GB1049574A - Improvements in or relating to clutch mechanisms - Google Patents

Abstract

1,049,574. Positive clutches. J. MUHLBEYER. June 27, 1963 [June 29, 1962], No. 25691/63. Heading F2C. In a washing machine wherein a washing basket is belt driven through a pulley 17 for both the washing and spin-drying operations by low- and high-speed motors respectively (Fig. 1, not shown), the pulley 17, fast on the high speed motor shaft 5, is driven in the low speed through a pulley 7 which is rotatably mounted on the shaft 5 and positively clutched to the pulley 17 by one or other of two centrifugal masses 24 pivoted on a carrier 14 of the pulley 17 and spring biased to engage a rubber or plastics roller 31, carried at the free end of each mass, with a recess 10 or 11 formed in a hub extension of the pulley 7, the arrangement being such that the clutch remains engaged during the low-speed wash but when, at the end of this operation, the low-speed motor is switched off and the high-speed spin drying commences, the clutch centrifugally disengages at a predetermined speed above that of the low-speed motor which is thereby released to avoid unnecessary wear and noise. Each of the masses 24 comprises two arms 26, 27 spaced by a sleeve at the pivot pin, and at the free end by a rotatable pin 30 which carries the roller 31. To ensure gentle clutch re-arrangement when the high-speed motor slows down, the arm 27 of each mass may be provided with a leaf spring which frictionally engages a surface 38 on the hub 9 to accelerate the pulley hub for synchronized re-engagement with one or other of the rollers 31. During the slow-speed washing process, the washing action operates through reversing means (not shown) to repeatedly reverse its direction of rotation at given intervals of time such that on each reversal the coupled roller 31 rides out of its recess on to and around the cylindrical surface of the hub 9 until the roller carried by the other arm engages the other recess 11 to resume drive in the opposite direction. To this end, the hub 9 may be provided with curved tracks 39, 40 which merge from the recesses 10, 11 on to the cylindrical hub surface permitting the rollers to ride easily in and out of the recesses during reversals in drive. Alternatively, one or each recess may embrace approximately half the hub circumference.