Back to results
US 4,545,422 AGranted
Machine for continuously casting battery grids
AssigneeWirtz Manufacturing Company, Inc.
InventorsJack E. McLane, Raymond L. Schenk
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Loading patent…
Loading patent…
AssigneeWirtz Manufacturing Company, Inc.
InventorsJack E. McLane, Raymond L. Schenk
Estimating the term…
A machine for casting battery grids continuously includes a rotary, cylindrical drum in the outer peripheral surface of which the battery grid cavity is machined in the form of a plurality of intersecting axially and circumferentially extending grooves. A shoe is arranged in close fitting, mating engagement with an arcuate segment of the peripheral surface of the drum. The shoe has a molten lead passageway therein which communicates with the peripheral surface of the drum by means of an orifice slot extending lengthwise of the shoe and across the drum. Molten lead under superatmospheric pressure is directed into a tube extending lengthwise within the lead passageway in the shoe and provided with a plurality of openings spaced lengthwise of the tube. The lead is discharged through these openings into the lead passageway, through the orifice slot and against the surface of the drum. The orifice slot has an upstream edge inclined slightly to the axially extending grooves on the battery grid cavity pattern on the drum. The arcuate surface of the shoe which contacts the peripheral surface of the drum is formed with pockets in which lead solidifies to form a seal between the drum and the shoe.
In a machine for continuously casting battery grids wherein a battery grid pattern is formed as a cavity around the peripheral surface of a rotating cylindrical drum and lead is directed into the cavity by means of a shoe in mating engagement with the peripheral surface of the drum and having a molten lead passageway therein which opens to the surface of the drum by means of an orifice slot extending transversely across the drum, that improvement which comprises a tube extending lengthwise within said passageway, said tube having a cross section substantially smaller than said passageway and having a plurality of discharge apertures therein spaced lengthwise thereof and means for directing molten lead to said tube at superatmospheric pressure and in an amount in excess of that required to progressively fill the grid cavity as it rotates past the orifice slot.
In a machine for continuously casting battery grids wherein the battery grid pattern is formed as a cavity around the peripheral surface of a rotating cylindrical drum, said grid cavity comprising a plurality of axially spaced, circumferentially extending grooves and a plurality of circumferentially spaced, axially extending grooves on the peripheral surface of the drum and lead is directed into the grid cavity by means of a shoe in mating engagement with the peripheral surface of the drum and having a molten lead passageway therein which is open to the surface of the drum by means of an orifice slot extending transversely across the drum, that improvement which comprises the orifice slot having an upstream edge which is inclined axially at a slight angle to the axially extending grooves on the drum in the range of about 5.degree. to 15.degree. and means for directing molten lead into said passageway at superatmospheric pressure and in an amount in excess of that required to progressively fill the grid cavity as it rotates past the orifice slot.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.