Low friction, direct drive conveyor with a raked tooth drive
AssigneeThermodrive LLC
InventorMichael DeGroot
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An endless conveyor belt has teeth with drive faces raked away from the direction of travel. The belt can be driven by a drive pulley having sheaves with drive faces raked toward the direction of travel. The drive faces on the sheaves engage the drive faces on the teeth to move the belt and the raked angle tends to pull the belt inwardly. A stationary foot assists removing a driven tooth from its corresponding sheave.
Claims16
A conveyor belt for being driven in a drive direction by a pulley having drive sheaves, the conveyor belt comprising an outer carrying surface, an inner surface on a side of the belt opposite to the outer carrying surface, and a plurality of teeth extending from the inner surface wherein each tooth has a drive face on a trailing side of the tooth relative to the drive direction that is raked to form a first angle between the drive face and the inner surface that is acute.
A conveyor belt for being driven in a drive direction by a pulley having drive teeth, the conveyor belt comprising an outer carrying surface, an inner surface on a side of the belt opposite to the outer carrying surface, and a plurality of sheaves extending inwardly from the inner surface wherein each sheave has a drive face on a leading side of the sheave relative to the drive direction that is raked to form a first angle between the drive face and the inner surface that is acute.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.