IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR PRODUCING AUDIBLE SIGNALS OR ALARMS ON TRAMCARS, BICYCLES, AND OTHER WHEELED VEHICLES
Year: 1882

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Arthur Stanley Clerk and Frank
Dowling at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 20th October
1882.
ARTHUR STANLEY CLERK, and FRANK DOWLING, both of 40, Southampton
Buildings, in the County of Middlesex "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR
PRODUCING AUDIBLE SIGNALS OR ALARMS ON TRAMCARS, BICYCLES, AND OTHER
WHEELED VEHICLES
This invention has for its object novel methods of constructing and arranging
apparatus operated when required by means of air compressed by the movement of
the wheel or wheels of the vehicle itself, for the purpose of producing whistles or
other audible signals.
It may be applied-to-tramcars,-bicycles, tricycles or other wheeled vehicles, and
consists essentially of a pump or its equivalent which when set in operation
compresses air and forces it through a suitable whistle or other instrument of
similar kind at sufficient pressure to produce a loud sound or succession of sounds.
The piston or its equivalent is operated by means of a connecting rod from a
crank upon a disc or wheel which revolves in bearings upon an arm turning upon
centres in such manner that when desired the disc can be forced by pressure upon
a handle or lever into contact with one of the wheels of the bicycle, tramcar, or
other vehicle on which it is being used, but when the pressure upon the handle or
lever is removed the disc is withdrawn from contact with the wheel and the action
of the piston then ceases.
Assuming that our invention is to be applied to an ordinary bicycle, we prefer
to arrange the bar or lever to which the pumping apparatus is attached as described,
in front of the fork and below the transverse handle, and within the brake if the
latter is used, the pump consisting of a small cylinder oscillating upon centres and
fitted with a light piston or plunger to which a connecting rod is jointed from
the crank which is carried upon a small disc or wheel upon the front end of the
lever or bar.
The upper end of the cylinder is closed and into it is fitted the whistle or other
instrument which is to be sounded.

page_text: The lever is pressed upward by a spring and it is provided with a handle by
which when desired it can be depressed until the edge of the disc is forced against
the tire of the driving wheel of the bicycle, and a succession of sounds will be
produced by the whistle, increasing in speed with the velocity at which the machine
is moving until they become practically continuous.
Instead of a cylinder and piston as described, an india rubber or other flexible
ball or chamber may be used, its interior communicating with the whistle which is
sounded by the rapid compression of the ball by the connecting rod from the
crauk, or by a cam upon the axis of the disc or wheel. Or a small bellows of the
ordinary kind may be used for the same purpose.
Our novel arrangement of apparatus may be applied to either of the wheels of
bicycles, tricycles, or other velocipede, the lever by which the disc is brought into
contact with the wheel being operated by rods, cords or wires brought into a
convenient position to be used by the rider.
Instead of the whistle being attached directly to the pump as described, it may
be attached to a reservoir into which the air is first forced and the sound is thus
made continuous.
This reservoir may be made of any convenient, size and may be provided with
valves to retain the air, and in such case the sound may be produced even after
the machine has come to rest. This inethod of arrangement is especially applicable
to tramcars and other heavy vehicles, and the pumps may be so arranged as to
work continuously when the vehicle is running but to cease forcing air into the
reservoir when the air already in the latter has attained a certain pressure.