Cable system for the transmission of electric energy from a stationary electric plant to a truck or another steerable vehicle driving freely within the range of the cable system

• US 3,882,288 A
• Filed: 11/28/1973
• Issued: 05/06/1975
• Est. Priority Date: 08/24/1973
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Rolf Bjorn Rasmussen
• Original Assignee: Rolf Bjorn Rasmussen
• Inventors: Rasmussen, Rolf Bjorn
• Primary Examiner(s): Wood, Jr., M. Henson
• Assistant Examiner(s): Keen, D. W.
• Application Number:
  US05/420,188
• Time in Patent Office: 524 Days
• Field of Search: 191/2,12R,12.2R,12.2A,12.4
• US Class Current: 191/2
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2200/42 Fork lift trucks
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/18 Cables specially adapted for charging electric vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 9/00 Electric propulsion with power supply external to the vehicle electric propulsion for monorail vehicles, suspension vehicles or rack railways B60L13/00; in combination with batteries or fuel cells within the vehicle B60L50/53
• CPC Class Codes: B66F 9/205 Arrangements for transmitting pneumatic, hydraulic or electric power to movable parts or devices for cranes B66C13/12
• CPC Class Codes: H02G 11/02 using take-up reel or drum
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 10/70 Energy storage systems for electromobility, e.g. batteries
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 10/7072 Electromobility specific charging systems or methods for batteries, ultracapacitors, supercapacitors or double-layer capacitors
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 90/12 Electric charging stations
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 90/14 Plug-in electric vehicles

Abstract

There is disclosed a system comprising a steerable vehicle and means connecting an electrical supply to that vehicle. The vehicle has a slip ring and guide bow arrangement, to which cable elements are connected, the cable elements being guided by a guide carriage movable on a rectilinear path and being trained on reels, from which during movements of the vehicle, the cable elements are reeled and dereeled.

Claims

1. In combination:

a steerable vehicle, a slip ring contact on said vehicle, said contact having a substantially vertical axis, a guide bow associated with said contact, said guide bow being tiltable about a generally horizontal axis;

a rectilinear track disposed above said vehicle;

a guide carriage movable along said track, two flexible cable elements guided by said carriage and secured to said guide bow, a least one of said cable elements being a supply cable and contacting said slip ring and means for applying tension to said cables.

2. The combination claimed in claim 1, characterized in that each of the two flexible cable elements runs tO the guide carriage and onto a cable reel having permanent winding momentum.

3. The combination claimed in claim 2 characterized in that said cable reels are stationary at ends of the track said track being disposed in a vertical plane including the longitudinal center line of an area within which the vehicle is movable so that the free span of the cable elements does not exceed half of the total breadth of the area and is independent of the length of that area.

4. The combination as claimed in claim 2 characterized in that the reels are arranged in one and the same end of the track and that the cable element running between the guide carriage and one of the reels runs over a return pulley.

5. The combination as claimed in claim 4 characterized in that both reels are provided with a common spring battery constituting said means for applying tension to said cable elements.

6. The combination as claimed in claim 5 characterized in that the spring batteries are arranged in such a manner that each of the reels, in respect to their mutual direction and rotation, receives an essentially constant momentum.

7. The combination as claimed in claim 4, characterized in that the cable element running from the guide carriage over the return pulley and back to one of the reels has been substituted by a wire or the like.