US1780210A - Laundry apparatus - Google Patents

Description

Nov. 4, 1930.

A. D. STALEY 1,780,210

3 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed Feb. 16, 1924 A. D. STALEY Nov. 4, 1930.

LAUNDRY APPARATUS Filed Feb.

16 1924 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 II I r/l W 1mm.

- A TTORNE Y8 Patented Nov. 4, 1930 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE ALONZO D. STALI'IY, OF CINCINNATI, OHIO, ASSIGNOR TO THE AMERICAN LAUNDRY MACHINERY COMPANY, OF CINCINNATI, OHIO, A CORPORATION OF OHIO LAUNDRY APPARATUS Application filed February 16, 1924. Serial No. 693,271.

This invention relates to laundry apparatus, and particularly to apparatus for performing the usual washing,extracting and drying operations upon wearing apparel or other materials.

In commercial laundries a considerable portion of the cost of laundry work is due to the labor charge for marking or otherwise maintaining the proper identification between the articles sent to the laundry by different customers to avoid confusion or loss, as well as to the labor charge for systematically handling the work and conveying it with a proper marking or identifying system from machine to machine. A large part of this expense may be eliminated by handling the work in groups and particularly where the apparatus for performing the difierent laundry operations is so designed as to enable a group to be submitted intact or without change to several different treatments, thereby avoiding any necessity for individual marking of the articles or for compartment trucks or other devices in which to classify the groups orarticles or while being carried from one part of the laundry to another.

The present invention therefore has for its obj ect to provide suitable apparatus for per forming a plurality of laundry operations upon the work without liability of mlxi'ng or confusing the articles of one group w1thanother. More particularly the invention 0011- templates the use of containers forthe articles which containers are capable of being introduced successively into a plurality of machines for performing different laundry treatments without removal of the "articles from such containers so that the containers ma serve as identifying means, if desired, and can be readily and expeditiously conveyed from one machine to another in the travel of the work through the laundry.

A further object of the invention 1s to. provide a plurality of laundry machines for performing different laundry treatments upon the work, said maclnnes being of ord nary form and capable of perfornnng their usual laundry operations in the ordmary manner, but which machines are each equ1pped to receive interchangeably any one of a series of like container units, which containers may be of cylindrical or partly cylindrical form, as will more fully appear hereinafter.

tudinal sectional elevation of a part of the washing machine shown in Fig. 1; Fig. 4 is a detail sectionalview on the line H, Fig. 1, of one of the work receiving containers; Fig. 5 is a detail plan View, partly broken out and in section, of a pair of containers locked in place in the rotating member of the washing machine shown in Fig. 3; Fig. 6 is a side elevation, partly in section on the line 6-6, Fig. 7, of an extractor adapted for use of the invention; and Fig. 7 is a plan view thereof partly broken out and in section.

In acommercial laundry the work operated'upon is usually subjected to a number of distinct operations, among which the most common are washing, extracting and drying operations, although other operations may be and are performed upon certain classes of work. The washing operation is usually performed in a washing machine including a rotary drum for turning over the work in a detergent bath Within a tub. The extractor includes a foraminous basket rotatable on a vertical axis to remove surplus liquid, such as the rinse water, by a centrifugal extracting operation. The drying operation, after extraction ofsurplus liquid, is frequently performed in what is called a drying tum bler including a foraminous drum rotated on an axis in a current of heated air to either completely dry the. work or at least remove so much moisture that it can be practically immediately subjected to an ironing operation. All of these .three machines include therefore a rotary member for containing the work, and according to my invention these machines and any others involving .a rotatable work containing member for a laundry operation may be adapted for this shown more or less conventionally in Figs. 1

and 3, said machine comprisesa suitable frame 1 carrying a hollow tub or casing 2 for the washing liquid, said casing being provided with the usual door or doors 3. In said casing is a rotatable shaft ldriven by suitable mechanism (not shown) usually mounted on the outside of the casing,'and

. which shaft normally serves to support the foraminous drum or container for the work. According to the present invention, said shaft is provided with means for supporting the duplicate work carrying units, only one of which will therefore be described. For convenience in manipulation and to enable a number of lots or groups of articles to be simultaneously subjected to the laundry operations the units are preferably made partly cylindrical, or in other words a plu-- rality of said units assembled together form a cylinder. In the present instance, each container is of wedge or segmental shape, four of them when assembled completing a cylinder and each container therefore has 90 of cylindrical surface, two radially extending surfaces at right angles to each. other, and two end surfaces. The containers are foraminous to permit the flow of washing liquids or air 'therethrough and may be of any suitable form. In the present embodiment they comprise a suitable strong stifi frame 5 made of an le irons or other structural sheets welde together and carrying the forami nous, cylindrical wall 6, radial walls 7 and two opposed end walls. One of said end walls, for example the wall 8 at the left of Fig. 3, is rigid or immovable with the other container walls, while the opposite end wall is in the form of a door, having a sectorshaped frame 8 carrying the foraminous screen 9. Said door is hinged at 10 to the frame 5, the axis of the hinge being inwardly from the end of the container, while the opposite edge of the door has the frame pro vided with a recess or opening 11 through which extends a latch 12 when the door is closed. There are two such latches for each container, one at each end thereof. Said latches may be of anysuitable form, but as shown, are small, spring pressed bolts with their ends beveled as at 13, urged outwardly to locking position by springs 14 and capable ofretraction by the provision of a finger hole 15 in each bolt. Because the hinge axis 10 is back of the end of the container the door can be moved to closed position without first retracting the door latch and when the tiplepf four by the provision of the necessary nuinber of spiders. Each spider has a circumferentially extending rim 17, of substantially T-form, beneath the flange of which the-lock bolts 12 may be extended, as

shown in Fig. 3, to remova'bly lock the container in place. The spiders also are provided with four radially extending flanges 18 and inner abutme nts or supports 19, which separate the several containers and form efficient supports therefor as shown in Fig. 3.

The extractor may be of any suitable form, either overdriven or underdriven, and, as shown in Figs. 6 and 7, is an underdriven extractor including a frame 20 carrying an electric motor 21 operating a pulley 22 from which a belt 23 extends to a pulley (not shown) on or connected to the vertical spindle 24. Said spindle carries a cage or support for the work containers, including the bottom or floor 25 and a li ht but necessary strong frame including vertically extending ribs 26, circumferential bands 27 and a series, four being shown, of radial foraminous partitions 28 which may be connected at their outer edges to the vertical ribs and at their inner edges to a sleeve 29 upon the spindle 24.

The drying tumbler may also be of any suitable or desirable form and purely for the purpose of illustration is shown in Fig. 2 as comprising a suitable casing 30 in which is a heating chamber 31 provided with the heating coils 32 and a passage 33 leading through an opening 34. into the drying chamber 35. In said chamber is located a rotatable shaft 36 provided with spiders or frame members of thesazme construction as those shown for the washing machine in Fig. 3, for supporting four orany multiple of four duplicate work receiving containers. The. drying chamber communicates with a passage 37 from which .the moisture ladened air passes through a lint collecting screen 38 to a chamber 39 open tothe suction side of a fanor blower 40, the outlet of which communicates by a passage 41 with the bottom of the heating chamber and by a passage 42 with an outlet 43 to the atmosphere. 44 indicates a screened inlet to the fan chamber 39.

In use of this'apparatus, the work to be laundered is divided into groups or lots of a size to be properly received by one of the containers. vA givgn laundry, for example may use a pluralitybfwashers, extractors and dry ing tumblers of the kind described, and fifty, one hundred or even more duplicate containers, each of the several containers being individually marked and identified or distinguished from all others by a serial number or legend stamped or impressed in the metal or applied to a tag or other device secured thereto. The several groups of work are each placed in one of the containers and a record of the number of the container thereforesuffices to identify the work until all laundering operations thereon are completed. A series of such containers are now inserted into the washing machine by merely opening the door or doors 3 thereof, turning the shaft 4 by intervals of 90 and dropping or pushing each of the containers home to seating position on flanges 18 and supports 19 whereupon the latch bolts 12 snap out into position beneath the flanges of spider rims 17 and firmly but detachably secure the containers in place. The washin machine is thenoperated for any or all of t e usual operations of soaking, washing, rinsing, bluing and the like, and after all such operations are completed and the last washing liquid is drained from the tub the door 3 is opened and'the containers are removed one by one and carried or conveyed by suitable conveyors to the extracting machine. Here four of the containers are dropped into the rotatable frame in vertical 'position,-there being no necessity for locking the containers in place because centrifugal force is suflicient to hold them. The extractor is then operated and the surplus water removed. The containers are next removed from the extractor and placed in position in the drying tumbler in the same manner as in r the washer by opening the door 45 and pushing the containers home to locked position in the rotatable spider frame. Fan 40 is put in operation and while the containers are rotating in the drying tumbler a current of heated air is passed therethrough to dry the work, after which the containers are removed; It will be observed that up to this point no necessity exists for any attention by the operators of any of the machines as to the question of identification of goods, which is maintained entirely by the numbered containers and the fact that the articles are not removed from the containers until all laundering op erations are performed. When the containers are taken out of the drying tumbler they are opened and the groups taken out and either wrapped for delivery or subjected to other operations as may be necessary.

Other advantages of the'invention will be clearly apparent to those skilled in the art.

What I claim is: In a machine of the character described, a rotatable shaft, frame means rotatable with said shaft, a work receiving container provid- I tion and for latching said container to said signature.

ALONZO D. STALEY.

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