Land vehicles: wheels and axles – Wheel – With drive or brake attachment
Reexamination Certificate
1997-09-19
2001-04-10
Morano, S. Joseph (Department: 3617)
Land vehicles: wheels and axles
Wheel
With drive or brake attachment
C152S324000, C188S024120, C280S011201, C280S087041
Reexamination Certificate
active
06213561
ABSTRACT:
Small motor driven scooters are known. One such small motor driven scooter is manufactured by the assignee herein, Patmont Motor Werks of Livermore, Calif. under the Registered Trademark Go-Ped®. Conventionally, braking on the Go-Ped® has been provided by a caliper type braking acting against conventional non-pneumatic rubber tire. Paired opposing flat caliper actuated brake shoe surfaces bear against a tire at the flat and otherwise unobstructed sidewalls of the tire. Practical difficulties have resulted from this arrangement.
Like the bicycle brake, calipers acting direct on the sides of a tire cause the brake to operate differently in different conditions. Where water is present, braking distance and force required to applying braking are both increased. Further, where dirt and dust particles were accumulated, further changes in both braking distance and force applied to the brake to effect stoppage are required.
Secondly, past wheel designs for the Go-Ped® require excessive amounts of rubber for the tire. At the same time, wheel wear under normal operating conditions requires both wheel and tire replacement. When wear of the wheel causes the wheel replacement, these excessive amounts of rubber are discarded.
Finally, the resulting rubber tire was expensive to mold. Large amounts of rubber used with the tire required excessive time for curing. Further, the excess rubber added unnecessary weight onto the utility vehicle product.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A small utility vehicle, such as a motorized scooter, has an attached vehicle supporting wheel. This wheel includes a solid rubber or plastic tire removeably mounted to a central hub. The tire when mounted to the hub rolls on the ground at a peripheral ground contact surface and defines on opposite sides rim surfaces with the solid mass of the tire there between. Each rim surface has periodically spaced grooves. These groves are slanted with respect to radial lines extending from the center of rotation of the wheel, this radial slant permitting the grooves to expel accumulated debris. A vehicle attached brake of the compression caliper type having two flat opposing brake shoe surfaces bears on the tire sidewalls to effect braking. During braking, one flat opposing brake shoe surface of the compression caliper bears on one sidewall surface and the remaining flat opposing brake shoe surface of the compression caliper bears on the remaining sidewall surface squeezing the solid mass of the tire there between. When the caliper is closed, friction between each sidewall and flat opposing brake shoe surface effects braking, with the result that the wheel tire serendipitously serves as the brake disc. The grooves at the rim surfaces on the wheel tire serve to wipe water and debris from the interface of the sidewall surfaces and compression brake shoe surfaces of the caliper brake to maintain constant friction. The slant of the grooves with respect to radial lines taken from the center of rotation of the wheel convey debris away from the caliper and tire interface. Tire replacement effects brake relining. There results a uniquely functional all weather and ground condition disc brake having direct braking action to a replaceable scooter tire.
First, the brake with the grooves improves braking considerably. In wet conditions, significantly improved braking results in the stopping distance being reduced 15% to 20%. At the same time, the grooves in the wheels reduce tire weight.
Secondly, it is possible to reduce size of the tire by about 30%. This is done by expanding the central hub diameter. This utilizes less material on the tire and reduces the cure time of each individual tire on the order of 50%. It further reduces the overall weight of the scooter vehicle by 5%.
Surprisingly, the resulting tire enables replacement wheels to existing scooters. At the same time, new scooters can maintain the same hub and only be fitted with a replacement tire. In the latter case, tire replacement is reduced to one third the cost of wheel replacement.
The wheel and hub of this invention can retrofit existing Go-Ped® scooters. The tire herein is mounted to a one piece plastic hub which is injection molded. This hub fits the conventional product.
REFERENCES:
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patent: 1865432 (1932-07-01), Bossert
patent: 4166519 (1979-09-01), Maloney
patent: 4179134 (1979-12-01), Atkinson
patent: 4183546 (1980-01-01), Heilig
patent: 4761014 (1988-08-01), Huang
patent: 4799701 (1989-01-01), Lindau et al.
patent: 4799702 (1989-01-01), Wang
patent: 4943075 (1990-07-01), Gates
patent: 4951958 (1990-08-01), Chao
patent: 5039121 (1991-08-01), Holter
patent: 5251965 (1993-10-01), Johnson
patent: 5308152 (1994-05-01), Ho
patent: 5775452 (1998-07-01), Patmont
patent: 5848660 (1998-12-01), McGreen
Photographs of the Zap Power Systems “Zappy” Scooter, which is the commercial embodiment of US Pat No. 5,848,660 issued to McGreen.
Morano S. Joseph
Nguyen Long Bao
Patmont Motor Werks
Rosenfeld Mitchell S.
Shapiro Buchman Provine & Patton LLP
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