IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR OBTAINING MOTIVE POWER
Year: 1880

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Samuel Hill, George Edward
Williams, and Charles Grey Hill at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents
on the 16th November 1880.
SAMUEL HILL, of Southwark, in the County of Surrey, GEORGE EDWARD
WILLIAMS, of East Dulwich, in the same County, and CHARLES GREY HILL, of
Great Coram Street, in the County of Middlesex. "IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR
OBTAINING MOTIVE POWER."
This Invention relates to certain improved apparatus for obtaining motive
power which can be applied to any useful purpose, and it consists of various
modifications of apparatus, the principle of the construction and arrangement of which
is such that the apparatus shall be self acting and self contained, and shall not
require for continuance of action the application of any exterior force or agent after
having been started until it is stopped.
The manipulation at starting and stopping is merely required in order to adjust
the relative positions of certain parts from their inactive to their self-acting
positions, and vice versa, and beyond this our engines (or apparatus) are entirely
self-acting and continuous in their action without the use or application of steam,
air, gas, water, electricity, or any other usual force or exterior agent.
One of the many modifications of which the principle of our Invention is
susceptible, and which from extensive experience we have found to be of great
simplicity and capable of considerable application, we will now proceed to
describe.
The apparatus is constructed with a first-motion or driving shaft, one end of
which is supported in any usual way in a bearing rising from the bed-plate of the
apparatus, and the other end of which slides freely within a tube which has capability
of endway movement, and is formed with an exterior screw which engages with a
female screw which can be turned around, but has no capability of other movement,
being suitably supported by a second bearing rising from the bed-plate. This
screw-engaging mechanism forms a material part of the means by which the initial
and terminal adjustments are imparted to the actuating parts of the apparatus,
and by which the relative positions of the component parts of the latter are
adjusted from their inactive position to their self-acting position, and vice-versa, as
hereinbefore referred to. The inner end of the tube carries a conical collar through
which the driving shaft also freely passes, and this with the screw-engaging
apparatus herein before described completes the means by which the said initial
and terminal adjustments of the actuating parts of the apparatus are effected. This
arrangement is but one of many means of which we are cognizant, by which the
desired adjustment of the actuating parts of the apparatus can be effected, but we
prefer it as being of great simplicity, and as giving great facility and nicety of
adjustment.
On the end of the first motion or driving shaft adjacent to the first mentioned
bearing is keved a fly-wheel, which carries the self acting or actuating parts of the

page_text: apparatus, and ensures regularity of their action, and the adjustment thereof from
their inactive to their self acting positions, and vice-versa, is effected from the said
conical collar or its equivalent by means of a lever which is centred to a collar,
which revolves with the shaft, and the end of which lever projecting towards the
said conical collar is formed single and carries a runner, which engages with the
surface of the conical collar to whatever position the latter may be shifted, being
kept thereto by means of the action of a spring hereinafter more particularly
referred to, and forming an essential part of the self-acting or actuating part of the
apparatus, and the end of which lever projecting towards the fly-wheel is bifurcated
and is adjacent thereto, connected to one end of a rod, the other end of which is
connected to the juncture of two other rods, which for the sake of distinction we
will call 2, 3, one 2, of which is connected to a lever 4, one end of which is
centred to the fly-wheel, on, say, the right side of the first motion or driving shaft,
and of the juncture of the lever 1 with the levers 2, 3, and the other end of which
is connected to a lever or arm 5, one end of which is connected or slung to an arm 6,
which is connected to the fly-wheel at a point (in this supposed stationary position
of the apparatus) on the same side as the point of connection of the lever 4 with
the fly wheel, and the other end of which lever or arm 5 is prolonged beyond its
connection with the lever 4, and is connected to one end of a rod 7, the other end
of which is connected to the spring hereinbefore referred to, and the other, 3, of
which rods is connected to a lever 8, which is connected to the other end of the
spring to that to which the rod 7 is connected, and is at its other end connected to a
lever or arm 9 which is connected to the fly-wheel at a point between the juncture
of the lever 1 with the levers 2, 3, and the driving shaft.
When these parts are in such a position as that the spring is in its normal
position, that is, without either being compressed or extended, the apparatus is in
a state of inaction or quietude; but when the relative positions of these parts is
altered and the spring compressed or extended by the simple adjustment of the
lever centred to the shaft by the means described, or by any equivalent means,
the apparetus is instantly rendered self-acting, the power of its actuation lying
within the spring, and being imparted through the connecting levers to the fly-
wheel and first-motion or driving-shaft, the points of the connection of the levers
with the fly-wheel occupying such relative positions as that the extensive or
contractile power of the spring in its constant endeavour to assume its normal
position shall cause a thrusting and drawing round, depending upon the points of
connection of the wheel and a consequent rotation of the first inotion or driving
shaft.
The speed and power developed depend entirely upon the above described
adjustment of the self-acting or actuating parts of the apparatus, and is proportional
to the adjustment thereof; and it will thus be seen that the constancy of the
compression or extension of the spring which is ensured by the means described
constitutes constant and never decreasing source of energy which is utilized in
effecting the rotation of the wheel (the whole of the actuating mechanism revolving
therewith) and of the first motion or driving shaft, and in thus obtaining motion
or power, but which is not released until the above described means in the
reversal of their described action are used in relieving the spring from its state of
compression or extension.
It will of course be readily understood that the motion and power thus obtained
can be applied to the actuation of any other machinery by making use of suitable
connecting gearing, such as belts, or toothed or frictional gearing, or in any
usual manner from ordinary prime-movers.