Electrical insulator and conductor cover

• US 4,234,753 A
• Filed: 05/18/1979
• Issued: 11/18/1980
• Est. Priority Date: 05/18/1979
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Hubbell, Inc.
• Original Assignee: A B Chance Company (Hubbell, Inc.)
• Inventors: Clutter, Melvin E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Askin, Laramie E.
• Application Number:
  US06/040,129
• Time in Patent Office: 550 Days
• Field of Search: 174/5 R, 174/136
• US Class Current: 174/5.00R
• CPC Class Codes: H02G 7/00 Overhead installations of electric lines or cables installations of bus-bars H02G5/00

Abstract

An improved electrical conductor cover is provided which essentially completely surrounds an energized conductor and is resistant to inadvertent, impact-induced dislocation of the cover during use. The cover includes an elongated, tubular, conductor-receiving section and a pair of ribbed, normally biased-together legs extending from the section. The legs normally are in abutting engagement, but can be separated for positioning the cover on a conductor; the ribs are spaced along the length of the legs and serve to cooperatively maintain the conductor within the tubular section even in the event of an accidental impact normally tending to spread the legs and thus expose the covered conductor. The cover also includes a molded-in-place, threaded head which projects only through the outer surface of the cover for allowing connection of a manipulative handle to the cover without the need for rivets or the like which extend completely through the insulative wall of the cover.

Claims

1. An electrical conductor cover comprising:

an elongated, open-ended member formed of resilient, electrically insulative material,

said member being configured to present an upper tubular, conductor-receiving section, and a pair of elongated, depending, side-by-side, laterally spaced closure legs extending from the tubular section,

said legs normally biased together in abutting contact with each other to present a central line of juncture therebetween, when the cover is in use with a conductor received within said tubular section, for substantially completely surrounding the conductor, said legs being selectively separable for permitting positioning of a conductor within the tubular section,

each of said legs being configured to present a series of inwardly extending, upright, elongated ribs for cooperatively maintaining said conductor in spaced relationship to the outermost margin of the legs remote from the tubular section, in the event that the cover, when in use, is subjected to an impact normally tending to spread said legs and thus expose said conductor, the innermost surfaces presented by the series of ribs on each leg being disposed such that an upright imaginary plane between said legs and coincident with said line of juncture passes uninterruptedly along the length of said cover between the separate series of ribs.

2. The electrical conductor cover of claim 1 wherein the respective ends of said tubular section are configured to present frustoconical portions for end-to-end interfitting of a number of said covers on a length of conductor.

3. The electrical conductor cover of claim 1 including a metallic threaded insert molded into said member and projecting only through the outer surface thereof remote from the conductor-receiving space defined by said tubular section.

4. The electrical conductor cover of claim 1 wherein the ribs of one leg are longitudinally offset from the ribs on the other leg.

5. The electrical conductor cover of claim 1 wherein said ribs cooperatively define therebetween an elongated rectilinear passage, the transverse diameter of said passage being less than the diameter of a conductor to which the cover is to be applied.