Patent GB-136178-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in Winches.
Inventor: APPLEYARD ROLLO
IPC: B63B21/16
Filed: 1916-01-17
Abstract: 136,178. Appleyard, R. Jan. 17, 1916. Tension-regulating winding and paying-out apparatus; brakes and retarding-apparatus.-Relates to winches especially intended for holding defence booms, and of the kind in which an excess load causes the rope to pay out and a disk driven by a pin with lost motion in a slot to move a reach-rod which actuates a valve to admit motive fluid to the engine for creating a backpressure and winding the rope back. The invention consists mainly in the provision of a brake which is adapted to effect a sensitive balance of the normal load, and which is thrown out of action at the same time that the motive fluid is turned on when the rope pays out under excess load. As shown, the winch barrel 1 is connected by reduction gearing to a disk 4 which has a pin movable in a curved slot 7 in another disk 6, the effective length of the slot being adjusted by screwing a plug into it at any desired point along its length. The load is normally balanced by the resistance of a band brake 46 held in action by a weight 48 adjustable along a lever 44; but, when the brake is overcome and the rope pays out and rotates the barrel sufficiently to take up and exceed the lost motion in the slot 7, the disk 6 is carried round by the disk 4. and a tooth 10 on the disk 6 bears against a pin 11 on a reach-rod 13, which is thereby moved to the left with an arm 15. This actuates the valves 19, 20 which open the left of a cylinder 33 to exhaust and the right to fluid pressure. The piston 32 then moves to the left of the cylinder and, by means of an arm 31, opens a valve 23 to admit motive fluid to the engine through a reversing-valve 28. Simultaneously, the movement of the piston is transmitted through rods and levers 35, 36, 38, 40 to a bell-crank lever 42, 41 which lifts the lever 44, putting the band brake out of action. The exhaust of the left of the cylinder 33 is controlled by an adjustable valve 26 to slow down the abovedescribed actions to any desired extent. When the engine has wound back the length of rope paid out, another pin 12 on the reach-rod 13 is caught and moved to the right by the tooth 10 of the disk 6, and the reach-rod and the parts controlled thereby are restored to their original positions. The pin 12 is cam-shaped on the right to permit the tooth 10 to pass idly underneath it if the disk 6 makes more than one revolution while the rope is paying out. The reach-rod should then be lifted temporarily by hand to permit the rope to be fully wound back before the pin 12 is moved to the right by the pin 10. The weighted lever 44 may be worked independently by a hand-wheel 50 through a screw 51 and mechanism connected by a link 55 to the end of the lever 44. The link 55 is held in the lever by a spring, but can be withdrawn therefrom to disconnect the handactuated mechanism. The rod 40 of the automatic brake-actuating mechanism is slotted at its upper end and connected to a pin 39 on the lever 38, in order to enable the ball-crank 42, 41 to be moved to the left as shown in dotted lines, to put the automatic brake-actuating mechanism out of action.