GB455213A - Improvements in and relating to coin-freed prepayment meter - Google Patents

Abstract

455,213. Prepayment mechanism for electricity meters. BRITISH ELECTRIC METERS, Ltd., and BROWN, R. T., Morden Road, Mitcham, Surrey. March 11, 1935, No. 7582. [Class 27] In a coin-freed prepayment electricity meter of the kind in which in addition to the cost of the commodity supplied, a fixed charge is made, e.g. for rent of the meter, this fixed charge continuing to accumulate even if no commodity is supplied, in order to provide for more than one revolution of the switch control member, the plane of action of the operative part of a single trip lever co-acting therewith is automatically altered. As shown applied to the switch operating gear described in Specification 362,158, [Group XXXVII], in which a trip lever w, Fig. 1, coacts with a cup z gapped at 2 to allow the lever w to enter the gap and open the switch when the cup is rotated to proper position, the cup z is provided with a projecting tongue 5 in the plane of the bottom of the cup, this tongue, when the cup reaches switch-tripping position, rotating a disc 7 by engagement with pins 6 thereon. A notch 9 on the disc 7 rocks a lever 4 pivoted at 4a and having at its lower end a cam-shaped flange 12 which engages a pin 13 projecting from the hub 14 of the trip lever w and slides the lever w axially into such a position that it can no longer co-operate with the rim of the cup z as in normal operation. This allows the cup z to make a further revolution past its zero or switch-tripping position to accumulate arrears of rent. In another construction, Fig. 3, the tripping lever 17 has a flexible part 16 and the control member 18 comprises a flanged disc 19, Fig. 4, the flange 20 of which is formed with a bent-back cam portion 24. Normally the nose of the lever 17 engages the periphery of the disc 19, when the switch is closed, but when the control member 18 reaches its switch tripping position, the cam 24 bends the trip lever so that its head 17 passes in front of the flange 20, and the control member can now rotate to accumulate arrears of rent without the member 17 being operative to hold the switch closed.