GB428724A - Prepayment meter - Google Patents

Abstract

428,724. Prepayment meter mechanism. ELECTROMAT GENOSSENSCHAFT, 79, Bahnhofstrasse, Z³rich, Switzerland. March 22, 1934, No. 9052. Convention date, March 16. [Class 27] In a coin-freed metering mechanism allowing the delivery of a quantity of electricity for a measured time and particularly applicable to current consuming apparatus, such as radio apparatus, or to the devices described in Specifications 350,944 and 405,468, coins are inserted through a slot 2, Fig. 1, to a shoot 1, the slot 2 being adjustable at will by the operator to take coins of different denominations, such as shillings or half-crowns. The coin in its passage down the shoot 1 trips by weight a lever 31 to close a switch 36 in the feeder circuit for the radio or like apparatus for a predetermined time. The upper end of a lever 3 pivoted at 4 adjusts the size of the slot 2, the lower end having a projection 8 to adjust the size of the shoot 1 opposite the lever 31. The lever 3 controlled by a spring 5 is moved by an eccentric 6 connected to a handle 7 which can be adjusted by the operator to positions I or II. When the handle is in position I the size of the slot 2 is decreased and the projection 8 is moved into the shoot. When the lever 31, arranged on a spindle 29, is moved by a coin, it moves, by a pin 30, a lever 32 to withdraw a nose 45 on this lever out of the path of a pin 46 on a gear wheel 26 in a train of gearing connecting the sun wheel 15 of an epicyclic mechanism 14, 15, 16 to a retarding vane 28, a shaft 18 of this train carrying a notched disc 20. The nose 39 of a third lever on the spindle is moved, against the action of a spring 37, out of one of the five notches on the disc 20. The gearing 15-28 is rotated by a spring 17, previously wound, until the nose 39 engages the next notch, whereon the nose 45 again moves into the path of the pin 46 and stops the wheel mechanism. The wheel 26 makes one revolution when a shilling is used. When the handle 7 is moved to adjust the slot 2 to take a half-crown, its lower wedge-shaped end moves a disc 21 axially against the action of a spring 22 to cause four axial teeth 43 on this disc to fill four notches in the disc 20. A half-crown must now be inserted to free the mechanism, but the disc 20 makes one revolution before the nose 39 can re-engage a notch, so that the wheel 26 is freed for five revolutions. When the sun wheel 15 is rotated by the spring 17, the planet-wheel cage 16 is set forward and rotates a disc 34 having a pin 35 to close the switch 36. After the wheel 26 is locked, a Ferraris or other motor winds up the spring 17 and rotates the other sun wheel 14 to return the planet-wheel cage 16 and disc 34 to their initial position thereby opening the switch 36.