Claims:1. An interface arrangement for ingress protection of a circuit breaker, said arrangement comprising:
an ingress protection assembly comprising at least one slot disposed inbetween at least two bellow cover means;
wherein said slot receives a knob of the circuit breaker;
a front cover having at least one projection for sliding the ingress protection assembly;
wherein the assembly is operatively engaged to the front cover; and
wherein movement of the ingress protection assembly along angular movement of the knob of the circuit breaker stretches the bellow cover means to cover the entire opening space created during switching of the circuit breaker, thereby providing ingress protection to the circuit breaker.

2. The arrangement as claimed in claim 1, wherein the ingress protection assembly is always operatively engaged to the front cover, thereby avoiding misplacement or erroneous assembly of the interface arrangement.

3. The arrangement as claimed in claim 1, wherein the bellow cover means comprises corrugations that allow compression or stretching of the bellow cover means.

4. The arrangement as claimed in claim 1, wherein each bellow cover means comprises at least one joining means that is essentially flat for operatively engaging the ingress protection assembly to the front cover.

5. The arrangement as claimed in claim 4, wherein the ingress protection assembly is operatively fixed to the front cover by means of a screw or welding or the like.

6. The arrangement as claimed in claim 1, wherein the angular movement of the knob compresses one bellow cover means and stretches the other bellow cover means simultaneously.

7. The arrangement as claimed in claim 3, wherein the corrugations are preferably substantially triangular in shape.

8. The arrangement as claimed in claim 7, wherein the corrugations are optionally substantially square or rectangular or polygonal in shape.

9. The arrangement as claimed in claim 1, wherein the angular movement of the knob stretches the bellow cover means situated in opposite direction of said movement.

10. The arrangement as claimed in claim 1, wherein the front cover can be operatively engaged to the ingress protection assembly during trip condition of the circuit breaker.

11. The arrangement as claimed in claim 1, wherein the bellow cover means is preferably made of plastic or rubber or any insulating and flexible material.
, Description:FIELD OF THE INVENTION

[001] The subject matter of the present invention, in general, relates to ingress protection of circuit breaker, and more particularly, pertains to a bellow cover interface arrangement for ingress protection in circuit breakers.

BACKGROUND OF INVENTION

[002] A typical circuit breaker provides ingress protection (IP) by various means. Ingress Protection indicates the degree of protection provided by an enclosure. It represents levels of sealing and can range from none at all to protection against dust and continuous immersion in water.

[003] Conventionally, an interface or a cover is used to provide IP to the different operating positions of circuit breaker. In general, the interface or cover is arranged on top of the circuit breaker with a knob. This cover or interface moves with the knob of the circuit breaker thereby avoids exposing the internal mechanical/electrical components of the circuit breaker to forces of the nature, such as dust and water.

[004] The knob in conjunction with the interface or cover should not leave any opening space during switching between positions of breaker. The knob and interface/cover union should envelope the entire opening area and provide IP. Significantly, angular travel of knob plays a critical role in the design of interface/cover. It is imperative to design an interface/cover for higher angular travel of the knob. In such a scenario, the interface/cover tends to occupy a large space thereby increasing the overall dimensions of the circuit breaker.

[005] Significantly, manufacturers offer a variety of internal accessories along with the circuit breaker, based on customer requirements. In order to fit these internal accessories, the circuit breakers need to be opened, with such accessories being fitted in the corresponding cavity and subsequently reassembled. In most cases, the cover/interface is not locked with the other elements of breaker thereby resulting in these accessories to be easily misplaced or dropped-off the circuit breaker during re-assembly at customer sites.

[006] Reference is made to EP 2144342 A2, wherein a draw-out system with an interface proving a lower ingress protection rating is disclosed. The system includes a flange mounted to a door. A sleeve is movably mounted to the door adjacent to the flange. As the circuit breaker is moved from a racked-in position to a test position to a racked-out position, the sleeve moves with the circuit breaker and avoids creating exposure to electrical components within the draw-out. The draw-out system allows the operator to operate the circuit breaker with the door open or closed.

[007] While EP' 342 discloses an interface that provides ingress protection to a circuit breaker located in different positions within the draw out mechanism, it space requirements are larger and also calls for the need of an extra cover on the circuit breaker assembly to provide ingress protection.

[008] Notably, while the existing arrangements are suitable for the intended purpose of achieving IP, there still remains a need for improvements particularly regarding the space utilized and wrong assembly of interface by the customer. The amount of space required for an interface is large for circuit breakers with higher angular travel between operating positions. To provide IP in these situations, the interface/cover tends to use larger space thereby increasing the overall size of the circuit breakers.

[009] Further, manufacturers allow the customer to open the circuit breaker during internal accessories fitment and many of the existing arrangements do not take care of ensuring proper arrangement of the interface/cover during re-assembly. Erroneous assembly of the cover/interface leads to failure in providing the intended ingress protection claimed by the manufacturer.

[0010] Moreover, operating the circuit breaker with an imprecise assembly may lead to damaging of the interface/cover and other components of the circuit breaker.

[0011] Therefore, there is a need for an interface/cover arrangement for a circuit breaker that is compact in shape, requiring less space and provides ese of reassembly to a customer. To overcome the drawbacks of the conventional IP solutions offered, the present invention discloses an arrangement that provides significantly better IP to a circuit breaker while being compact in shape and space requirement, and can be easily reassembled by the customer, on site.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0012] The following presents a simplified summary of the invention in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the invention. This summary is not an extensive overview of the present invention. It is not intended to identify the key/critical elements of the invention or to delineate the scope of the invention. Its sole purpose is to present some concept of the invention in a simplified form as a prelude to a more detailed description of the invention presented later.

[0013] An object of the present invention is to overcome the drawbacks of the conventional IP solutions offered to circuit breakers.

[0014] Another object of the present invention is to provide an arrangement that provides significantly better IP to a circuit breaker while being compact in shape and space requirement, and can be easily reassembled by the customer, on site.

[0015] Another object of the present invention is to provide a bellow interface arrangement that utilizes less space to provide better IP even with higher angular travel of knob.

[0016] Another object of the present invention is to provide a bellow cover that covers the entire area of opening space created during switching of a circuit breaker.

[0017] Another object of the present invention is to provide a bellow cover interface arrangement that covers the entire gap generated between interfaces and front element of a circuit breaker while also allowing free movement of the interface with a knob.

[0018] Another object of the present invention is to provide a circuit breaker with a bellow cover where interfaces are arranged in a manner that when the circuit breaker knob goes in either of the direction, the other exposed part gets covered by the stretched bellow.

[0019] Briefly, the present invention pertains to a bellow cover interface arrangement that is compact, lightweight, occupies less space and is flexible, provides ingress protection in a circuit breaker. The bellow cover is operatively engaged to the front cover of the circuit breaker in such a way that whichever direction the circuit breaker knob goes, from either of the two directions, the opposite part that is exposed is covered by the bellow that gets stretched. The bellow cover is always attached to the front cover so that either during the circuit breaker operation or during re-assembly at the customer side, erroneous assembly and/or misplacing of the bellow cover at the customer side is prevented.

[0020] An interface arrangement for ingress protection of a circuit breaker is disclosed. The said arrangement comprising an ingress protection assembly comprising at least one slot disposed in-between at least two bellow cover means; wherein said slot receives a knob of the circuit breaker; a front cover having at least one projection for sliding the ingress protection assembly; wherein the assembly is operatively engaged to the front cover; and wherein movement of the ingress protection assembly along angular movement of the knob of the circuit breaker stretches the bellow cover means to cover the entire opening space created during switching of the circuit breaker, thereby providing ingress protection to the circuit breaker.

[0021] Other aspects, advantages, and salient features of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description, which, taken in conjunction with the annexed drawings, discloses exemplary embodiments of the invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE ACCOMPANYING DRAWINGS

[0022] The above and other aspects, features, and advantages of certain exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be more apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which:

[0023] Figure 1 illustrates the stand alone bellow ingress protection cover according to one implementation of the present invention.

[0024] Figure 2 illustrates the bellow cover with circuit breaker front cover according to another implementation of the present invention.

[0025] Figure 3 illustrates the front cover-bellow cover assembly when assembled on a circuit breaker according to another implementation of the present invention.

[0026] Figure 4 illustrates the sectional view of front cover- bellow cover assembly when assembled on a circuit breaker according to another implementation of the present invention.

[0027] Figure 5 illustrates the front view of front cover-bellow cover assembly when assembled on a circuit breaker according to another implementation of the present invention.

[0028] Figure 6 illustrates the side view of front cover-bellow cover assembly when assembled on a circuit breaker according to another implementation of the present invention.

[0029] Persons skilled in the art will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and may have not been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figure may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure. Throughout the drawings, it should be noted that like reference numbers are used to depict the same or similar elements, features, and structures.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PRESENT INVENTION

[0030] The following description with reference to the accompanying drawings is provided to assist in a comprehensive understanding of exemplary embodiments of the invention. It includes various specific details to assist in that understanding but these are to be regarded as merely exemplary.

[0031] Accordingly, those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that various changes and modifications of the embodiments described herein can be made without departing from the scope of the invention. In addition, descriptions of well-known functions and constructions are omitted for clarity and conciseness.

[0032] The terms and words used in the following description and claims are not limited to the bibliographical meanings, but, are merely used by the inventor to enable a clear and consistent understanding of the invention. Accordingly, it should be apparent to those skilled in the art that the following description of exemplary embodiments of the present invention are provided for illustration purpose only and not for the purpose of limiting the invention as defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.

[0033] It is to be understood that the singular forms “a”, “an”, and “the” include plural referents unless the context clearly dictates otherwise.

[0034] By the term “substantially” it is meant that the recited characteristic, parameter, or value need not be achieved exactly, but that deviations or variations, including for example, tolerances, measurement error, measurement accuracy limitations and other factors known to those of skill in the art, may occur in amounts that do not preclude the effect the characteristic was intended to provide.

[0035] Features that are described and/or illustrated with respect to one embodiment may be used in the same way or in a similar way in one or more other embodiments and/or in combination with or instead of the features of the other embodiments.

[0036] It should be emphasized that the term “comprises/comprising” when used in this specification is taken to specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps or component but does not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, components or groups thereof.

[0037] The subject invention lies in providing a bellow cover interface arrangement for ingress protection in circuit breakers.

[0038] The present invention pertains to a bellow cover interface arrangement for ingress protection in circuit breakers. The bellow cover is operatively connected to the front cover of the circuit breaker in a manner that whichever direction the circuit breaker knob goes, from either of the two directions, the opposite part that is exposed gets covered by the stretched bellow. During the circuit breaker operation or during re-assembly at the customer side, the bellow cover is always attached with front element thereby preventing erroneous assembly and/or misplacing of the bellow cover at the customer side.

[0039] In one implementation, a compact in shape and space requirements arrangement for a circuit breaker with significantly better IP capabilities that can be easily re-assembled by a customer, on site is provided for.

[0040] In another implementation, a bellow interface arrangement utilizing less space to provide better IP while experiencing higher angular travel of a knob is provided for.

[0041] In another implementation, a bellow cover covering the entire area of the opening space created during switching of a circuit breaker is provided for.

[0042] In another implementation, a bellow cover covering the entire gap generated between interfaces and front element of a circuit breaker while allowing free movement to the knob is provided for.

[0043] In another implementation, a circuit breaker with a bellow cover wherein interfaces are arranged in a manner that no matter which direction the circuit breaker knob travels, covering of the opposite exposed area by the stretched bellow is provided for.

[0044] The bellow cover interface arrangement of the present invention utilizes significantly lesser space to provide ingress protection even with higher angular travel of knob. The bellow cover covers the entire area of the opening space created during switching of the circuit breaker while also providing ingress protection. The bellow not only covers the entire gap generated between interfaces and front element of the breaker, at the same time it also allows free movement of interface with knob.

[0045] The bellow is a flexible cover having a convoluted shape that allows for uniform compression in the retracted position. The convolutions or corrugations can be triangular, square, rectangular or polygonal in shape. The bellow can be made of plastic or rubber or any other kind of insulating and flexible material.

[0046] The interfaces of the circuit breaker are arranged in a manner that whichever direction the circuit breaker knob goes, from either of the two directions, the opposite part that is exposed gets covered by the stretched bellow. The bellow is always attached to the front element of the circuit breaker. The features provided on the interface and front element allows free movement of interfaces with knob. During the circuit breaker operation and during re-assembly at the customer side, the bellow cover is always attached with front element thereby preventing erroneous assembly and/or misplacing of the bellow cover at the customer side.

[0047] Figure 1 illustrates the standalone bellow cover (3) that has a slot (2) provided for accommodating the knob (4) of the circuit breaker (1). The bellow cover has corrugations that allows the cover to be stretched or compressed.

[0048] Figure 2 illustrates how the bellow cover (3) gets assembled with the front cover (5) of the circuit breaker. In particular, the bellow cover comprises two joining portions (3a, 3b) that are essentially flat, for operatively connecting the bellow cover (3) to the front cover (5) by means of a screw or welding or the like.

[0049] Figure 3 illustrates the bellow cover (3) -front cover (5) assembly as it gets assembled on the circuit breaker (1). Here it is shown that bellow cover-front cover assembly can be mounted on the circuit breaker when it is in Trip condition.

[0050] Figure 4 illustrates the sectional view of the bellow cover (3) -front cover (5) assembly when mounted on the circuit breaker (1).

[0051] Figure 5 illustrates the front side of a circuit breaker as the bellow cover (3)-front cover (5) assembly is being mounted on it. It indicates how the bellow cover (3) covers the entire gap generated at both the sides of the knob (4).

[0052] Figure 6 illustrates the side view of the complete assembly. It shows that how with the bellow cover (3)-front cover (5) assembly, the entire gap that gets generated during the switching operation is being covered and how this assembly provides full ingress protection for the circuit breaker (1) assembly.

[0053] The purpose of the present invention is to provide IP protection with the least space requirement and to avoid misplacing or erroneous assembly of the bellow cover (3) at the customer end.

[0054] Some of the important advantages of the present invention, considered to be noteworthy are indicated hereinbelow:

a) It is compact, lightweight and flexible;
b) It eliminates misplacing/erroneous assembly of the bellow cover at the customer area;
c) It provides ingress protection by occupying less space; and
d) Its arrangement ensures that no matter which direction the knob goes, from either of the two directions, the opposite part that is exposed gets covered by the stretched bellow.

[0055] Although a simple, efficient, effective and compact bellow cover-front cover assembly has been described in language specific to structural features indicated, it is to be understood that the embodiments disclosed in the above section are not necessarily limited to the specific features or components or devices described therein. Rather, the specific features are disclosed as examples of implementations of an interface arrangement for ingress protection in circuit breakers.