Drive mechanism and method

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10859136-B2
Application number	US-201615010982-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 29, 2016
Priority date	Nov 14, 2007
Publication date	Dec 8, 2020
Grant date	Dec 8, 2020

Abstract

A drive train is used at least including an input shaft and an output shaft. A clutch member is rotatable by a clutch shaft about an axis of rotation. The clutch shaft is supported for lateral movement along the axis of rotation to move the clutch member to cooperate with the drive train at a first lateral position to cause the output shaft to turn and to move the clutch member to a second lateral position to disengage the output shaft from rotation of the input shaft. A permanent magnet is supported by one end of the clutch shaft and arranged for receiving an external magnetic biasing force along the axis of rotation to selectively move the clutch member between the first and second lateral positions. A traveling shaft can be used to support a selected gear for movement by the permanent magnet to implement transmission and reversing configurations.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An apparatus for use in a drive train at least including an input shaft and an output shaft, said apparatus comprising:
a gear configured to rotate about an axis of rotation;
a traveling shaft supporting said gear for rotation about said axis of rotation and having a pair of opposing ends and said traveling shaft further supported for lateral movement along said axis of rotation such that the gear is movable to a first lateral position to rotate the output shaft responsive to rotation of the input shaft and movable to a second lateral position such that rotation of the input shaft does not rotate the output shaft and wherein one end of the opposing ends of the traveling shaft is a free end; and
a permanent magnet that is fixedly mounted on the free end of said traveling shaft for movement with the traveling shaft to move the gear between the first lateral position and the second lateral position responsive to exposure of the permanent magnet to an external magnetic field.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said permanent magnet includes opposing north and south poles and said traveling shaft supports the permanent magnet with one of the north and south poles facing outward with respect to the free end of the traveling shaft and the other one of the north and south poles confronting the free end of the traveling shaft.

3. The apparatus of claim 2 wherein said permanent magnet is positioned to compensate for an unbalanced condition of the traveling shaft to provide for balanced rotation of the traveling shaft.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising:
an actuator that is configured for producing the external magnetic field to cause said permanent magnet to move said traveling shaft and, thereby, said gear away from the second lateral position to continuously magnetically bias the gear into said first lateral position, and for producing the external magnetic field in an opposite orientation to cause the permanent magnet to move the gear away from the first lateral position to continuously magnetically bias the gear into said second lateral position.

5. The apparatus of claim 4 wherein said actuator includes an actuator permanent magnet that generates the external magnetic field.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said permanent magnet includes a north pole and a south pole that are arranged such that a projection of the north and south poles onto said axis of rotation results in an offset along said axis between projected north and south pole positions.

7. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein said actuator is configured to rotate the actuator permanent magnet to selectively present a like pole and an opposite pole to the permanent magnet to generate the external magnetic field in one orientation and the opposite second orientation.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the gear is fixed to the traveling shaft for co-rotation about the axis of rotation.

Assignees

• Merlin Technology Inc

Inventors

• Mercer John E

Classifications

• F16D21/02 Primary

  for interconnecting three or more shafts or other transmission members in different ways (in endless-track vehicles B62D) · CPC title

• F16D27/004

  with permanent magnets combined with electromagnets · CPC title

• F16H3/30

  with driving and driven shafts not coaxial · CPC title

• Y10T74/19251

  Control mechanism · CPC title

• F16D27/01

  with permanent magnets · CPC title