Patent GB-626245-A (GB)
Title: Improvements relating to pressure roller apparatus
IPC: D06F45/18
Filed: 1947-04-21
Abstract: 626,245. Wringers ; ironing - machines. STROMBERG CARLSON (AUSTRALASIA), PROPRIETARY, Ltd. April 21, 1947, No. 10602. Convention date, May 30, 1946. [Class 138 (ii)] In a wringing or ironing-machine, a pair of rollers 16, 17 normally held in contact by supports which permit limited separation without disconnection from the driving means, have means for substantial separation of the rollers with simultaneous disconnection of the driving means from them, the driving means comprising a driven gear 48 which normally meshes with two spaced gears 56, each of which is approximately coaxial with a roller spindle to which it is rockably connected by a rod 67. The rollers 16, 17, as shown in Fig. 1, are mounted in the same horizontal plane across the casing of a washing machine and have their spindles individually supported at each end in spring-loaded bearings 30, 36, contained in housings 27, 34 ; each housing is connected to a lever 23, 24, pivotally mounted between a wall 13 depending from the casing of the washing machine and a plate 20. Each lever has a slot 26, 35 at its lower end for engaging the cranked parts 63, 64, of a shaft 38 which extends underneath and parallel to the rollers and is provided with an operating handle at one end. The rollers 16, 17 are each driven from one end by a vertical shaft 45 through helical gears 48, 56 and members 67 similar to double-ended box-spanners which engage nuts 37 on the roller shafts and similar nuts on the shafts of the gears 56. A resilient pad 37A is disposed between each nut 37 and the corresponding member 67. Each gear 56 is journalled on a lever 55 which is pivoted on a separate shaft 51 fixed to a wall 8 of the housing 7. Slotted extensions 59 on the two levers 55 engage crank-pins 65, 66, Fig. 2, of a shaft 39, which is journalled in a base 11 of the housing and connected to the shaft 38 by a pin-and-slot connection. The cranked pistons 63, 64, of the shaft 38 and the crank-pins 65, 66 of the shaft 39 are normally disposed so that the spacing between the slots in the levers 23, 24 and between the slots in the extensions 59 are at a maximum. The rollers are then in contact and the gears 48, 56 in engagement. Rotation of the crankshaft 38 by means of a handle on the shaft 39 brings such slots close together so as to cause the rollers to separate the gears 56 to become disengaged from the gear 48 andthe drive to be stopped. The members 67 are initially disposed so as to diverge slightly towards the gears with the rollers in contact, whereby the rollers and the members 67 are nearly coaxial when the rollers are separated by clothing. In order to permit the rollers to move apart a short distance when the clothing is being fed between them, without stopping the drive, the nuts which secure the members 67 to the roller shafts and the shafts of the gears 56 are provided with slightly convex sides ; the socketed ends of the members 67 can, therefore, rock slightly on the nuts as the rollers move apart and the bearings 30, 36 move against their springs. The invention is not limited to machines in which the rollers are disposed in a horizontal plane or which can be mounted on washing machines.