GB506978A - Improvements in or relating to driving mechanism for windscreen wipers for use on motor vehicles and the like - Google Patents

Abstract

506,978. Windscreen-cleaners. AUTO UNION AKT.-GES. Aug. 25, 1938, No. 25058. Convention date, Aug. 25, 1937. [Class 138 (i)] A windscreen-wiper mechanism comprises both mechanical and manual driving means, and clutch means such that either driving means; when brought into operation, is automatically clutched to the wiper actuating gearing without the other driving means being affected, and that the manual means may be operated concurrently with the mechanical means so as to supplement the latter. As shown, Figs. 1 and 2, a pinion 1 driven by an electric or fluid motor or from the vehicle engine is rotatable on a shaft 8 and is fast with the member 2 of a free-wheel device 2-4, of which the driven member 4 is also rotatable on the shaft 8 and is fast with the driven member 5 of a second free-wheel device 5-7. The driving member 7 of this device is pinned at 15 to the shaft 8, which carries a manual operating crank 14. A rack 10 which drives the wiper shaft 13 is loosely and eccentrically mounted on the shaft 8 so as to be reciprocated by the driven members 4, 5. If the pinion 1 is driven, the members 2 and 4 are' clutched together by the balls 3, so that the rack 10 is operated. The member 5, however, rolls freely over the balls 6. If, alternatively, the crank 14 is operated, the 'members 5 and 7 are clutched together, while the member 4 rolls on the balls 3. Since the direction of driving rotation of both free-wheel devices is the same, the pinion 1 and crank 14 may be operated concurrently. In a modification Fig. 6, the driving member of each clutch device is in the form of a ratchet 22 co-operating with a pawl 21 carried by the,driven member 20. In another modification, one clutch device is a free-wheel device as shown in Fig. 2, and the other a ratchet-and-pawl device as shown in Fig. 6.