Telemetering drill string with self-cleaning connectors

Claim 1

In a telemetering drill string in which segments of an insulated electrical conductor are joined by electrical connectors in mating portions of drill string pipe joints that contain mating sealing shoulders, an improvement in the arrangement of electrical connectors which comprises: in each electrical connector, a generally ring-shaped substantially full-circle contact-making ring of conductive metal that is mounted within an annular groove in a pipe joint element, is electrically insulated from the wall of the groove, and is electrically connected to a segment of said insulated electrical conductor; within each assembled pipe joint, at least one resilient biasing means operatively associated with at least one of said contactmaking rings to urge the ring toward a position from which it is displaced with a wiping action by the adjacent contactmaking ring as the pipe joint elements are screwed together; and, a location of said grooves and contact-making rings in said drill string pipe joints between the innermost and outermost portions of the mating sealing shoulders such that said grooves and rings are located beyond the inner diameter of the drill string and are isolated from the fluid in and around the drill string by the metal to metal joining of said innermost and outermost portions of the mating sealing shoulders.