Importance

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Abstract

An electrical receptacle affording ground fault protection includes a movable latch block having spaced surfaces supporting the free ends of a pair of parallel, electrically conducting arms. The arms are anchored at their opposite ends and are held in a flexed position, with a pair of contacts mounted on the movable, free ends of the arms in engagement with a pair of fixed contacts when the block is in a first, latched position. The latch is released in response to a sensed ground fault in the circuit, permitting movement of the block and free ends of the arms to disengage the movable contacts from the fixed contacts and open the circuit. The movable latch block is of dielectric material and includes a medial wall portion separating the two pairs of movable and fixed contacts, as well as the free ends of the arms. An end wall portion extends upwardly from and laterally across the forward edges of the spaced surfaces, perpendicular and integrally attached to the forward side of the medial wall portion. The medial wall portion includes a hollow section adjacent the end wall portion which the stem of a reset button for moving the block and arms back to the latched position extends, the stem also being of dielectric material and lying between the two sets of contacts, whereby the end and medial wall portions and stem cooperate to provide a dielectric barrier preventing arcing as the contacts make and break.

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First Claim