IMPROVEMENTS IN SELF-ACTING MECHANISM FOR RECORDING THE PERFORMANCES OF ENGINES, RAILWAY CARRIAGES, AND OTHER MACHINERY OR APPARATUS IN MOTION
Year: 1876

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Guy Wilson at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 5th July 1876. A communication from
abroad by Albert Scholz, Engineer, of Berlin, in 'the Empire of Germany.
JOHN GUY WILSON, of the City of Manchester, Mechanical Engineer and Patent
Agent. "IMPROVEMENTS IN SELF-ACTING MECHANISM FOR RECORDING THE
PERFORMANCES OF ENGINES, RAILWAY CARRIAGES, AND OTHER MACHINERY OR
APPARATUS IN MOTION." A communication from abroad by Albert Scholz,
Engineer, of Berlin, in the Empire of Germany.
This Invention relates to improvements in apparatus for registering or recording
upon strips of paper the strokes of engines, revolutions of the wheels of railway
vehicles or machinery, and consist in a novel application of elastic balls to the
purpose of conveying motion by pneumatic pressure and through tubing to a buffer
situated at any desired distance from such ball, and which buffer in its turn actuates
a novel description of counting and recording mechanism working in conjunction
with clock mechanism.
One modification of this Invention consists of a strong watch or clockwork of
the ordinary construction, but so arranged as to carry a dial upon which only the
full hours are marked, and which come up and are visible through a suitable
aperture in proper rotation. The minute wheel or dial of this mechanism carries
upon its periphery a series of pegs, sixty in number, and equidistant from each
other, and these pegs are arranged to draw off a strip of correspondingly perforated
paper from a paper roller, such strip of paper being further subdivided into hours
and days, and consequently a length of paper corresponding to the length of sixty
of these perforations will be unrolled every hour, and so on by the action of the
clock mechanism.
The counting mechanism which I prefer to employ (although it will be understood
that any other arrangement of counting mechanism would be equally applicable)
consists of a single stationary dial marked with units and tens, and the indications
upon which are given by incans of an index, finger, or pointer, this stationary dial
being partially surrounded by apertures through which revolving dials are seen
carrying the figures representing, hundreds, thousands, and so on.
Motion is communicated to this counting apparatus by a pair of rods actuated by
pneumatic pressure from the mechanism, the performance of which is required to be
ascertained and recorded, such as the number of revolutions in a given time of the
wheels of railway vehicles, strokes of pistons, and speed of other machinery or
apparatus, the pneumatic pressure being obtained by applying an india-rubber ball
[Price 2d.l

page_text: to the moving parts of such machinery in such a manner that with every stroke of
the engine or revolution of the machinery such ball may become compressed and so
by means of a pipe or tubę may cause the air beneath an india-rubber buffer to
expand and thus to raise up the actuating rod of the counting mechanism which
rests upon such buffer, this rod being connected at its upper extremity to a lever
carrying a pawl or catch which engages in a ratchet wheel secured upon the unit's
spindle of the counting mechanism so causes the ratchet wheel and index finger of
the counting mechanism to be moved one tooth forward for every compression of
the elastic ball. The side of this ratchet wheel which has 100 teeth carries ten
projecting pins, and a lever is so arranged that each of these pins in succession raises
such lever which in its turn raises the arm of a hammer until at the proper instant,
namely, at the end of every tenth portion of a revolution, such lever disconnects
itself and the hammer falls on to a suitable needle and so perforates the strip of
paper herein-before mentioned. A record is thus obtained upon the paper of the
exact instant when every ten strokes of the engine or revolution of the machinery
were completed.
Instead of pneumatic pressure this apparatus for many purposes may be worked
by being connected direct to the machinery requiring to be recorded.
Another modification of this Invention may be applied to ordinary counters in
conjunction with a "Burks' or other description of watchman's watch.
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