Switching mechanism for an electrical installation apparatus

The switching mechanism has a tilting element which receives the force for switching it over and that for a contact spring from a spring which is arranged in a prestressed manner between the tilting element and a fixed support. The switching functions of keying and switching can be carried out by the allocation of an actuating element. In this case, the arrangement of the spring is designed such that one spring end is supported in a recess on the tilting element and the other end is directed upwards after it emerges from the fixed support. … In order to implement a key, the upwards directed spring end is locked to the actuating element by means of a segment. In order to implement a switch, the segment is removed from the spring end. The blocking of the spring end results in the tilting element always being operable only against spring force, as a consequence of which contact making also takes place only for the time duration during which it is pressed. On the other hand, releasing the spring end results in the tilting element being able to assume two stable limit positions or switching positions again. By equipping it with different operating elements, it is possible to make the switching mechanism usable as a push-button switch, key, rocker switch or rocker momentary-contact switch.