Thrust to torque converter, particularly for coupling a reciprocating shaft to a rotary electrical generator or the like

A mechanical linear-to-rotary motion converter comprising:

• a housing;
• a ball bearing unput screw shaft reciprocably mounted to said housing for turning a first and a second driven member in a common sense responsive to linear movement of said screw shaft;
• a rotor;
• first overrunning clutch means drivingly coupling said first member to said rotor for a first sense of rotation of said first member corresponding to a first direction of movement of said screw shaft;
• a central gear;
• reversing gear means operatively coupling said second driven member and said central gear;
• and
• second overrunning clutch means drivingly coupling said central gear to said rotor during rotation of said second driven member in said first sense but corresponding to an opposite direction of movement of said screw shaft;
• one of said overrunning clutches being inoperative and the other overrunning clutch baeing operative for transmitting rotational motion during rotation of either of said driven members in a sense opposite to said first sense, whereby said rotor is alternately driven through said first and second overrunning clutches in a single sense of rotation responsive to linear reciprocating motion of said screw shaft.

A compact mechanical linear-to-rotary motion converter comprising:

• a housing;
• an input ball bearing screw shaft reciprocable to said housing, a first and a second ball bearing nut on said shaft driven in a common saense of rotation for any given direction of movement of said input shaft;
• a central gear on said second ball bearing nut, a ring gear concentric to said central gear, and one or more idler gears in mesh with both said central and ring gears for turning said ring gear in a sense opposite to that of said central gear;
• a first drive ring fixed to said first ball bearing nut and a second drive ring fixaed to said ring gear;
• and
• a plurality of roller bearings between each drive ring and a corresponding cam ring, each roller in a cam recess including a clutch wedge on one side of said recess for locking said roller against rotation relative to said cam ring and transmitting torque from said drive ring to said cam ring for one sense of rotation of said drive ring, said rollers being free to turn in said cam recesses for an opposite sense of rotation of said drive ring;
• whereby said cam rings are alternately driven in the same sense of rotation for either direction of movement of said input shaft.

A mechanical linear-to-rotary motion converter comprising:

• a housing, a threaded input shaft reciprocable to said housing, a rotor supported in said housing coaxially to said shaft;
• first and second threaded rollers axially spaced on said shaft driven in a common sense of rotation for a given direction of movement of said drive shaft;
• a coupling ring axially intermediate said rollers and fixed to said rotor;
• and
• overrunning clutch means coupling said ring to both said rollers for a single sense of rotation of said rollers, said clutch means disengaging for the opposite rotation of said rollers thereby driving said rotor in said single sense.

A mechanical linear-to-rotary motion converter comprising:

• a housing,
• an input shaft reciprocable to said housing, said shaft being treaded in opposite directions on first and second portions thereof;
• a rotor supported in said housing coaxially to said shaft;
• first and second rollers each on a corresponding one of said shaft portions and driven for mutually opposite rotation for a given direction of movement of said input shaft;
• a coupling ring axially intermediate said rollers and fixed to said rotor;
• and
• overrunning clutch means coupling said ring to both said rollers for a single sense of rotation of said rollers, said clutch means disengaging for the opposite rotation of said rollers thereby continuously driving said rotor in said single sense for either direction of said shaft.