Sludge collecting apparatus

A sludge collecting apparatus comprising:

• a vehicle body and reciprocating driving means disposed in a treatment tank, the treatment tank being generally rectangular, having a bottom and a sludge collecting pit located at one longitudinal end of the bottom, the vehicle body traversing substantially the entire width of the bottom of the treatment tank and configured to travel back and forth along the longitudinal axis of the bottom of the treatment tank in a plane immediately above and parallel to the bottom;
• two or more sludge scrapers disposed at regular intervals along the direction of travel, the intervals less than the travel of the vehicle body, each scraper rotatably attached to the vehicle body about an axis that is generally transverse to the direction of travel and is movable between an orientation to move sludge that becomes deposited on the bottom of the treatment tank toward and into the sludge collecting pit when the vehicle body travels in a first direction and an orientation in which the scraper passes above the sludge when the vehicle body travels in a second, substantially parallel direction;
• wherein the dimension of the vehicle body measured along the direction of travel is greater than the width of the vehicle body;
• the vehicle body having two lever members rotatably attached thereto, one lever member disposed at each transverse end of the vehicle body;
• a mechanical linking means that interengages the driving means, lever members, and each sludge scraper configured such that each sludge scraper is simultaneously deployed in the same orientation;
• and
• wherein the lever members are rotatably attached about a vertical axis that lies in a plane substantially perpendicular to the bottom of the treatment tank.