IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR STOPPING STEAM AND OTHER ENGINES FROM A DISTANCE
Year: 1881

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Edwin Florenz Schonë at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 17th March 1881.
EDWIN FLORENZ SCHONE, of Grossröhrsdorf, in the Kingdom of Saxony, in the
German Empire, Manufacturer. "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR STOPPING
STEAM AND OTHER ENGINES FROM A DISTANCE."
The object of this Invention is to stop an engine when required from any part
of a factory or other place, however distant from the engine; this is especially of
advantage in case of any serious accident happening in any part of a works.
The pipe conducting the steam or other motor fluid is close to the engine fitted
with a stop valve, which may be of the ordinary mushroom form, and is placed so
as to shut with and by the flow or pressure of the fluid. This valve is normally
kept open by means of a cam or eccentric, by preference arranged inside the valve
casing, the cam spindle projecting outside the casing and there fitted with a pulley
or disc, over the upper half of which I pass a flexible steel band or wire, which
at one end is fixed to the pulley, and at the other end carries a weight or spring
heavy or strong enough to turn the spindle of the pulley and the eccentric so as to
release the valve quickly, the rush or flow of the steam or other fluid closing it or
assisting it powerfully so to do. The valve is kept open, and the pulley and
eccentric held in the corresponding position by means of a stop peg at the side or
rim of the pulley and by a stop or catch lever beneath said peg, this lever is held
in position by a spring by means of one or more wires and guide pulleys or bell
cranks like in an ordinary bell wire; this lever can be actuated from any part of a
building even at some distance from the engine; by pulling the wire the lever is
pulled away from the stop peg and the weight or spring acting on the band passing
over the pulley on the cam spindle will then at once pull it over or round,
say 180°, and release the aforesaid steam admission valve, the rush of the steam or
other motor fluid materially assisting or accelerating the action and closing the
valve. There may be an adjustable stop or fence for limiting the stroke or sweep
of the stop lever in one direction, and the pulley on the eccentric spindle should
have a stop, lug, or peg, which when the pulley has moved sufficiently round
comes against some part of the framing of the apparatus. The cam or eccentric
may be grooved and a connection from the valve work in such groove, but I
prefer the cam being independent of the valve, so that the latter is closed entirely
be the msh of the steam.

page_text: Where the distance from the engine or other circumstances prevent a bell wire
from being efficiently or conveniently employed, I use an appliance like the
pneumatic tube telegraph, say, acting by pressing on a knob or peg, whereby the
air in a tube is compressed and a diaphragm at the further end of such tube is
distended, which diaphragm releases a pawl tooth lever from a ratchet wheel,
which by pinion and wheel (say, in proportion of 1 to 2) is connected to a stop
lever similar to the one described above; the stop lever may be on the wheel
spindle, and be held in place against the stop peg on the eccentric spindle by a
spiral spring.
Or I may use an electro-magnet which can be made to attract the pawl tooth
lever as its armature; the conducting wires from the electro-magnet pass to the
two poles of a battery and to a contact knob, which when being pressed on causes
the electro-magnet to be magnetized and to attract the armature lever. Conducting
wires may be led to any number of workshops or placed so that the engines can be
instantly stopped from any such place as desired.