IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR WORKING PUNKAHS BY FLUID PRESSURE."
Year: 1878

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Richard Clere Parsons, of No. 10, Connaught Place, in the
County of Middlesex, and Edward Palliser, of No. 6, Charleville Road, Ken-
sington, in the County of Middlesex, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN
APPARATUS FOR WORKING PUNKAHS BY FLUID PRESSURE."
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Richard Clere Parsons and
Edward Palliser at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 5th April
1878.
RICHARD CLERE PARSONS, of No. 10, Connaught Place, in the County of Mid-
dlesex, and EDWARD PALLISER, of No. 6, Charleville Road, Kensington, in the County
of Middlesex. "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR WORKING PUNKAHS BY FLUID
PRESSURE."
In the Specification to Letters Patent granted to John Imray on the 20th March
1874, No. 981, was described a method of working punkahs by means of compressed
air acting in a cylinder on the piston connected to the punkalis. This Invention
relates to improvements in apparatus for this purpose, as for working punkahs by
rarefaction of air, or by steam or other fluid under pressure, the principal object of
these improvements being to obtain an automatic action of the slide governing the
cylinder ports for the admission and emission of the working fluid, so that although
the pressure thereof or the degree of rarefaction may be considerably varied, the
punkah shall continue to reciprocate with a greater or less stroko.
For this purpose we provide the working cylinder with ports governed by a slide
of ordinary construction. We connect this slide by a slotted rod to one arm of a
three-armed tumbling lever, to which arm is also linked a spring. The other two
arms of the tumbling lever project into the path of the piston rod of the working
cylinder, on which rod is fixed a tappet. As the piston approaches the middle of
its stroke in either direction the tappet acts on the one or the other of the arms,

page_text: and thereby causes the tumbling lever to make a partial revolution on its fulcrum,
straining the spring that is linked to it. On the lever passing the middle point of
its stroke the spring re-acting would cause it rapidly to complete its stroke but for
a retarding apparatus, which we will now describe:-This apparatus consists of a
cataract cylinder charged with oil or other suitable liquid, and having a piston
connected to the slide rod. The piston is made to fit the middle part of the
cylinder, but to work loosely on either side thereof. As the cataract piston is
passing the middle part of its stroke, when the spring begins to act so as to move
the tumbling lever, this movement is retarded by the resistance of the liquid; but
when the piston has passed the middle narrow part of the cataract cylinder, the
liquid getting free passage from the one side to the other of the piston ceases to
retard it, and the spring thereupon causes the remaining part of the stroke of the
tumbling lever to be rapidly completed. The slide being thus moved by the
tumbling lever, the fluid which previously acted on the one side of the piston is
allowed to escape, and a fresh supply of working fluid is admitted to act on the
other side of the piston. If therefore the piston makes a stroke sufficient only to
move the tumbling lever a little beyond the middle of its stroke, straining the spring,
the recoil of the spring effects the rest of the stroke, and so reverses the supply and
discharge of fluid, causing the piston to make its return stroke.
For the purpose of adjusting the time of the successive strokes a passage for
liquid is provided from the one end of the cataract cylinder to the other, the said
passage being fitted with a screw plug or cock, by which its area can be regulated
as desired, so as to give less or greater freedom of passage to the liquid, and so more
or less retard the movement of the slide.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent filed by
the said Richard Clere Parsons and Edward Palliser in the Great Seal Patent
Office on the 2nd October 1878.
RICHARD CLERE PARSONS, of No. 10, Connaught Place, in the County of Mid-
dlesex, and EDWARD PALLISER, of No. 6, Charleville Road, Kensington, in the County
of Middlesex. "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR WORKING PUNKAHS BY FLUID
PRESSURE."
In the Specification to Letters Patent granted to John Imray on the 20th March
1874, No. 981, was described a method of working punkahs by means of compressed
air acting in a cylinder on a piston connected to the punkals. This Invention
relates to improvements in apparatus for this purpose, or for working punkahs by
rarefaction of air, or by steam or other fluids under pressure, the principal object of
these improvements being to obtain an automatic action of the slide governing the
cylinder ports for the admission and emission of the working fluid, so that although
the pressure thereof or the degree of rarefaction may be considerably varied, the
punkahs shall continue to reciprocate with a greater or less stroke.
For this purpose we provide the working cylinder with ports governed by a slide
of ordinary construction. We connect this slide by a slotted rod to one arm of a
three-armed tumbling lever, to which arm is also linked a spring. The other two
arms of the tumbling lever project into the path of the piston rod of the working
cylinder, on which rod is fixed a tappet. As the piston approaches the middle of
its stroke in either direction the tappet acts on the one or the other of the arms,
and thereby causes the tumbling lever to make a partial revolution on its fulcrum,
straining the spring that is linked to it. On the lever passing the middle point of
its stroke, the spring re-acting would cause it rapidly to complete its stroke but for
a retarding apparatus, which we will now describe:-This apparatus consists of a
cataract cylinder charged with oil or other suitable liquid, and having a piston
connected to the slide rod. The piston is made to fit the middle part of the
cylinder, but to work loosely on either side thereof. As the cataract piston is
passing the middle part of its stroke, when the spring begins to act so as to move
the tumbling lever, this movement is retarded by the resistance of the liquid; but
when the piston has passed the middle narrow part of the cataract cylinder, the
liquid getting free passage from the one side to the other of the piston ceases to
retard it, and the spring thereupon causes the remaining part of the stroke of the
tumbling lever to be rapidly completed. The slide being thus moved by the
tumbling lever, the fluid which previously acted on the one side of the piston is
allowed to escape, and a fresh supply of working fluid is admitted to act on the
other side of the piston. If therefore the piston makes a stroke sufficient only to
move the tumbling lever a little beyond the middle of its stroke, straining the spring,
the recoil of the spring effects the rest of the stroke, and so reverses the supply and
discharge of fluid, causing the piston to make its return stroke.
For the purpose of adjusting the time of the successive strokes, a passage for
liquid is provided from the one end of the cataract cylinder to the other, the said
passage being fitted with a screw plug or cock, by which its area can be regulated
as desired, so as to give less or greater freedom of passage to the liquid, and so more
or less retard the movement of the slide.
The accompanying Drawing represents a vertical section showing the cylinder
slide and valve gear of apparatus, according to our Invention for working a set of
punkahs.
The cylinder A is conveniently placed upright against the end wall of the apart-
ment in which the punkahs are hung, being secured to a bracket B, which is bolted
against the wall. The upper part of the bracket projects, forming a bearing for a
bent lever C, the shorter arm of which is linked by the connecting rod D to the rod

page_text: e of the piston E, and the longer arm is linked by a rod F to the first of the range
of punkals, which are linked to one another.
So far this arrangement is old, the punkans being caused to swing to and fro by
the up-and-down reciprocation of the piston E, acted on by compressed air or other
fluid under pressure, or by the atmospheric pressure on its one side against a partial
vacuum made by rarefying the air on the other side, by connecting the discharge
passage with a chamber in which a partial vacuum is maintained.
The admission of the working fluid alternately to each end of the cylinder A and
its emission therefrom are determined by a slide G of ordinary construction
governing the cylinder ports in the usual way. It is to the gear by which this
slide is worked from the movement of the piston that our Invention applies, this
gear being so arranged by us that the period of reciprocation can be regulated, and
that the piston is caused to reciprocate notwithstanding considerable variation in
the pressure of the working fluid, the effect of a reduction of pressure being not to
stop, but to determine the stroke of the piston and the punkahs worked by it. The
gear which we employ for this purpose is constructed and arranged as follows:-H
is a three-armed tumbling lever, mounted on the bracket B. Between two of its
arms h¹, h², there is a stud or tappet d, fixed on the connecting rod D, so that as the
connecting rod moves up and down the stud d near the middle of the stroke strikes
one or other of the arms h¹, h³.
As shewn in the Drawing, the piston is descending, and d is just bearing on h¹,
and tending to turn the lover H round on its pivot. The third arm h³ is linked by
a radius rod i to a strong spring I, which resists the motion of the lever H until it
has passed the middle of its stroke, when ³ and i are in line with one another, after
which the recoil of the spring I causes the lever H to tend to complete its stroke
rapidly.
The arm has a pin working in a slotted hole in a connecting rod K, which is
jointed by a pin le to the rod of a piston working in a cylinder L.
The pin k
works in slotted holes in side rods M, which are jointed to the rod of the
slide G.
The cylinder L at each end is larger than the piston 6, which fits it only along
a portion of its middle, where the cylinder is narrowed by a projecting shoulder N.
At one part of this shoulder there is a slit through it, into which projects an
adjustible screw n that can be set so as to increase or diminish the area of passage
through the slit, The cylinder L being filled with oil or other suitable liquid, the
action of the apparatus is as follows:-As the piston E descends the stud d acting
on the arm turns the lever H until the arm h³ has passed the horizontal position
in line with i, whereupon the spring I causes the arm ³ rapidly to continue its
movement. But as the pin of h³ has already reached the end of the slot in K
this continued movement of h³ is imparted to the piston 7, which for a certain
distance can move freely through the liquid in the cylinder L, until it comes to
the narrow part of the cylinder at N, where its motion is retarded by the throttling
While the
of the passage for liquid from one side of the piston to the other.
piston is thus retarded, the pink reaches the end of the slots in M, and then, by
the farther movement of the piston (which is rapidly performed after passing N)
the slide G is moved so as rapidly to change the flow of the working fluid to and
from the ends of the cylinder A. The piston E then ascends, and the slide gear
acts according to a like series of movements in the opposite direction.
continued reciprocation of the piston and punkahs is maintained, and if there be
sufficient supply of working fluid to move the piston E so far in either direction
that the lever H is made to pass the middle of its stroke, the reciprocation is
secured.
Thus the
By the adjustment of the screw n, determining by more or less throttling the
passage for liquid the retardation or pause of the piston at the middle of its
stroke, the period of the reciprocation can be regulated as desired.
Having thus described the nature of our Invention, and in what manner the

page_text: same is to be performed, we hereby declare that we make no general claim to the
working of punkahs by means of fluid pressure acting on a piston in a cylinder, but
we claim in respect of apparatus for that purpose,-
First. Working the cylinder slide by means of a tappet moving with the main
piston, and acting in combination with a spring tumbling lever and with a
retarding piston in a cylinder charged with liquid, substantially as herein
described.
Second. The combination of the tappet & with the three-armed lever H, link i,
and spring I, whereby the lever is caused to complete its stroke rapidly in either
direction, substantially as herein described.
Third. The combination of the slide gear with the retarding piston 1, working
in a cylinder L, narrowed in the middle and charged with liquid, substantially as
and for the purpose herein set forth.
In witness whereof, we, the said Richard Clere Parsons and Edward Palliser,
have hereunto set our hands and seals, this Second day of October, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-eight.
DIGIDO
Aגז CL