Shelf height selector

A material handling vehicle having hoist means for vertically moving a load carriage up and down a mast, rotary shaft encoder means mechanically connected to be operated by vertical movement of said carriage and operable to provide successive electrical signals representing incremental movement of said carriage;

• counting means for tallying said electrical signals to provide a first data signal in a first register representing the current elevation of a portion of said carriage;
• an operator-controllable keyboard digit entry means aboard said vehicle for providing a second data signal representing a desired shelf;
• processor means responsive to said first and second data signals for either controlling said hoist means or for storing said first data signal at a memory location of said processor means dependent upon said second data signal;
• and manually-controllable switch means aboard said vehicle for selecting the response of said processor to said first and second data signals.

A controller for an auxiliary mechanism of an industrial truck, comprising:

• sensing means coupled to detect movement of said mechanism and provide signals denoting increments of that movement;
• means for receiving and accumulating said signals to provide a count in a first register denoting the position of the mechanism along its range of movement;
• a memory which is addressable to provide a designated one of a plurality of stored representations for comparison with said count in said first register;
• means cooperating with said memory for designating one of said stored representations;
• means for comparing the count with said designated representation made available from the memory to provide a signal for controlling the movement of the mechanism;
• means for effecting storage in the memory of signals denoting different positions along the range of movement;
• and means for transferring a count in said first register to the memory for storage as one of said plurality of representations.

A controller for an auxiliary mechanism of an industrial truck, comprising:

• a sensor which is coupled to detect movement of the said mechanism and provides signals denoting increments of that movement;
• a counter which receives said signals and thereby provides a count denoting the position of the mechanism along its range of movement;
• a memory which is controllable to provide one of a plurality of stored representations for comparison with said count;
• means for comparing the count with a representation made available from the memory to provide a signal for controlling the movement of the mechanism;
• means for effecting storage in the memory of signals denoting different positions along the range of movement;
• a keyboard means, operable by a human operator, for effecting storage of said count by said memory in a storage location of which the address is determined by the operation of a particular selection from said keys;
• and means responsive to operation of the keyboard to address the memory to make the stored count available for comparison.