Hand-held wall receptacle wiring tester with oppositely disposed push/pull surfaces for insertion and removal of the tester

Claim 1

In a hand-held receptacle wiring tester, a housing, two generally parallel flat blades and a ground blade mounted within the housing and protruding from the wall at one end thereof in fixed positional relationship for insertion into a wall receptacle, said flat blades each having a first shoulder adapted to abut against said wall of the housing from within to prevent the blade from being pulled out of the housing, and a second shoulder spaced longitudinally from the first shoulder and adapted to abut against an internal retaining wall of the housing to prevent the blade from being pushed into the housing, a plurality of indicator lamps at the other end of the housing and contained within the housing, electrical connections between the lamps and the blades so that the lighting of the lamp and various combinations of lamps indicates respective predetermined wiring conditions of a wall receptacle into which the terminal blades are inserted, the housing having first laterally opposed surfaces on the exterior thereof which spread increasingly apart toward the said one end of the tester and second laterally opposed surfaces which spread increasingly apart toward the other end of the tester, thereby to provide bearing surfaces for respectively pushing the tester manually into a receptacle and pulling it out therefrom, each of the first and second surfaces comprising a pair of surfaces which are generally symmetrically situated with respect to a longitudinal center line through the housing, the first and second pairs of surfaces being on different sides of the housing and limited thereto, the first laterally opposed surfaces being longitudinally positioned closer to said one end of the tester than the second laterally opposed surfaces with the first and second laterally opposed surfaces being in axial nonoverlapping relationship to each other.