Keyless impacting chuck

Abstract

A keyless chuck for a power drill having a drive spindle projecting from the drill housing. The chuck body is fixed on and rotatable with the spindle and has a plurality of jaws mounted for movement on axes inclined with respect to the spindle axis. The collar is mounted for rotation with and with respect to said body and has a split nut connected to the jaws to move them on said axes to grip or release a tool shank when there is relative rotation between said collar and said body. A ring is splined on the housing and is spring biased toward the housing. The ring is manually movable toward the collar to bring the axially projecting lugs on the ring in engagement with lugs on the collar to retard the collar from rotating which causes relative rotation between the body and the collar when the body is rotated. Inclined faces on the lugs force the lugs apart when movement of the jaws is prevented and the lugs cause an impacting action to overcome static friction. In one embodiment the splined ring includes a dished spring seat which has apertures for support fingers to project through from the gear case. A C-ring is fixed in the fingers to serve as a seat for a spring compressed between the C-ring and the dished seat. In the preferred embodiment a resilient retainer having a U or channel cross section has an angular segment removed so it can be flexed to a small diameter to pass under a shoulder projecting inwardly from the ring. This enables the retainer to be fixed to the gear case by engaging an inner groove and to also retain a bearing in place. The compressed biasing spring acts between the shoulder and the retainer wall nearer the chuck and the spring is prevented from contacting a rotating surface.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.