Outlet box

June 1, 1943.

C. E. BEDELL

OUTLET BOX

2,320,400

Filed May 31, 1941

<img file="US2320400A_D0001.tif" />

<img file="US2320400A_D0002.tif" />

<img file="US2320400A_D0003.tif" />

ATTORNEY

<img file="US2320400A_D0004.tif" />

Patented June 1, 1943

2,320,400

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE

2,320,400

OUTLET BOX

Charles E. Bedell, Port Richmond, Staten Island, N. Y., assignor to William L. Pison, Clifton, N.J. .......

Application May 31, 1941, Serial No. 395,942

Claims.

This invention relates to outlet or junction boxes forming parts of electric equipment and adapted to be set in openings provided in a building wall or walls.

Such a box may have to be applied to a wall only partly completed, or consisting merely of lathing or equivalent support for the plaster, or to a wall completed and hence including, with the lathing or equivalent, the plaster. But ultimately the front of the box should be at least approximately flush with the surface of the plaster. To adapt the box for use in either of these cases the practice is to provide it with removable flanged securing elements which in one position are adapted to bear against the lathing (as yet uncovered by the plaster) and in reversed position to bear against the plaster: see, for instance, the Simek Patent No. 2,031,861. These elements add to the cost of the box and to the labor cost of fitting it to the wall.

One object of this invention is therefore to provide an outlet box which shall avoid these disadvantages.

A further object of the invention is to provide the box with simple means whereby it can be invariably attached to the wall (consisting at the time the box is applied either of mere lathing or equivalent or the lathing and plaster) more securely and with less expense of labor and time than by the usual four screws.

In the drawing,

Pig. 1 is a plan of the improved box set in a wall as yet only including the lathing, said box being shown partly broken away and one securing device appearing in securing and the other in idle state;

Pig. 2 is a front elevation of what is shown in Fig. 1, a part of the box appearing broken away;

Fig. 3 is a side elevation of the improved box;

Fig. 4 is a plan of the blank from which a part of each securing device is formed; and

Fig. 5 is a plan of fragments of the box and wall, which here includes the lathing and, shown in section, the plaster.

The outlet box is here generally of usual construction in that it comprises a back wall I and four other walls projecting forwardly therefrom, as top and bottom walls 2 and side walls 3. The side walls have projecting outwardly from their forward edges and at right angles to such walls flanges or projections 4 integral therewith and each flange has at its top and bottom extensions or lugs 4a projecting rearwardly to an extent equal to the thickness of the plaster a of the (Cl. 220—3.6) standard finished wall. The side walls being relatively thin metal plates, they may be stamped out to develop the flanges and lugs, the act of bending to form the lugs somewhat weakening the metal where each lug joins its flange; or along the line of the bend the metal may be grooved, as at 4b, Fig. 5, and thus weakened. With the lugs in place the box may be applied to an unfinished wall consisting only of the lathing b, against which the lugs bear, as in Fig. 1. If the box is to be applied to a finished wall the lugs are broken off, as shown in Fig. 5, so that the flanges bear against the plaster. The box is thus adapted to either type of wall.

The opening c for receiving the box is large enough to receive the body of the box but not also its flanges. The flanges support the devices by which the box is secured against removal from the opening and in fixed relation to the wall and each of these is as follows: 5 is a screw on the threaded portion of which is screwed an elongated clamping element or clamp which comprises a barrel 6 at one end portion thereof and a clamp proper or blade 7 and an arm 8 to form a stop, the two arms projecting from the barrel and being here flat blades lying in planes tangent thereto and about 90° apart; each clamping arm or blade 7 may be formed with a bent-off web 7a lying in a plane cutting the screw so as to provide a flat clamping face of appreciable area to bear against the inner surface of the wall, being the face presented to the observer in Fig. 2.

One such device is arranged in each flange of the box, that is to say—a hole being formed in the flange the screw 5 of such device is inserted therein and then the screw is screwed into its clamp. Only two of the devices are required, and in this example they are arranged in the two flanges at different elevations.

Preferably the two screws will have their threading pitched in the same direction, or as here both right-handed. In such case, as here, the clamps will be in all respects counterparts of each other so that each may be applied to the box at either side thereof.

Having the parts of each device assembled with the box, as shown, the clamps are both positioned as shown by the left-hand one in Figs. 1 and 2, or in collapsed state, except that the right-hand one upstands instead of depends from its screw. With said clamps in this state the box is inserted in the opening in the wall as far as the flanges 4 (or their bent-off extensions 4a) will permit. At this time each clamp is assumed to be positioned on its screw a distance from

2,320,400 flange 4 greater than the thickness of the wall. Then each screw is rotated in the direction (here right-handed) to screw the screw into its clamp, the initial effect of which is to rotate the clamp with the screw until its arm 8 abuts the side of the box proper, which will leave the arm 7 behind the wall as shown at the right in Figs. 1 and 2. The rotation of the screw being then continued, the wall ultimately becomes clamped between the clamp and flange 4, leaving the box fast to the wall.

Because both screws are here pitched of the same hand in the collapsed state of the clamping devices one clamp projects upwardly and the other downwardly; but with the two screws of different hands the clamps in their inactive state would project in the same direction.

The clamp, in order to reduce the cost of production thereof to the minimum, is formed of sheet metal, as from the blank shown in Fig. 4. This blank is bent on the line x to form the portions 7 and 7a. To form the barrel 6 the extension d of the blank, including the portion d' thereof at one side of the split y, is bent to cylindrical form, while the other such portion (at the other side of the split) is bent off tangentially to the barrel.