GB525354A - Improvements in ball-and-socket joints - Google Patents

Abstract

525,354. Ball and socket joints. AUZOULAT, F. Feb. 18, 1939, Nos. 5513 and 5514. Convention dates, Feb. 19, 1938 and Jan. 2, 1939. [Class 65 (ii)] A ball and socket joint which can be dismantled without the use of tools comprises fixed and movable jaws 3, 5, forming the socket for the ball 4, the jaw 5 having an extension 6 sliding within a tubular extension 2 of the fixed jaw 3. The jaw 5 is pressed against 4 by a spring 9 abutting on a slidable piston 13 held in position by a cross pin 14, which slides in slots 15 in the tube 2, and engages at its ends cam surfaces 17 on a sleeve 18 fixed to a manually rotatable sleeve 19. When 19 is turned in one direction, the cams 17 move the pin 18 towards the ball 4, so that the piston compresses the spring 9 against the jaw 5. A fixed annulus 20 prevents axial movement of 18, 19. In another form, the pin 14 is fixed in the extension of the jaw 5 and its ends engage cam slots in the sleeve 19. The outer surface of the tube 2 has axial grooves, into one of which a lug on 19 may slip to fix the latter in adjusted position. In another form, a helical spring is mounted on the tube 2, one end being fixed to the latter, while the other end is fixed to the sleeve 19, so that the spring always turns the sleeve in a direction to force the movable jaw towards 4. In another form, the sleeve 19 gears internally with one or more pinions mounted in apertures in the tube 2 and adapted to rotate an axially immovable nut on a threaded rod carried by the movable jaw. In another form, the ends of the pin 14, which is fixed in a boss on the movable jaw, engage cam grooves on the inner surface of the sleeve 19. Two other cam grooves on 19 engage the ends of a second pin'fixed in a piston normally pressed towards the movable jaw by a spring inside the tube 2. When the screw 19 is turned to release the ball, the piston moves back and compresses the spring, so that when the sleeve is released the spring returns it and moves the jaw 5 towards the ball. In a modification of the last form, the cam grooves are replaced by cam slots in the sleeve 19.