IMPROVED ARRANGEMENTS OF APPARATUS FOR RAISING AND LOWERING WEIGHTS
Year: 1876

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by George Septimus Hughes at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 16th February 1867.
GEORGE SEPTIMUS HUGHES, of the City of Manchester, in the County of Lan-
caster, Patent Agent. "IMPROVED ARRANGEMENTS OF APPARATUS FOR RAISING AND
LOWERING WEIGHTS." A communication from abroad by Ernst Burgdorf, of
Brunswick, in the Empire of Germany, Engineer.
In bearings in side frames there is a central shaft carrying a chain pulley for
lifting the weight, the pulley being cast in one piece with an internal tooth wheel,
into which is geared an external toothed wheel having a smaller number of teeth,
and on the external wheel there are projections for preventing it from turning
round when one of these projections comes in contact with a locking bolt.
The external toothed wheel works on a collar set eccentrically with the shaft
carrying the chain pulley and internal toothed wheel, and one end of the collar is
squared for holding a lever or crank, and by turning the collar the external toothed
wheel will turn the chain wheel as much as the difference of the pitch lines of the
internal and external toothed wheels.
Some of these arrangements have been before used, but the retention of the
external toothed wheel by means of projections and a bolt is an important
simplification, as in all the constructions hitherto made more than one piece is
needed.
The principal improvement attained in this part of the construction consists in
the chain wheel being held by a square or other means on the central shaft, the
said shaft having at one end a second square, on which a second hole of the lever
or cranked handle fits.
When the locking bolt is drawn back the external toothed wheel is not pre-
vented from turning, and the chain wheel can be turned direct by means of a lever
or handle, and by this means a ratio or proportion of the moving force is obtained
according to the length of the crank and the radius of the chain wheel, and thus
it is possible to use this machine not only for raising and lowering large burdens
or heavy weights slowly by means of gearing through the unequal toothed wheels,
but also for the quicker lifting and lowering of lighter weights without wheel
gearing, and it only requires the placing of the lever on another square, and the
pushing or drawing back the locking bolt in order to change the machine from one
purpose to another. The lowering of the weight can take place either by turning
the lever backwards after withdrawing the locking bolt, or by means of a brake.
[Price I

page_text: This apparatus, crab, or crane can be erected vertically or horizontally, and the
weight can hang under the apparatus or it can be hooked or linked in any direction
desired, and the chain conducted over rollers.
The loose end of the chain is, if necessary, carried round an extra pulley, so that in
any case a sufficient number of the chain links are taken hold of by the chain wheel,
and crabs or cranes constructed according to these arrangements are small and
light in proportion to their lifting capacities, and therefore can be easily transported
from one place to another, and can be erected with facility in places where crabs of
the ordinary construction and the same lifting power could not be used.
In another arrangement there is a rope pulley and chain wheel fastened on the
central shaft, and the locking bolt is replaced by a ratchet in connection with a
ratchet wheel, there being on the eccentric collar a small chain wheel carrying a
hand chain. If the power is applied at the rope pulley a light weight can be
raised rapidly, because the rope pulley and the chain wheel make the same number
of revolutions; if, on the contrary, the pull is applied at the chain wheel a heavy
weight is raised slowly, and-when reversing the weight is prevented in each case
from running down by means of the ratchet and ratchet wheels, and lowering can
only be effected by pulling the hand chain.
In another arrangement for obtaining the best adapted. speed for raising different
weights it is only necessary to apply to the central shaft squares at both ends for
the crank handle or lever two chain and internal toothed wheels, two external
toothed wheels, and two eccentric collars with squares projecting from each side of
the frame, one chain wheel being fixed on the shaft and the second loose.