Patent ID: 8393454
Filing Date: 2013-03-12
Classification: F16D,F16H,Y10T

Abstract:
1. In a drive train at least including an input shaft and an output shaft, an apparatus comprising: a traveling shaft having a pair of opposing ends and supporting an intermediate member for rotation about an axis of rotation and said traveling shaft further supported for lateral movement along said axis of rotation such that the intermediate member is movable between a first lateral position and a second lateral position to cooperate with the drive train at the first lateral position to cause the output shaft to rotate responsive to rotation of the input shaft and to cooperate with the drive train at the second lateral position to disengage the output shaft from rotation responsive to rotation of the input shaft; and a permanent magnet that is fixedly mounted on a free end of said traveling shaft for moving with the traveling shaft and arranged for applying (i) a first magnetic biasing force along the axis of rotation responsive to a first external magnetic biasing field to continuously magnetically bias the intermediate member into the first lateral position and (ii) a second, opposite magnetic biasing force along the axis of rotation responsive to a second external magnetic biasing field to continuously magnetically bias the intermediate member into the second lateral position.