IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR OBTAINING MOTIVE POWER
Year: 1873

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Barnett at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 16th
⚫ January 1873.
•
I, JOHN BARNETT, of No. 9, Basnett Grove, Wandsworth Road, in
the County of Surrey, Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the
said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR OBTAINING MOTIVE
POWER," to be as follows:-
My Invention has for its object a method of obtaining motive power
for working machinery for the traction of carriages, tramway cars,
trucks, and other vehicles, for propelling boats or other vessels, and for
driving machinery used for turning, sewing, or other ordinary purposes;
also for driving rollers, agricultural implements, and other machines
where a rotary motion is required.
The nature of my said Invention is the application of coiled or spiral
springs placed together, multiplied and worked in the manner herein-
after described.
I attach a coiled or spiral spring to each side of a circular frame or
disc, having cogs on its periphery and worked upon an axle in the centre;
this I call a double spring, and when I require an accumulated power I
connect several of these double springs together in an ordinary and
suitable frame, and adapt their size and number to the power required;

page_text: these double springs I wind up by means of an endless screw acting on
the toothed periphery of the circular frame or disc, each double spring
being wound up seperately. The endless screw is formed on a shaft, at
one end of which a crank or keyed handle is attached, and placed in a
convenient part outside the machinery to be acted upon when required.
Two or more of these double springs are placed side by side and fitted
in a frame and turned upon a common axle, and which, with the
appurtenances, I hereafter call a set of coils. At each end of the axle
I fix a cog wheel that obtains the accumulated power of the several
springs, and transfers the same to pinion wheels made to act upon the
driving wheels. The pinion wheels are moveable and are attached to a
sliding or moveable lever that can raise or depress the same at pleasure,
and thereby put them in or out of gear, and allow other pinion wheels
to be used instead, with reversed action, so as to back or reverse the
motion of the machinery when required, or they can be put out of gear
by keeping them out of the reach of the accumulative wheels.
When the machinery is required to be stopped or reversed breaks
are applied to flanges attached to the accumulating wheels or to the
driving wheels, or to both, and acted upon by shafts and cog wheels and
cross bars in an ordinary and suitable manner.
When a greater power is required, I apply two or more of the sets of
coils with their accumulative wheels, and place them side by side and
cause them to act upon a cog wheel placed on an axle. At one or
both ends of the axle I attach a larger cog wheel to act upon the
sliding pinion wheels hercin-before described.
These sets of coils may be multiplied to suit the power required, and
when three or more of them are used they are made to act upon a pinion
wheel attached to a centre shaft in common with large cog wheels
attached to the ends and worked in the manner before described. These
sets of coils when applied around a centre shaft, as herein-before described,
I call an accumulated set of coils, and sometimes use two or more of the
same to adapt them to the power required.