GB421433A - Improvements in or relating to opening and closing devices for sliding doors and the like - Google Patents

Abstract

421,433. Door-operating mechanism. KIEKERT, F., and KIEKERT, F. W., (trading as KIEKERT SOHNE, A.), Heiligenhaus, Rhineland. March 27, 1934, No. 9563. [Class 65 (i)] Sliding doors for vehicles are connected to power operating means by a device, carried on the door, which can be rendered inoperative at any time by means of a handle or the like on the door to allow movement of the door by hand. In the form shown, applied to a sliding door 1 carried on a track 3, an electric motor 6 drives a screw shaft 4 on which works a nut 8 having means to prevent its rotation ; the door carries a bolt 14, operated by a handle 13, which enters a notch in the under side of the nut 8 to connect the door to the nut for operation by the motor 6. The door can be disconnected for hand operation at any time and in any position by operating the handle 13 to withdraw the bolt 14; if the door has been moved by hand and the motor is then started, the nut 8 will automatically engage with the bolt 14 on reaching it, and the movement of the door will thus be completed by the motor. In the event of failure of the motor, the nut 8 may be brought to the position shown by means of a handwheel 7 to act as a keeper for engagement with the bolt 14 to hold the door closed ; the bolt 14 may also have a projection at the top to engage a separate fixed keeper. The nut 8 may be constructed so that the bolt 14 is free to move away from it in one direction, so that the motor serves only for opening or only for closing the door, the other movement being effected by hand. The nut 8 may be replaced by a halfnut carried on a lever pivoted on the door and operated from the handle 13, or by a pair of teeth formed in the top of the bolt 14 to engage the screw 4. In a modification, the handle 13 may close a switch controlling the motor, and in this case a half-nut taking the place of the nut 8 may be electromagnetically drawn into engagement with the screw on energization of the motor in place of mechanical operation by the handle. Double doors may be operated from a single motor by extending the shaft 4 and forming a thread of the opposite hand on the other part of it or by interconnecting the doors by a cable or other arrangement so that both are .moved by operation of one of them. In modified forms of drive, the engaging member 8 may be fixed to a long internally-threaded tube engaged by a short thread on a shaft driven by the motor, or it may be operated by endless chain or fixed to a rack with straight or skew teeth engaging a pinion or a conical worm on the motor shaft. The doors may be hydraulically operated, the member 8 being fixed to the piston-rod of a hydraulic cylinder ; double doors may be operated by separate cylinders or by interconnection.