Conventionally, there is a known contact switching mechanism where a projection piece for terminating extension of an arc is formed at either one side end, out of a left side end and a right side end, of a leaf spring provided with a movable contact (for example, refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2006-196372).
However, in the conventional contact switching mechanism, the arc generated between contacts is extended by the action of magnetic force and is terminated by the projection piece, where the position of the projection piece from the contacts is farther than a distance between the contacts. For this reason, there is a concern that the position of termination is not coincident with that of the projection piece when the arc actually occurs.
Another known contact switching mechanism is provided with a fixed electrode provided with an arc-runner conductor provided with a protrusion. With this structure, the arc generated between a movable electrode contact and a fixed electrode contact in an electrode open state is communicated between a distal end of the movable electrode and the protrusion (for example, refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2010-170876).
However, in the conventional contact switching mechanism, the arc-runner conductor needs to be attached to the electrode as an additional member, and furthermore an additional process for providing the protrusion to the arc-runner conductor needs to be performed. For such a reason, there are problems in that the structure of a conventional contact switching mechanism is complicated and the cost of a conventional contact switching mechanism is increased.