Push button switch
AssigneeCherry Electrical Products Corporation
InventorsGunter Greiner, Gunter Murmann
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A push-button rotary switch having a switching mechanism including a pair of independent actuators having linear movement into contact with the teeth of a switch position selector ratchet wheel mounted at the center of a rotatable switch-positioning indicator, with the actuators adapted to alternately engage certain of the ratchet teeth so as to rotate the switch-positioning indicator step by step in either direction into different switching positions.
Claims7
In a multiple-position push-button rotary switch having switch contacts movable in either direction through a plurality of switch positions and housed within an open-sided hollow case, the combination comprising
- (a) a rotatable ratchet wheel carried by a switch position indicator mounted for rotation within the switch housing,
- (b) a pair of independent actuators diametrically disposed on opposite sides of the axis of said ratchet wheel and mounted for independent reciprocal linear movement within said housing into and out of tangential contact with said ratchet wheel,
- (c) each of said actuators providing an elongated flat plate having an uninterrupted surface on one side thereof for facial displacement against one side wall of said housing, and a substantially C-shaped reinforcing area on the opposite side surface,
- (d) said C-shaped reinforcing area providing at one end thereof an actuating cam and at the opposite end a stop cam adapted to be alternately engageable with said ratchet wheel to rotate the same in step-by-step movement in either direction, and
- (e) yieldable means for maintaining said actuators in one position with their respective stop cams in engagement with certain teeth of said ratchet wheel to maintain the same in a set switching position.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.