Railways – Traction – Longitudinal rotary shafts
Reexamination Certificate
1998-12-30
2001-07-31
Morano, S. Joseph (Department: 3617)
Railways
Traction
Longitudinal rotary shafts
C104S167000, C104S168000, C198S465400, C198S687100
Reexamination Certificate
active
06267060
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to overhead conveyors of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,806,655 issued Sep. 15, 1998 to Tabler, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,785,168 issued Jul. 28, 1998 to Beall, Jr., in U.S. Pat. No. 4,203,511 issued May 20, 1980 to Uhing, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,164,104 issued Jan. 5, 1965 to Hunt, and in U.S. Pat. No. 3,850,280 issued Nov. 26, 1974 to Ohrnell.
In this type of overhead conveyer, one or a plurality of aligned rotatable shafts extend along the conveying path, and skewed rollers contact the upper portion of such shafts to be driven linearly along the path as the shafts rotate, with the rollers carrying a depending carriage for supporting the conveyed objects or loads. One or more powered drive units are arranged along the conveying path to drivingly rotate the shaft or shafts. This type of conveyor is specifically designed for a particular environment, and therefore the location and number of drive units, as well as the spacing therebetween, varies according to the conveyor environment. A considerable amount of installation time is taken on site in assembling and mounting the drive units and in replacing them should a drive unit fail.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is the object of the present invention to provide an overhead conveyor system wherein the drive unit or units are mounted in an expeditious manner to save initial installation cost and operating cost in replacing or repairing the drive units, and to provide uniformity in assembly of the drive unit.
Particularly, each of the present invention drive units is a preassembled module and identical to other drive units, regardless of the conveyor environment. Each drive unit module includes a motor, possibly a transmission driven by the motor, a rotatable drive shaft coupling, and a rotatable power connection, such as a V-belt, between the transmission or motor output and the rotatable drive shaft coupling. The motor and transmission are adjustably mounted, for tensioning the belt, on a bracket that is coupled to two distal spaced apart ends of adjacent load beam channels. The load beam channels support rotatable drive shafts by a plurality of bearings between the load beam channels and rotatable drive shafts. In this manner, the belt extends through the gap between the adjacent channels, and the drive module is hung from and fully supported by the channels, without requiring any other specific mounting of the drive unit.
This not only makes initial installation convenient, quick and less expensive as compared with conventional installation, it also allows for quick and easy removal and replacement of the drive unit as a module for repair purposes and reconfiguration of the overhead conveyor system. Further, the preassembly of the drive unit at a factory provides better quality control of belt tension etc. than can be obtained when assembly of a drive unit is on site, as in the prior art.
REFERENCES:
patent: 3164104 (1965-01-01), Hunt
patent: 3850280 (1974-11-01), Ohrnell
patent: 4203511 (1980-05-01), Uhing
patent: 5154275 (1992-10-01), Speckhart et al.
patent: 5335781 (1994-08-01), Miyagawa et al.
patent: 5785168 (1998-07-01), Beall, Jr.
patent: 5806655 (1998-09-01), Tabler
patent: 6032785 (2000-03-01), Beall, Jr.
Beall, Jr. Thomas E.
Morano S. Joseph
OCS-IntelliTrak, Inc.
Olson Lars A.
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