Elevator car-mounted govenor system
AssigneeOtis Elevator Company
InventorRichard J. Ericson
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An elevator car speed governor is mounted on the top of the car assembly, and measures car speed by contacting a fixed element in the hoistway. The fixed element can be a taut cable extending from the top of the hoistway to the pit, or one of the car guide rails, for example. The governor has a centrifugally operated connection with emergency brakes on the car. When overspeed is detected, the connection is actuated to cause the brakes to engage the guide rails and stop the car. The governor can operate at relatively low overspeed rates, and can be used on elevator systems which do not have an overhead machine room, such as hydraulic and linear induction motor elevators.
Claims9
In combination with an elevator system having a car mounted for vertical movement in a hoistway along guide rails mounted in the hoistway, which car is equipped with emergency brakes actuable upon car overspeed, a governor assembly for actuating the emergency brakes, said governor assembly comprising:
- a) a governor sheave mounted on the car;
- b) a fixed element in the hoistway for driving engagement with the governor sheave whereby resultant rotational speed of the governor will be proportional to the speed of the car in the hoistway;
- c) a rotatable reel mounted on the car;
- d) an emergency brake cable wound on said reel and connected to the emergency brakes whereby winding of the emergency brake cable into the reel will activate the emergency brakes;
- and
- e) means for selectively connecting said governor sheave to said reel when the rotational speed of the governor sheave reflects car overspeed, whereupon said governor sheave will drive said reel to wind the emergency brake cable onto said reel and actuate the emergency brakes.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.