Patent GB-909467-A (GB)
Title: Automatic weighing machine provided with electric devices for picking up and remotely transmitting the weight
IPC: G01G23/18
Filed: 1960-04-25
Abstract: 909,467. Electric selective signalling systems. CURIONI, C. April 25, 1960 [April 24, 1959; Feb. 10, 1960], No. 14355/60. Class 40 (1). [Also in Group XVIII] In a dial-and-pointer weighing machine, contacts 34 carried by the moving pointer 27 are effective to close circuits connected to laminated contacts 35 surrounding the fixed dial 25 and thereby signal the pointer's position on the dial. In the machine shown, whose pointer may make more than one revolution in response to the descent of the load-carrying rod 3, the rod 3 carries a block 36 in which are mounted further contacts for co-operation with a further set of fixed contacts 14 to signal the number of revolutions made. In weighing a load, the moving contacts are clear of the fixed contacts until the signalling of the pointer position is manually initiated after a steady position has been reached by the pointer. This manual initiation is effected by closing a switch 28, thereby energizing a solenoid 10 which is effective (a) to operate-through a rod 9-clamps 4 and 5 (Fig. 4) to hold the rod 3 and (b) to rotate-through a lever 19-a ring 20. The latter carries rollers 22 which effect movement towards the dial of an annular plate 24 on which are disposed cams 23 on which the rollers 22 act. The plate 24 is effective to clamp to the dial 25 an extension 26 of the pointer 27 so that the contacts 34, which are housed in the end 33 of the contact extension 26, are held on the laminated contacts 35 surrounding the dial. In order that the contacts 34 shall not bridge adjacent dial contacts 35, a rack 29 at the dial periphery co-operates with a tooth 30 at the extreme end of the pointer extension 26 to locate the pointer at an integral reading. The switch 28 which energizes solenoid 10 also starts the pulsed operation of a uniselector switch in a control circuit to which leads from the switch 28 and from the various contacts on the weighing machine are taken in a single cable emerging from the junction box 17. In the control circuit, Fig. 10, the separate contacts in the two outermost rings 59 and 60 are each connected to the normally unenergized coil of the appropriate one of a common set of ten relays 57 representing digital values " 0 " to " 9 " and the contacts of the next ring 53 are connected to the contacts 14 adjacent the rod 3 and thence to the same relays. The energizing voltage for these relays is connected to a wiper 45 of the uniselector, successive pulses of which connect it in turn to the three innermost contact rings 49, 50, 51, which are continuous. The contacts 34, each of which connects one of the three continuous inner rings to one of the discontinuous outer rings of contacts as shown in Figs. 2 and 3, thus complete the energization of the appropriate digit relay at the relevant position of the uniselector wiper 45. Thus three digits are signalled in turn on the same set of ten relays, all of which are de-energized before another digit is signalled by circuitry associated with the remaining banks 46, 47 of the same uniselector. The uniselector also controls the operation of a registering device which is set to receive the digits signalled from the relays 57 in sequence and to register them as a three-digit numeral for storage, display or transmission to a printing and/or price computing apparatus which may be remote from the weighing machine.