Abstract: A wire stripper and/or a wire looper are integrally formed in a mounting strap or body of an electrical device, such as a duplex receptacle or wall switch, in order to simplify a wiring installation without requiring an installer to use separate tools.

Abstract: A section of a printed circuit board itself is used as an armature for an electrical switch. The armature section of the board is formed by a cutout, and is movable from an initial state to a final state, and is returnable by its inherent resilience to the initial state.

Abstract: An improved device for protecting an electrical load from a current overload combines an electrical switch and a re-settable circuit breaker in a single housing. The device avoids the use of gate plates, visually alerts an operator to the existence of a tripped conditions, and provides automatically self-aligning, evenly-wearing contacts for the switch.

Abstract: A one-piece, multi-function, grounding strip is assembled within an electrical receptacle, and includes a screw terminal which is highly resistant to removal of a grounding screw from the strip. The grounding terminal portion of the strip is much reduced in thickness as compared to conventional grounding terminals, and includes a pair of spaced-apart tineman-type single screw threads formed on grounding plates. A support element is sandwiched between the plates to form a combination which is highly resistant to forces tending to strip the grounding screw from the plates.

Abstract: A duplex electrical receptacle has a replaceable module on-board which surge-suppressing components are mounted for replacement in the event of surge-suppression failure. An auditory alarm sounds to alert an operator to surge-suppression failure.

Abstract: A panel-mounted duplex electrical receptacle easily is ganged with another receptacle to form a power terminal strip of any desired length. Each receptacle is mounted with a snap action in a cutout formed in a panel. The receptacles are wired together by inserting a bare conductor into aligned channels formed in the receptacles. Resilient tongues are provided on contact strips provided within the receptacles for pressing the inserted conductor into electromechanical contact with the respective contact strip. A resilient tab on each receptacle lockingly retains the inserted conductor in each channel. Each contact strip is cut from a substantially planar preform in a scrapless manner.

Abstract: A boxless wiring installation in which a wall switch or a duplex electrical receptacle may be mounted with snap action within and on a support member which is mounted by means of swing-out wall clamps to a wall.

Abstract: A ground fault interrupter is rendered less sensitive to electrical noise by a densensitizing subcircuit. During the time the current to the load is interrupted a control chip is neither fully off nor fully on but is only slightly powered, that is it is desensitized. An LED indication is provided during the existance of a fault.

Abstract: A rapid assembly electrical plug includes a main body which bounds a receiving channel for the end portion of an electrical cord and partially bounds an input opening, and a lid which is mounted on the main body for movement between its open and closed positions transversely with respect to the receiving channel and completes the bounding of the input opening in its closed position. Electrical contact prongs are mounted in the main body of the plug housing and include respective side penetrating portions which penetrate into the cord substantially transversely thereof at the region of merger of the input opening with the receiving channel, and end penetrating portions which penetrate into the electrical conductors of the cord substantially in the longitudinal direction of the cord and from the free end of the latter at the bottom of the receiving channel.

Abstract: A line switch for twin-wire cable comprises a switch housing of one-piece clamshell-type construction, a pair of terminals mounted within the housing, a leaf spring having a pair of movable contact portions within the housing, and an armature for moving the movable contact portions between a closed and an open position. A cover portion and a body portion of the switch housing are hinged together along a common longitudinal edge which serves as a living hinge. The housing has a channel in which an open elongated electrical wire is laid, and a piercing projection integral with a stationary contact portion of the terminals is operative to pierce through and electromechanically engage the open wire when the cover portion is pivoted to close the body portion in an assembled position. Snap-action legs maintain the cover and body portions in the assembled position.

Abstract: A heavy-duty, time-delay fuse includes a pair of heat sinks having mutually facing, generally planar contact surfaces normally eutectically soldered to each other. A spring between the heat sinks is operative for urging the contact surfaces apart from each other in a direction generally perpendicular to the planes in which the contact surfaces lie in the event of an overload condition in which an overload electrical current causes a pair of fusible links to generate sufficient heat to melt the eutectically soldered interconnection between the contact surfaces after a predetermined time delay proportional to the amount of heat absorbed and dissipated by the heat sinks.

Abstract: A panel-mounted duplex electrical receptacle easily is ganged with another receptacle to form a power terminal strip of any desired length. Each receptacle is mounted with a snap action in a cutout formed in a panel. The receptacles are wired together by inserting a bare conductor into aligned channels formed in the receptacles. Resilient tongues are provided on contact strips provided within the receptacles for pressing the inserted conductor into electromechanical contact with the respective contact strip. A resilient tab on each receptacle lockingly retains the inserted conductor in each channel. Each contact strip is cut from a substantially planar preform in a scrapless manner.

Abstract: A push-in electrical wire connector for interconnecting at least two electrical wires includes a housing and a wire-clamping member mounted therein. The clamping member has apertures through each of which a respective conductor is insertable, and a resilient clamping portion extending lengthwise of the housing in an overlying relationship with an interior support wall. Due to its resilience, the clamping portion deflects from an initial position to a deflected position in which the clamping portion electromechanically engages and constantly urges the inserted conductor against the support wall.

Abstract: A screw socket for use as a part of a lighting device such as a table or floor lamp or a ceiling or wall fixture. The screw socket includes a synthetic plastic screw husk having several new features, namely, (a) two one-piece metal strips, each of which at one end is formed into a contact for the screw thread base of a lamp and at the other end is formed into a push-type power termination for connection to the bare core of a sheathed electric conductor, each strip further including anchoring means, and additionally comprising locating means to inhibit twisting of the strip, (b) a hickey including a longitudinally gapped threaded nipple formed in one piece with an offset footed pedestal, (c) raised wiring bosses containing the push-type power terminations, and (d) alternately, instead of or in addition to the anchoring means and the locating means in one piece with each strip, a wedging means to accomplish the same functions.

Abstract: A socket mountable in a light fixture such as a table or floor lamp or a wall fixture. An electric light bulb is mounted in the socket, and is switched off and on by means of a central lower axial switch, the turn knob of the switch depending downwards from the socket. The improved bottom turn socket features a husk and cooperating lower cover housing about the switch. The housing includes at least one interior boss. The electric line cord is placed in a slot in the cover housing, and the boss, which is adjacent the slot, pinches the line cord against an end of the husk when the cover housing is emplaced, to provide strain relief. Preferably, two slots are provided in the cover housing, each having an associated adjacent interior boss to provide strain relief, so that a second line cord electrically connected in parallel within the bottom turn socket may extend from the husk of the socket to another light fixture.

Abstract: A spring mounts a protective cover on an electrical outlet connector body for non-sliding, swinging movement along an arcuate path between a plug-blocking position, in which the cover blocks slots formed in the connector body, and a plug-passing position, in which openings in the cover are aligned with the connector slots. The spring includes an anchored portion securely mounted on the connector and a movable cantilever portion which is inclined relative to the anchored portion, and which is dimensioned so as to maintain the cover out of frictional engagement with the connector body between the aforementioned positions. Manual displacement of the cover is facilitated by the reduction of frictional drag.

Abstract: A multi-purpose grounding strip of one-piece metal construction is mounted on an electrical receptacle. The grounding strip includes a base portion, at least one female-type grounding socket portion having bent fingers for receiving a male-type ground prong of an electrical plug, a bent grounding lug portion having a hole for receiving a ground terminal screw, a bent automatic grounding portion having an aperture for receiving a mounting screw for mounting the receptacle in an electrical outlet box, a bent lip portion extending through a cutout formed in a mounting ear which overlies the aperture, and a bent tab portion which engages the receptacle. The bent lip and tab portions cooperate to prevent the automatic grounding portion from moving away from the ear in response to insertion of the mounting screw through the aperture.

Abstract: A ground fault circuit interrupter (GFI) in which a load circuit is energized through a normally closed magnetically latchable circuit breaker. When no fault exists that is of sufficient magnitude to actuate the GFI, the latching coil of the circuit breaker is ineffective, whereby the circuit breaker remains closed. The coil is connected to the amplified DC output of a ground fault sensing circuit and is energized in a certain sense to open the circuit breaker upon the occurrence of a fault, the circuit breaker then being magnetically latched open. A capacitor is continuously DC charged in a certain sense by the AC supply line through a rectifier. To reset the circuit breaker the capacitor is selectively connected across the coil to discharge a pulse of a sufficient magnitude in a proper sense to reversely energize the coil enough to release the magnetic latch and allow the circuit breaker to reclose. The GFI is tested by closing a circuit that simulates a fault of the low magnitude which is to be sensed.