Patent GB-745041-A (GB)
Title: Method and means for storing or stacking merchandise, vehicles and other items
IPC: E04H6/18
Filed: 1950-01-18
Abstract: 745,041. Storing vehicles, &c. SICOMATIC AKT.-GES. Jan. 18, 1950 [Jan. 18, 1949], No. 1309/50. Class 20(1). [Also in Group XXX] A transporting frame 29, Fig. 1, for delivering vehicles or other articles to and from a block of storage compartments 1 is supported at one edge only to run up and down a vertical support 26, 27 mounted for movement along the block. In the construction of Fig. 1 each garaged vehicle is carried on a wheeled transfer platform 14 which can be run between rails 1a in the compartment and rails 29 on the transporting frame, when the frame is in register with the compartment, by a pinion 36, Fig. 8, which meshes with a rack 37 on the platform and, when the rack is beyond mesh with the pinion, by an arm 56 which is swung about its shaft to push or pull a latch 57 on the platform. The platform is pushed into the compartment by rotation of the arm 56 clockwise as seen in plan in Fig. 9 so that a roller 56a on the arm pushes the latch 57 about a pivot 57a on the platform against the bias of a spring 57b and into engagement with a stop 57c. Counterclockwise rotation of the arm 56 causes the roller 56a to engage behind the latch 57 to pull the platform out of the compartment so that the rack 37 engages the pinion 36. Alternatively, Fig. 7 (not shown), a roller at the end of one arm of a bell-crank which swings relatively to the transporting frame about a pivot at the end of its other arm is engaged with a bracket on the platform by movement of the arm carrying the roller about the other arm of the bell-crank. The vertical support 26, 27, Fig. 1, has rollers 28 running on at least the uppermost longitudinal 1b of the block of compartments. The transporting frame is driven up and down the vertical guides 26 of the support by endless chain as described below with reference to Fig. 2. Alternatively, Figs. 3 to 6 (not shown), the transporting frame may slide on a pair of intermediate vertical slides which slide on the vertical guides 26 and which carry chain-driven pinions which mesh with racks both on the guides 26 and on the transporting frame so that the intermediate slides move at half the speed of the transporting frame to form telescoping extensions of the guides 26. The construction shown in Fig. 2 dispenses with the removable transfer platform 14. Instead the transporting frame is provided with horizontal guides 73 for a captive transfer cage 74 which supports the vehicle by means of tines 75. The vehicle is transferred between tines 58 in the compartments and the tines 75 by sliding the cage 74 into the compartment at a suitable height and then raising or lowering it. The tines 58, 75 are preferably spaced around upwardly concave surfaces to assist in locating the wheels of the vehicle. The cage 74 is connected to one run of each of the pair of endless chains 72 which pass over sprockets 71, 69 the lower sprockets 69 of which are driven from an electric motor 67 carried by the vertical support. The vertical support may be driven along the block of compartments by a pinion on the support engaging a rack on the framework of the compartments.