliminary arrangement eliminates the need for precise soldering operations during final assembly, reducing both assembly effort and complexity while ensuring manufacturing precision.
2Stability of the object's composition
If additional stabilizing elements are added to the cover, then dimensional stability is improved, but device size increases
Solution Approach 1:
The base element is merged with the cover to form an integrated housing structure. The base element provides the necessary stabilizing function while being part of the overall housing design. This merging eliminates the need for separate additional stabilizing elements, maintaining dimensional stability without increasing device size.
Solution Approach 2:
The base element serves multiple functions: it secures the contact carriers in the cover, provides dimensional stability to the housing, and ensures correct alignment through integrated guide pins and positioning elements. This multi-functionality eliminates the need for separate stabilizing elements, maintaining stability while minimizing device size.
3Volume of moving object
If contact pairs are positioned close together to reduce device size, then compactness is achieved, but arcing and sparking between adjacent contacts may occur
Solution Approach 1:
The base element acts as an intermediary structure between adjacent contact pairs. It includes positioning elements and guide pins that ensure correct spacing and alignment of contact carriers. This intermediary structure maintains safe distances between contacts to prevent arcing and sparking while allowing compact arrangement of contact pairs within the housing.
4Manufacturing precision
If precise positioning elements are added to ensure correct contact alignment, then manufacturing precision is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Positioning elements and guide pins are merged into the base element structure rather than being separate components. The base element itself is designed with integrated positioning features that ensure correct alignment of contact carriers when attached to the cover. This merging reduces device complexity while maintaining manufacturing precision.
Data Source
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AI summary
The invention relates to a safety device (1) for the emergency deactivation of an electrical water heater or a heat pump, wherein the safety device (1) comprises at least one contact pair (70, 80, 90) having at least one first contact assembly (71, 81, 91) and at least one second contact assembly (72, 82, 92), which are designed to direct the current to supply the water heater or the heat pump in a contacted state, and to interrupt the current supply to the water heater or the heat pump in an open state, as well as comprising a retaining device (94) for retaining the second contact assembly (72, 82, 92) on a tension rod (40), wherein the tension rod (40) is designed to release the retaining device (94) and the second contact assembly (72, 82, 92) from the first contact assembly (71, 81, 91) in order to interrupt a current supply to the water heater or the heat pump. The safety device (1) also comprises a housing (10) having a cover (20) and a base element (30), wherein the base element (30) has guide elements (34) and positioning elements (32) for the cover (20), which cooperate with corresponding counter guide elements (22) and counter positioning elements (20d) of the cover (20).