Patent GB-190400216-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or connected with Automatic Weighing Machines
Inventor: PROKOFIEW GEORGE
Filed: 1904-01-04
Granted: 1905-04-04
Abstract: 216. Prokoflew, G. Jan. 4. Automatic-feed apparatus ; equi-armed balances; feeding-devices; relieving-mechanism; scale-pans.-Reference is made to Specification No. 7515, A.D. 1903. The scale-beam frame, by the act of tilting, allows operative mechanism respectively to shut and open the hopper and scale-bucket doors, to reverse the feed-regulating gear, and to depress a discharge shoot on the receiving-vessel. During discharge, the bucket is off the knife-edges. The motion of a pointer on the scale-beam trips an eyed spring detent, and disengages therefrom the horizontal suspended end of a bell-crank lever j<2>, Fig. 7, which, in falling, brings into engagement with a roughened wheel k<2> its enlarged upper end j<3>. The latter, in its forward motion, trips a detent e<7>, e<9>, causing a spring-operated swinging shoe e to close the hopper aperture. The bell-crank lever also rotates a longitudinally-recessed cylinder i, or mutilated toothed wheel, carrying pins i<2> loosely embracing the arm j<2> into frictional engagement with a friction or toothed wheel c<2>. As the wheel i rotates, a pin i<4> thereon, by bearing against a cam h<15> on a swinging arm h<10>, causes the lower end of the latter to draw a swinging shutter from beneath the scalebucket aperture, while a cam-ring i<3> on the wheel i depresses a sliding standard connected by a bracket to the relieving-mechanism. This consists of a vertical rod the hooked upper end of which draws down the scale-beam and deposits the bucket in fixed stops, while the lower end lowers a discharge shoot with a lateral annular air exit airtight on to the receiving-vessel. Finally, the pin i<2> on the wheel i opens the hopper shutter by striking a nose e<5> on the swinging shutter arm, and the wheel comes to rest with its recess underneath the driving-wheel c<2>. In dealing with flour, cocoa, or other clogging material, a cam-vibrated frame q, Fig. 6, in the hopper, feeds a revolving circular sieve d<6> below, which carries the material round. A fixed brush d<7> plays on the inner side of the sieve, the feeding action of which is reduced, at the last, by gradually encasing it with an imperforate sleeve p. The latter, attached to a sliding frame p<5>, Figs. 6 and 9, provided with stops, is moved by the rotation of a gear-driven screw shaft p<2> carrying a cross-piece p', which eventually engages stops p<6> and draws the frame along. Other stops p<12> engage with a cross-piece p<11>carrying on a plain part of the shaft p<2> a clutch, which, by the aid of a tumbler p<14>, is eventually shifted from the geardriven to a belt-driven pulley, to reverse the direction of the shaft p<2>. While the bucket is emptying, the sieve d<6> is disconnected from the driving- shaft by a clutch operated by a lever riding on a notched race on the wheel i. In a modified feedregulating gear, the sleeve p is dispensed with, and the sieve is rotated at a slower speed to finish off the weighing. A screw-shaft operated belt-fork simultaneously shifts the low-speed belt c<6>, Fig. 14, from a loose pulley b<7> to the fast pulley c<6>, and the high-speed belt c<5> from the pulley c<6> to a loose pulley b<8>.