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(11) | EP 1 724 882 A1 |
| (12) | EUROPEAN PATENT APPLICATION |
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| (54) | Cable-retaining clip to be associated with an equipment enclosure |
| (57) Cable-retaining clip (5) to be associated with an equipment enclosure (1), the enclosure
consisting of a box-like body equipped with an inner room and being provided with
at least one aperture (42) for at least a first conductive cable (4) to pass therethrough
from said inner chamber to the outside of said enclosure (1). The cable-retaining
clip (5) is provided with: - fixing means (10, 14) suitable to cooperate with said aperture for fixing said clip (5) to said enclosure (1); - a channel (11) to be passed through by at least a further conductive cable (6) to be attached to said container (1). |
[0001] The present invention relates to the technical field of enclosures for table or desk electrical equipment, and particularly relates to a cable-retaining clip to be associated with an equipment enclosure.
[0002] To the purposes of the present invention, by electrical equipment is generally meant any electrical means or device being generally a part of electrical installations in civil buildings and the like.
[0003] This term includes, accordingly, in a non-limiting manner, switches, power sockets, data outlets, TV sockets, phone sockets, push-buttons, switches, diverter switches, general control electrical devices, connectors, displays such as LCDs, and the like.
[0004] At present, the use of enclosures or channels to be associated with desks or workstations suitable to provide one or more pieces of electrical equipment directly on the top of the desk or workstation for access to various phone, data and power services is known to be quite widespread.
[0005] However, for example due to requirements occurred after these equipment enclosures have been arranged on the desk, it may be required that one or more additional cables is laid on the workstation for having access to data, phone or power supply services, for which corresponding electrical equipment has not been arranged within the equipment enclosure. By way of example, the case should be considered where a notebook must be connected to a local area network, and a suitable data outlet has not been provided in the equipment enclosure. In this case, for example, an additional UTP cable with a RJ45 connector should be arranged on the desktop. Another example is the case of a notebook that must be connected to another device by means of a USB (Universal Serial Bus) cable. A further example is when a notebook must be connected to an electrical network and only data outlets have been provided in the box arranged on the desk, or alternatively the power sockets provided are already occupied.
[0006] The provision of a further cable on the desk creates a drawback in that this additional cable can be uncomfortable as it can freely wander on the desk. Furthermore, when the additional cable has been disconnected from the device to which it is connected for use, this cable is hardly held fastened to the desktop, whereby it tends to fall by being pulled by the weight of the cable portion which is not rested on the worktop.
[0007] The object of the present invention is to provide a cable-retaining clip which allows to overcome the drawbacks mentioned above with reference to prior art.
[0008] This object is achieved by means of a cable-retaining clip such as defined in the annexed first claim in the broadest embodiment thereof, and in the dependent claims in several particular embodiments.
[0009] The object of the present invention is also an equipment enclosure such as defined in the annexed claim 8.
[0010] The invention will be better understood from the following detailed description of an embodiment thereof, which is given by way of non-limiting example, with reference to the annexed drawings, in which:
- Fig. 1 is a perspective view of an equipment enclosure being associated with a particular example of cable-retaining clip provided in accordance with the present invention;
- Fig. 2 shows a first perspective view of the clip from Fig. 1;
- Fig. 3 shows a second perspective view of the clip from Fig. 1; and
- Fig. 4 shows a detail relative to the connection between the equipment enclosure and the cable-retaining clip as shown in Fig. 1.
[0012] Fig. 1 shows a perspective view of a particular example of equipment enclosure generally designated with 1. This enclosure has a substantially box-like shape and, for example, can be placed or fixed to a worktop, such as a top of a desk 9, partially illustrated in Fig. 1.
[0013] The equipment enclosure 1 accommodates a plurality of modular electrical equipment. In the particular example as illustrated in Fig. 1, this plurality of equipment includes, in a non-limiting manner, seven power sockets 2 and a rocker switch 3. The switch 3 is, for example, a switch suitable to either enable or disable the remaining electrical equipment 2 accommodated in the equipment enclosure 1. Obviously, several further combinations of electrical equipment can be accommodated in the equipment enclosure 1. Furthermore, it should be considered that an equipment enclosure of the type represented in Fig. 1 is a device which is generally known per se to those skilled in the art, and for sake of simplicity, it will not be described herein in detail.
[0014] The equipment enclosure 1 comprises a wall 20 provided with an aperture for a conductive cable 4 to pass therethrough from the outside to the inside of the enclosure 1. In the figure, this cable 4 is shown by way of illustration and in a non-limiting manner without a plug being associated therewith. This cable 4 will be designated herein below with the term "connecting cable 4 of the enclosure 1", or more simply "connecting cable 4". For example, this connecting cable 4 is, in a non-limiting manner, an electrical cable provided with an insulating sheath and suitable to connect the electrical equipment 2,3 that is accommodated within the equipment enclosure 1 to the electrical network. The aperture defined in the wall 20 of the equipment enclosure 1 allows the inner room of the enclosure 1, which at least partially houses the electrical equipment 2,3, to be communicated with the external environment of the box-like enclosure 1.
[0015] In association with the enclosure 1, Fig. 1 also shows a particularly preferred embodiment of a cable-retaining clip 5 in accordance with the present invention. In the particular example illustrated herein, the cable-retaining clip 5 advantageously allows a UPT end portion of a conductive cable 6, which is provided with a RJ-45 connector 7 to be attached, i.e. fastened, to the equipment enclosure 1. This conductive cable 6 is an external cable independent of the equipment enclosure 1 and the electrical equipment 2, 3 being housed therein. Herein below, this cable will be referred to by the term "additional cable 6". Obviously, the particular type of additional cable 6 illustrated is only, i.e. not limited thereto, a possible example of an additional cable 6 to be attached to the equipment enclosure 1.
[0016] The cable-retaining clip 5 from Fig. 1 is shown in Fig. 2 in greater detail. This clip 5 advantageously includes, fixing means 10, 14 suitable to cooperate with the aperture provided in the wall 20 of the equipment enclosure 1. These fixing means 10, 14 allows fixing, preferably in a removable manner, the cable-retaining clip 5 to the equipment enclosure 1.
[0017] Advantageously, the cable-retaining clip 5 further includes a channel 11 for the additional cable 6 to pass therethrough, which has to be attached to the equipment enclosure 1.
[0018] In the particularly preferred embodiment as illustrated in Fig. 2 and 3, the cable-retaining clip 5 includes a main body that is substantially tongue-shaped. From this tongue, the fixing means 10, 14 protrude to the enclosure 1, the channel 11 being further provided in the thickness of this tongue. More preferably, the tonguelike body includes a first portion 12, which carries the fixing means 10, 14 and can be fastened to the wall 20 of the enclosure 1, and a second portion 13 to be elastically bent relative to the first portion 12 such that the additional cable 6 is either allowed to be inserted within the channel 11 or removed therefrom. More preferably, the whole cable-retaining clip 5 is made as one piece from an elastic and flexible material which also has a sufficient rigidity to be able to hold the additional cable 6 and allow the clip 5 to be fixed to the equipment enclosure 1 by means of the fixing means 10, 14. Preferably, this cable-retaining clip 5 is made of natural, thermoplastic rubber.
[0019] Advantageously, the channel 11 suitable to receive the additional cable 6 has a longitudinal aperture which develops all along the extension of the channel 11 and can be faced to wall 20 of the equipment enclosure 1, such that the portion of additional cable 6 received within the channel 11 is held abutted between the inner wall of channel 11 and a matching outer wall portion of the equipment enclosure 1.
[0020] In a particularly preferred embodiment, the cable-retaining clip 5 includes a through hole 15 for the connecting cable 4 to pass therethrough. Practically, this through hole 15, when the cable-retaining clip 5 is fixed to the equipment enclosure 1, is substantially co-axial with the aperture provided in the wall 20 of the enclosure 1 for the connecting cable 4 to pass therethrough. Preferably, as may be seen more clearly in Fig. 3, the through hole 15 is partially occluded by a diaphragm formed by a plurality of flexible wedge-like walls 16 radially oriented relative to the centre of the hole 15. Practically, the provision of this diaphragm with flexible walls 16 advantageously allows the actual size of hole 15 to be actually adapted to the diameter of the connecting cable 4 passing through this hole 15.
[0021] As illustrated in Fig. 2, the fixing means 10, 14 include a collar 10, preferably U-shaped, which at least partially develops about the through hole 15, and further include one or more tongues 14 suitable to interfere in abutment with an inner wall surface portion of the equipment enclosure 1 and facing the aperture being provided therein for the connecting cable 4 to pass therethrough.
[0022] In Fig. 4 there is shown a head portion of the equipment enclosure 1 from Fig. 1, in a view from within the 1. In this view, the enclosure 1 is disassembled into a cover part 31 and a base part 41. In the walls of the base part 41, there is seen the through aperture 42 for the connecting cable 4, not illustrated in Fig. 4 to pass therethrough. This figure shows that the collar 10 and tongues 14 are such that they are able to be passed through the through-opening provided in the wall 20 of the base part 41 of the equipment enclosure 1 to fix the cable-retaining clip 5 to the enclosure 1. Particularly, in Fig. 4 it may be seen that the tongues 14 are such that they interfere with abutment against portions 43 of inner wall of the enclosure 1 to hold the cable-retaining clip 5 fastened to the equipment enclosure 1. It should be observed how the cable-retaining clip 5 can be fixed to the enclosure 1 by interposing the collar 10 between the cover portion 31 and the base portion 41. In Fig. 4 a clamp 45 is illustrated, which can be tightened by means of screws 46 to fix the connecting cable 4 (not illustrated in Fig. 4) which is such to pass through the aperture 42 of the enclosure 1 by passing through the hole 15 provided in the cable-retaining clip 5.
[0023] In Fig. 4 a fixing channel 50 is also illustrated, which is provided in the base portion 41 of the enclosure 1 and suitable to receive a bracket to fix the enclosure 1 to the desk worktop.
[0024] Based on what has been described above, it is thus understood how a cable-retaining clip 5 in accordance with the present invention allows attaching an additional cable to an equipment box and thereby solves the abovementioned problems concerning this additional cable being provided on a worktop.
[0025] It is understood that, while reference has been made herein to the use of a cable-retaining clip 5 being provided with an individual channel 11 for an individual additional cable 6 to be passed therethrough, cable-retaining clips with more than one channel 11, or channels 11 capable of accommodating more than one additional cable 6 may be nevertheless provided.
[0026] Obviously, to the cable-retaining clip 5 as described above, those skilled in the art aiming at satisfying contingent and specific requirements, may carry out a number of modifications and variations, which are however all contemplated within the scope of protection of the invention, such as defined by the following claims.
1. A cable-retaining clip(5) to be associated with an equipment enclosure (1), the enclosure
consisting of a box-like body equipped with an inner chamber, and being provided with
at least one wall (20) provided with an aperture (42) for at least one first conductive
cable (4) to pass therethrough from said inner chamber to the outside of said enclosure
(1), the cable-retaining clip (5) being provided with:
- fixing means (10, 14) suitable to cooperate with said aperture for fixing said clip (5) to said enclosure (1) ;
- a channel (11) to be passed through by at least one further conductive cable (6) to be attached to said enclosure (1).
2. The cable-retaining clip (5) according to claim 1, wherein said channel (11) has
a longitudinal aperture such that a portion of said further cable (6) passing through
said channel (11) can be held in abutment between a wall of said channel and a portion
of wall (20) of said enclosure (1) to be faced to said longitudinal aperture.
3. The cable-retaining clip (5) according to claim 1, wherein said clip (5) includes
a substantially tongue-shaped main body having a first portion (12) to be fastened
to said enclosure (1) by means of said fixing means (10, 14) and a second portion
(13) which is free and bending to allow said further cable (6) to enter or be removed
from said channel (11).
4. The cable-retaining clip (5) according to claim 1, wherein said clip (5) is made
as one piece from an elastic and flexible material.
5. The cable-retaining clip (5) according to claim 1, wherein said fixing means (10,
14) include a collar (10) that substantially develops about a through hole (15) being
provided in said clip (5), said hole (15) being substantially co-axial with said aperture
of the enclosure (1) and such as to allow said first conductive cable (4) to pass
therethrough, said collar (10) being capable of being inserted in said aperture and
further including tabs (14) suitable to interfere in abutment with matching surface
portions (43) of said wall (20) internal to said enclosure (1) to hold said clip (5)
fastened to said enclosure (1).
6. The cable-retaining clip (5) according to claim 5, wherein said hole (15) is partially
occluded by a diaphragm consisting of a plurality of flexible wedge-like walls (16)
to adapt the size of said hole (15) to the diameter of said first conductive cable
(4).
8. An equipment enclosure (1) characterized in that it includes a cable-retaining clip (5) in accordance with any preceding claim.