Patent ID: 8776996

Claim:
An inclined roller conveying assembly for hot formed glass sheets comprising: a pair of supports for mounting in a hot glass sheet processing system with one of the supports having a horizontal support axis and with the other support having a horizontal support and drive axis that is at a different elevation than the horizontal support axis of said one support; a horizontally inclined roller extending between the pair of supports and having a rotational axis that is inclined from the horizontal by an angle α; an idler bearing that rotatably mounts the inclined roller on said one support at its horizontal support axis; a drive coupling that rotatably supports and rotatively drives the inclined roller on the other support at its horizontal support and drive axis to provide support for the lower surface of an upper portion of a hot upwardly concave formed glass sheet being conveyed; the drive coupling including: a female socket that is mounted on either the inclined roller or said other support; and a male insert received within the socket and mounted on the other of the inclined roller or said other support; the female socket having a socket axis about which the socket rotates and including an interior having drive faces that extend parallel to the socket axis, and each drive face having a peripheral central location from which the drive face is inclined slightly outwardly in a peripheral direction by an angle β from a line perpendicular to a radius from the socket axis to its peripheral central location; and the male insert having an insert axis about which the insert rotates and including drive surfaces of the same number as the number of drive faces of the female socket, each drive surface having a straight shape in a peripheral direction perpendicular to a radius from the insert axis to a peripheral central location along its straight shape, and each drive surface having a round shape along the insert axis with a diameter just slightly smaller than the diameter of a circle through the peripheral central locations of the drive faces of the female socket so as to permit the socket to receive the insert and provide rotational driving between the socket and the insert with an acute angle α between the socket axis and the insert axis.