GB1064529A - Improvements relating to cradles used on buildings and the control and installation thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

1,064,529. Taking up slack in electric cables. CRADLE RUNWAYS Ltd. Oct. 20, 1965 [Oct. 20, 1964; May 11, 1965; May 12, 1965], Nos. 42807/64, 19883/65 and 20069/65. Heading B8B. [Also in Divisions E1 and E2] A workmen's cradle 8 is suspended from a trolley 3 at the top of a building by cables 6, 7 on which are a number of guiding rings carrying plugs 16, 17 which can be engaged with any two adjacent sockets of one of a series of horizontal rows of sockets 12, 13, &c., on the face of the building, to restrict the length of cable on which the cradle can swing. The plugs 16, 17 operate microswitches and the electrically driven winding drum in the trolley has limit switches, so that the cradle can only be wound up and down for the distance between the trolley 3 and the sockets 12 or between any two adjacent horizontal rows of sockets according to which row of sockets are engaged by the plugs. The traversing of the trolley and winding of the cradle are controlled by push buttons by means of an electric cable between the trolley and the cradle. The trolley 3 is traversed along a track 2 when the cradle is at the top and when a wander plug 9 is disengaged which cuts out the winding motor. When the plug 9 is engaged with one of a series of sockets 11 the traversing motor is cut out and the winding motor circuits are prepared for operation. In a modification each set of two plugs and two guiding rings are mounted on a bar, the bars being carried in brackets on the cradle, Fig. 4 (not shown). The cable from a winding drum 54, Fig. 5, passes over a pulley 53 mounted to be moved along shafts 56, 57, shaft 56 being screw threaded so as to move the pulley 53 along the shafts in order to keep the cable between the pulley and drum at right angles to the axis of the drum. The screwthreaded shaft 56 is turned by a wheel 58 having rollers 59 adapted to be engaged by projections 60 on the drum. A cable for supplying electricity to the cradle is mounted on a winding drum, Fig. 8 (not shown), having a traversing pulley driven by mechanism similar to the drum 54 and driven through a slipping clutch which slips when the cradle is moving and thus keeps the cable taut. A plug 16 or 17 comprises a main tube having a split spring collar at one end. A second outer tube can be slid on the vacuum tube so that its conical end engages a conical recess in the collar to expand the collar and force a flange thereon into a recess in the socket and thus lock the plug in the socket, Figs. 2, 3 (not shown).