US 5,288,089 AGranted

Brake mechanism for telescoping shopping carts

OwnerA. Dave Bowers, Johnny Roeinventors

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Abstract

A brake mechanism for a shopping cart able to brake an unattended cart while enabling manual release of the brakes for user control and automatic release of the brakes in response to telescoping joinder of the carts. Comprising the braking mechanism is a brake pad at the underside of a pair of vertically disposed brake rods displaceable for the pads to engage and disengage the caster wheels of the cart. A compressed coil spring on each brake rod biases the pad thereat toward engagement with the wheels. A transverse actuator bar adjacent the cart handle, when squeezed toward the cart handle, causes the brake rod to incur an upward camming and effect release of the brakes. At the same time, a second actuator bar resting on the swing seat of the cart and displaceable upwardly with the swing seat in response to telescoping of the carts is pivotally displaced upwardly in response to telescoping to raise the brake rods and release the brakes.

Claims6

Dependent claims

An improved brake mechanism for shopping carts having a basket, a frame supporting the basket, front and rear caster wheels secured at the underside of said frame for conveying the cart about a displacement area and a cart handle secured at the rear of the basket enabling the cart to be conveyed manually, said brake mechanism comprising:

a cam rod supported at the rear of said basket;
a pair of displaceable brake rods each mounted to said frame vertically disposed above one of said rear wheels between a lower end and an upper end and including an upwardly inclined lateral offset at the upper end which at an intermediate location contiguously crosses said cam rod;
a brake pad connected to the lower end of each brake rod for displacement therewith between a first relation engaging a rear wheel to effect braking of the wheel and a second relation displaced from a rear wheel affording a brake release of the wheel;
and
an actuator bar connected to the upper end of said brake rods generally parallel to said cart handle and supported for hand displacement toward said cart handle for said brake rods to be raised upwardly by said cam rod and displace said brake pads from said first relation to said second relation.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.