Patent ID: 8205297

Claim:
A swivel castor assembly, including: a body having at least one rotatable wheel engageable with a floor or ground surface below the body, a brake actuable to brake or prevent rotation of said wheel, and means for mounting the body such that it is able to swivel about a generally upright axis; a head adapted to be mounted, to an item to be supported by the castor assembly, so as to prevent or restrict rotation of the head about said upright axis relative to said item; a brake activator mounted to and projecting from the head and accessible as a pedal for foot engagement at the castor assembly at a position that is rotationally fixed about said generally upright axis with respect to the head, to move the brake activator between three vertically spaced positions, of which the lowermost is (i) a braking position in which the brake activator activates said brake, and the other two positions are (ii) a neutral position in which said brake is inactive and said body is not prevented from swivelling about an axis and (iii) a direction-lock position in which the body may be swivelled to one of plural selectable orientations with respect to the head at each of which the body is locked against said swivelling but the brake is inactive and the pedal remains in said rotationally fixed and accessible position at the castor assembly with respect to the head; and a slidable coupling member that is irrotational with respect to said head by being keyed thereto, and is responsive to said brake activator to slidably move between three positions, respectively corresponding to said lowermost braking position, said neutral position and said direction-lock position, in which the slidable coupling member respectively actuates said brake, is keyed to said head without actuating the brake or preventing swivelling of the body and irrotationally couples said body to said head at one of said plural selectable orientations while the pedal remains in said rotationally fixed and accessible position at the castor assembly with respect to the head, wherein said brake has an indirect brake arrangement that includes a plunger depressed by said slidable coupling member, a rocker in turn pivoted by the plunger when depressed, a train of teeth on the wheel, and a brake element, wherein said brake element is biased out of engagement with the train of teeth but is driven by said pivoted rocker into engagement with the train of teeth whereby to prevent rotation of the wheel.