Card – picture – or sign exhibiting – Changing exhibitor – Double reel and web
Patent
1995-06-13
1997-10-07
Silbermann, Joanne
Card, picture, or sign exhibiting
Changing exhibitor
Double reel and web
40471, G09F 1118
Patent
active
056735049
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to a display device and more particularly to a display device having a tape or web containing display information, which tape or web is stretched between two parallel rollers on which the tape is wound, whereby winding of the tape back and forth between the two rollers enables different information to be displayed. The device has particular utility in automatic display of petroleum prices at service stations where frequent price changes dictate the need for a device where the price can be changed quickly and conveniently.
Display devices of the general kind in question are known and one such device is described in European patent 0253033 in the name World Acrilux S.A.. Another such device is described in Australian Patent No. 596,441 in the name of Milwaukee Sign Company. Both these earlier patents are directed to the tape or web rollers and means for differentially rotating the rollers to compensate for the changing diameters of the rollers as the tape is wound from one roller to the other. The device disclosed in the Milwaukee Sign Company patent used clutches to engage and disengage drive means from the respective rollers and a differential brake to maintain tension in the tape. The mechanism is relatively complex and hence costly to produce.
The device disclosed in the World Acrilux S.A. patent provides permanently engaged drive means for rotating the two rollers simultaneously and one of the rollers is connected to the drive means by a spiral spring; the action of which compensates for the variation in diameter between the respective rollers and maintains substantially constant tension in the tape. The device is a single digit device and in order to display petroleum prices it is necessary to arrange a number of such devices in juxtaposition. Since the spiral spring is arranged in a pulley housing external of a frame of the device, close spacing of several devices is prevented and this is a disadvantage of this known device. Furthermore, the stainless steel shafts which carry the rollers are costly and are also relatively heavy and both these factors contribute disadvantages to the known device.
Accordingly it is an object of this invention to provide improvements in a display device of the kind in which a tape is wound back and forth between two spaced parallel rollers to establish a new display position of the tape.
Thus, the invention provides a tension roller for a tape display device for maintaining tension in the tape as the tape is wound between said roller and a further roller spaced from the tension roller, said rollers being mounted within a framework with their axes mutually parallel, said tension roller comprising a cylinder on which the tape is wound and an axial drive pinion arranged externally of said cylinder at one end thereof, said drive pinion and said cylinder being connected by a spring to facilitate relative movement therebetween, characterized in that, said pinion has a stub-axle extending centrally within said one end of said cylinder a short distance and said spring is arranged within said cylinder and is connected between said stub-axle and by the other end to said cylinder to facilitate said relative movement therebetween.
Another form of the invention provides a tape display device comprising a tape which carries a succession of visual information and extends between two spaced parallel rollers on which the tape is wound, said rollers being mounted in a framework and being spaced sufficient to allow an item of said visual information to be displayed on a portion of tape extending between said rollers, a drive pinion or pulley on the end of each roller and a drive chain or belt driven by a motor and cooperating with said pinions or pulleys to drive said rollers, one of said rollers being a tension roller having a spiral spring between the pinion or pulley and the roller for maintaining tension in the tape as the tape is wound between said rollers, characterized in that, said drive pinion or pulley of said tension roller has a stub-axle extending centra
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Able Industries Pty. Ltd.
Silbermann Joanne
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