US554819A - Electric door-operating apparatus - Google Patents

Description

(No Model.)

0 H HICKS & R F TROY ELECTRIC DOOR OPERATING APPARATUS.

' Patented Feb. 18, 1896.

fizz/672202;; 0506771056 '02:: A5 Ro er [15"0 I OLIVER H. IIIoKs AND ROBERTUS TROY, OF oHIoAco, ILLINOIS.

ELECTRIC DOOR-OPERATING APPARATUS.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 554,819, dated February 18, 1896.

Application filed August 8, 1895. Serial No. 558,607. (N 0 model.)

To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known'that we, OLIVER H. HICKS and RoBERrUs F. TROY, citizens of the United States, residing at Chicago, in the county of Cook and State of Illinois, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Electric Door-Operating Apparatus, of which the following is a specification.

Our invention relates to an improvement in the class of electric door-operating apparatus such as is set forth in Letters Patent of the United States No. 461,122, granted to R. F. Troy, one of the joint applicants herein, on the 13th day of October, 1891, and in Letters Patent of the United States N 0. 505,270, granted to us on the 19th day of October, 1893.

Our present improvement relates to the electric mat as the primary actuating means, by stepping on which the normally open circuit of the mechanism for controlling the m0- tor which operates the door is closed to produce the operation.

We have found it very desirable in the use of an electric mat as the primary actuating means for our electric door-operating apparatus to maintain a portion of it in the condition of having its circuit open when the door is in a closed or part-way closed position, even though the mat be depressed or, stepped on, in order to prevent the door from being opened against or in the face of a would-be passer through the doorway, and to permit a person standing on the mat at the inner side of the, door, as in a store, to look through the transparent door without causing it to be operated. Accordingly we have devised, for effecting this purpose, the improvement illustrated in the accompanying drawings, in which Figure 1 is a broken perspective view, dia-.

grammatic in its nature, showing our improved mat arrangement applied to the electric operating apparatus of a door; Fig. 2, a horizontal section taken through the door above the mat; Fig. 3, a view like that presented by Fig. 2, but showing a double or folding door with our mat improvement applied accordingly; and Fig. 4, an enlarged view showing, in plan, a switch device which we apply over a swinging door for holding out out of the circuit the portion or portions of the mat which it is desired to maintain dead While the door is in its closed or partway closed position.

The construction and operation of the electric mechanism, the operation of which is controlled by the mat, being old or at least involving no features of novelty which we desire to set forth in the present application, it is not shown herein in detail; but its opera tion may be the same, or substantially the same, .as that of the mechanism set forth in our aforesaid patent, No. 505,270, which operates, generally stated, .by pressure exerted on the primary actuating means to close the circuit containing the primary actuating means and cause the closed door to be released from the motor mechanism which has operated to close it, thereby to permit the recoil of a spring to operate to open the door. When the pressure on the primaryactuating means is removed, the circuits containing the motor mechanism are closed to cause that mechanism to close the door.

In the drawings, A, Fig. 1, is a single door supported to swing on hinges in a manner to open in one direction, and we show it to be provided with a coiled spring device B for opening it, the spring, as illustrated, being provided at and adjacent to the hinged edge of the door to be tightened by the closure thereof and be thus adapted to recoil when released by freeing the door and open the latter by the force of its recoil.

C denotes a generator for supplying the electric current, and M denotes the incased electric mechanism (motor and clutch devices set forth in detail in our said Patent No. 505,270) connected with the door, near its upper end, by an arm I" and connected with opposite sides of the generator respectively by a wire w and a wire w, the latter containin g a switch device E, which is normally closed (if the operation of the electric mechanism be to close the door when opened, and of the spring to open it, as may be the case, though not necessarily.) The lever q of the switch device is controlled by the hinged armature D of an electromagnet D in a line 20 leading by one branch to a switch device F at the top of the door and shown in Fig. 4 as comprising the following construction:

ICO

on the base a terminal m, connected with the metal portion of the lever 0 by a spring m, which tends to hold the metal end of the lever in contact with the terminal a. The wire leads to the terminal 977,.

G is the electric mat, of any well-known or suitable general construction, involving usually a sheet of any suitable material carrying on its lower surface spring-contacts l, which normally hold themselves out of engagement with, but are caused by pressure exerted on the mat to engage with contacts Z. The eontacts Z are all connected by wires 10 with one side of the generator 0, and some of the contacts Z are connected by wires w with the wire which leads through the electromagnet D to the other side of the generator 0.

For our purpose we prefer to form the mat G in separate pieces G and G one at the side of the door-jamb toward which the door closes and the other at the side thereof toward which the door opens, the latter piece being extended, as indicated at t in Fig. 1, laterally beyond the free ed ge. of the door and being divided, as indicated by the dotted line at 1 either actually or only by the arrange ment of the circuits thereon to render the part i an electrically separate section, and the pieces G and G also form electrically separate sections. The contacts Z on the mat portion G and those on the section are connected by the wires w with the wire 10 but the contacts l on the mat portion G are connected by wires 10 directly with the ter1ninal n.

011 the door A at its upper end is a rigid finger or projection 70, which, when the door is closing, engages the lever 0 of the switch device F and turns it to separate the switchlever from the terminal 01 and maintain it so separated while the door remains closed.

As will be seen, when a person steps on the mat portion G or on the section 25 the circuits are closed as follows: from the generator 0 by wire 10 through the magnet D, thence by wire 20 to wire 10*, which leads to the con: tacts Z on said mat portion and section, thence through the contacts Z over wire 10 to the generator. From one side of the generator 0 there leads a wire w through the switch E to the mechanism at M, returning by wire w to the other side of the generator.

The. circuit of the mat portion G is to be traced as follows: from one side of the generator C by wire 10 through the magnetD to the. terminal on of the switch F, thence from the terminal n over wire w ito the contacts Z, and returning by wire 10 from the contacts Z to the other side of the generator. Thus by pressure on the mat portion G" or sectiont the magnet D is energized to attract its armature D and open the switch E, thereby opening the circuit containing the mechanism M and freeing the door A from the normal holding effect of said mechanism to permit it to be opened by the recoil of the spring B. It will also be apparent that the door in openin g releases the finger from the switch-lever 0, thereby permitting the spring m of the latter to bring and hold it in contact with the terminal 02, whereby the circuits containing the contacts land 1 on the mat portion G will be closed when a person passing through the doorway treads upon that portion of the mat, so that the switch E will be kept open until the person clears the mat. Moreover, it will be apparent that while the door is closed pressure on the mat portion G the contacts Z of which are on the line 10, cannot affect the door-operating mechanism,since the circuit including that line, which leads to the terminal 71 of the switch device F, is normally broken by the normal separation of the lever o from that terminal. In order, therefore, to cause the door to be opened by a person approaching it from the side toward which it opens he steps upon the mat-section t, which, being to one side of the space through which the door opens, prevents opening the door in his face.

IVhen there are two doors A and A opening in opposite directions, as indicated in Fig. 3, the mat portions, respectively at opposite sides of the doors, may be arranged as shown to bring one of the mat portions G at the side of each door from which it opens and a mat portion G behind each door or at the side thereof toward which it opens. In this instance the circuits of the mat portions G are the same as those described in connection with Fig. 1, and those of the mat portions G- are also the same as. the circuits of the corresponding part in Fig. 1. Hence there is no need for repeating the description or showing the circuits in the drawings. With this modified construction, however, owing to the nature of operation of the double or folding doors, the section tmay be omitted from each mat portion G \Vhile we have shown and described our improved electric mat structure as applied to a door operated by electric mechanism, it may be used to advantage with other than electric mechanism for operating the door when the mat-circuit might be the only electric circuit employed. Hence we donot limit our inven tion to use in the particular connection herein set forth at length. Moreover, the details of construction involved in our improvement maybe departed from without departure from our invention, so that it is not to be understood as being limited to such details.

What we claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, l5?- 1. In combination with a door and its operating mechanism, an electric mat control- IIO ling the operation of said mechanism and divided into sections, one section being inoperative to control said mechanism in one position of the door and operative to control said mechanism in another position of the door, substantially as described.

2. In combination with a door provided with electric mechanism for operating it, an electric mat forming the primary actuating means for controlling the operation of said mechanism, and divided into sections, one section being inoperative to control said mechanism in one position of the door and operative to control said mechanism in another position of the door, substantially as described.

3. In combination with a door provided with electric mechanism for operating it, an electric mat G forming the primary actuating means for controlling the operation of said apparatus and divided into a section G, at one side of the door and sections G2 and t at the opposite side thereof, said sections G and i being operative to control said mechanism in all positions of the door, and said section G being inoperative to control said mechanism in one position of the door and operative to control it in another position of the door, substantially as described.

4:. In combination with a door provided with electric mechanism for operating it, a switch device F supported adjacent to the door and having a spring-controlled lever and terminals m and n, a projection is on the door engaging said lever in the closing of the door, and an electric mat forming the primary actuating means for controlling the operation of said mechanism and divided into sections, having their contacts connected with the switch device, one section having its circuits normally closed except at the mat-contacts thereof, and the other section being normally open at its mat-contacts and at said switch device, substantially as described.

OLIVER H. HICKS. ROBERTUS F. TROY. In presence of- M. J. FROST, J. N. HANSON.

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