Surge protectors protect voltage sensitive equipment connected to electrical lines by discharging high voltage signals or current surges to ground before the high voltage signal can damage the equipment. Telecommunications systems employ very large numbers of surge protectors to connect voltage sensitive switching equipment and other equipment to outside telephone lines. Telephone lines, which normally carry relatively low voltage message signals, are subject to current surges caused by lightning and other extrinsic phenomena associated with the location of the telephone lines.
Each telephone line includes a pair of wires, referred to as the xe2x80x9ctipxe2x80x9d line and the xe2x80x9cringxe2x80x9d line, that carry the message signal. Each tip and ring line is connected through an industry standard surge protector device having five pins: one for an incoming wire and one for an outgoing wire for each tip line; one for an incoming wire and one outgoing wire for each ring line; and one to connect to ground. The surge protector device passes low-voltage signals traveling between the incoming and outgoing wires for a given line, but discharges current surges on the line to the ground pin, which in turn is connected to a ground line.
Surge protectors include a surge protector base. The base serves to provide a rigid structural platform for supporting a plurality of surge protector devices for coupling to multi-line telecommunications cables. Generally, the base can handle ten, twenty-five, fifty and one hundred surge protector devices for coupling to an equal number of communication lines.
The base is fabricated as a single slab of plastic insulating material with a plurality of holes formed in the slab. Into each hole is inserted a metal socket that faces toward a rear side of the base. There are a plurality of connector pins and ground pins that are inserted through the metal sockets. Each pin of a surge protector device fits into one of these metal sockets and forms with the socket as a compression fit to establish a good electrical connection. Extending from each hole on a front side of the protector base are both connector pins and ground pins. After each ground pins are inserted into the metal sockets, a rail is laid across each ground pin and then soldered to each ground pin. The rail is then connected to a ground line. Inserting each ground pin into each metal socket and soldering each ground pin to the rail is a time consuming and inefficient process.
The above discussed and other drawbacks and deficiencies of the prior art are overcome or alleviated by a carrier assembly for a surge protection assembly. In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, a carrier assembly for a surge protection assembly includes: a connector strip; a plurality of pins extending from the connector strip; and wherein the connector strip and the plurality of pins are formed from a single piece of conductive material.