GB904832A - Improvements in or relating to vehicle storage arrangements - Google Patents

Abstract

904,832. Mechanical garages. MITCHELL, F. G. Feb. 17, 1961 [Feb. 17, 1960], No. 5583/60. Class 78 (4). A multi-storey vehicle storage system comprises two lift shafts 14, 15, Fig. 1, interconnected by guide tracks 11 on each storey with vehicle storage bays beside each track and employs transfer trolleys each of which is used to take up a vehicle and transfer it to a parking location via one of the lifts, the trolleys being returned via the other lift. The system operates automatically, a vehicle to be parked being driven along an entry road 21, Fig. 3, up to stops 27 and its parking being initiated by turning a key issued to the driver in a lock on the trolley 17 in the cage 14a of lift 14. Vehicle pick-up means 25, which may be as described in Specification 896,624, then transfer the vehicle to the trolley and the lift takes it to a predetermined floor where it proceeds along track 11 to a predetermined position where the vehicle is unloaded and the trolley returned to ground level via lift 15. De-parking is by a like procedure, initiated by turning the same key in another lock on the trolley, the vehicle being finally discharged on to exit roadway 26. The key 39, Fig. 4, has two lugs 37, 38 and is shown operating a lock 31 so as to cause the vehicle to be taken to the second floor and the third parking position thereon in a system having four storeys, each with four parking positions. The floor-selection levers 33 of the lock are linked to four corresponding plungers 35, Fig. 5, on the trolley and the plunger operated presses the appropriate control button 41 in the lift. The location-selecting levers 34 of the lock similarly operate plungers 36, Fig. 6 (not shown) which co-operate with fixed stops 43, Fig. 7, arranged as shown at the parking compartments beside the track 11. As shown in Fig. 1 the lift cages have bases in which are grooved tracks for the trolley wheels which are aligned when the lift stops with a track 11, the tracks 11 being electrified to drive the trolleys. In an alternative arrangement (Figs. 8 to 10, not shown) the lift cages are downwardly-open box-like covers with spring catches at the lower extremities of their walls for gripping rods carried on the trolley edges, so that the trolley itself constitutes the lift cage base. In this arrangement the electrified guide tracks 11 have slidable or pivoted extensions which, when the lift stops, are raised to contact the trolley wheels to move the trolley whose rods then slide out of the catches on the cage.