CA2381051A1

CA2381051A1 - Winding system

Info

Publication number: CA2381051A1
Application number: CA002381051A
Authority: CA
Inventors: Jonathan Lauzier; Yannick Funk; Pierre-Louis Foucault; Normand Savard
Original assignee: Canimex Inc
Current assignee: Canimex Inc
Priority date: 2002-04-10
Filing date: 2002-04-10
Publication date: 2003-10-10

Description

WINDING SYSTEM
Field of the invention:
The present ratchet system has been developed to facilitate the installation of doors for mini warehouses and commercial rolling steel doors, but may be applied to other types of installation where a torque must be transferred to a counter balancing spring system.
Background of the invention:
All garage doors presently in use are counterbalanced by different means. Some use a counterweight, others use a spring under traction or torsion. These counterbalancing systems are required to lower the strength required by the user or the motorized system to raise and lower the door.
In the process to put the spring under tension, the installer must wind the spring and maintain this torque or tension in the spring by a different system.
Presently, some systems are made with a U-bolt or a special bracket which is tightened when the spring is under tension. Some systems use a gear with an arm to act as a ratchet. The present invention is in this last category, but requires a minimum of parts and reduces the overall system cost.
Description of a preferred embodiment Figure 1 presents the invention in its preferred embodiment, and may be described as follows:

2 A wall bracket (1 ), is bolted to wall by bolt and nut (2). A hole inside the bracket contains,a gear (3) which is stamped with a nose (4) and special teeth adapted to engage with another gear (5). The outer gear (5) is attached or shaped directly into a shaft (6) with a head (7) adapted to receive a screwdriver or screwing (rotating) tool. A tab (8) or small spring system is welded or riveted to the gear (3).
Small ears (9) are stamped or shaped inside the bracket (1) to maintain the gear in place when it is assembled.
The gears (3) and (5) provide an advantage over the prior art as they are a lot cheaper to build than other systems on the market, and are a lot easier to assemble than other systems currently on the markefi.
In its normal use, referring to Figure 2, the assembly system is mounted around a shaft (20) which maintains a door (21 ) (usually a rolling steel door, but could be any other type of door). This door is then raised and the bracket (1 ) plate is bolted to the wall. A counter balancing torsion spring (22} is attached to the door and usually maintained on the shaft (23) and is then attached to the gear (3) by the small tab (8). The installer may then with a tool or a drill, screw the worm gear (7) to develop the required torque on the spring to counterbalance the weight of the door. When this torque is reached, the gear 5 is then blocked in place by a pin (10) passing through a hole (11) shaped in the bracket (1}.
Some modifications may be done to add advantages to the basic product presented here such as:
1- providing a cam integrated in the bracket plate to act as a ratchet;
2- providing a bearing to silence the relative movement between shaft (22) and gear nose (4); and

3- attaching a small spring plate to the tab (11) which also acts as a ratchet to block back winding of the spring.

Although the present invention has been explained hereinabove by way 'of a preferred embodiment thereof, it should be pointed out that any modifications to this preferred embodiment within the scope of the appended claims is not deemed to alter or change the nature and scope of the present invention.