US 5,359,163 AGranted

Pushbutton switch with adjustable pretravel

AssigneeEaton Corporation

InventorTony O. Woodard

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Abstract

A contact carrying portion of a plunger assembly is adjusted linearly in the direction of switch operating movement by a rotatable cam in the plunger assembly to change an initial gap dimension between stationary and movable contacts. The cam is rotatable about an axis parallel to the direction of switch operating movement and comprises a plurality of angularly spaced diametrically oriented grooves, each of a different depth, in an end surface cooperating with a diametrically disposed rib on the contact carrying portion to vary the axial length of the plunger assembly and provide a detent for the cam adjustment. A housing is provided with a window through a lateral wall for accessing slots in the cam to rotate the cam. The pushbutton switch is resiliently disposed in a supplementary housing to accommodate significant overtravel of a switch operating element.

Claims12

Dependent claims

A plunger operated switch comprising:

a housing having an opening through a wall thereof;
a plunger assembly guided for linear reciprocal movement within said housing along an axis extending through said opening to be operated through said opening, said plunger assembly comprising a contact carrier movable along said axis;
a pair of stationary contacts mounted in said housing on opposite sides of said plunger assembly contact carrier;
a movable contact carried by said contact carrier overlying said stationary contacts for movement by said plunger assembly into and out of bridging engagement with said stationary contacts;
means for biasing said plunger assembly to an extended position against said housing wall and said movable contact out of engagement with said stationary contacts;
said plunger assembly further comprising adjustment for adjusting an axial dimension of said plunger assembly between said wall and said movable contact, thereby adjusting initial spacing between said movable and stationary contacts in said extended position of said plunger assembly wherein said initial spacing is always greater than zero.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.