Electromechanical switch
AssigneeSumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd.
InventorHiromu Shiomi
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A mechanical switch having two contacting sliding plates which have conductive parts periodically dispersed in an insulating background in a spatial period and a current assembling member for gathering currents from the conductive parts, and a driving device for reciprocating two sliding plates in parallel to the surface relatively by about half a period. The driving device cuts or leads a current from one sliding plate to the other by displacing the sliding plates. Parallel movement of the plates suppresses the occurrence of arc discharge in shutting a big current. The short stroke of the displacement gives high speed switching to the device.
Claims17
An electromechanical switch comprising:
- a first sliding plate having a contact surface, a substrate and conductive and non-conductive portions, the conductive portions being periodically dispersed among the non-conductive portions at the contact surface with a predetermined spatial period, and a current assembling member for gathering currents from the conductive portions of the first sliding plate;
- a second sliding plate having a contact surface, a substrate and conductive and non-conductive portions, the conductive portions being periodically dispersed among the non-conductive portions at the contact surface with the same spatial period as the conductive parts of the first sliding plate, and a current assembling member for gathering currents from the conductive portions of the first sliding plate;
- the contact surface of the second sliding plate being in contact with the contact surface of the first sliding plate;
- and
- a driving device for reciprocating the sliding plates relatively in a direction parallel to the contact surfaces by about a half the spatial period of the conductive portions at the contact surfaces,
- whereby the switch is closed so that current can flow from one sliding plate to the other when conductive portions at the contact surface of one sliding plate are opposite to conductive portions at the contact surface of the other sliding plate;
- and the switch is open so that current can not flow from one sliding plate to the other when conductive portions at the contact surface of one sliding plate are opposite non-conductive portions at the contact surface of the other sliding plate.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.