Patent Application
20180320662
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The disclosure and prior art relates to rotation restrictor devices and more particularly pertains to a new rotation restrictor device for restricting the speed of rotation of front blades of a decorative windmill in high winds.
An embodiment of the disclosure meets the needs presented above by generally comprising a windmill having a base, a rotor, and a vane. The rotor includes a front blade assembly and a front shaft extending from the front blade assembly. The front shaft is freely rotatable relative to the base. The vane includes a rear blade assembly and a rear shaft extending from the rear blade assembly. The rear shaft is freely rotatable relative to the base. The front blade assembly and the rear blade assembly rotate in opposite directions when blown by wind from a single direction. A linkage couples the front shaft to the rear shaft such that wind pressure on the rear blade assembly counteracts and slows rotation of the front blade assembly.
There has thus been outlined, rather broadly, the more important features of the disclosure in order that the detailed description thereof that follows may be better understood, and in order that the present contribution to the art may be better appreciated. There are additional features of the disclosure that will be described hereinafter and which will form the subject matter of the claims appended hereto.
The objects of the disclosure, along with the various features of novelty which characterize the disclosure, are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part of this disclosure.
The disclosure will be better understood and objects other than those set forth above will become apparent when consideration is given to the following detailed description thereof. Such description makes reference to the annexed drawings wherein:
With reference now to the drawings, and in particular to
As best illustrated in
The vane 20 comprises a rear blade assembly 38. The rear blade assembly 38 includes a plurality of rear blades 40. Each of the rear blades 40 has a substantially flat section which is elongated extending away from the base 14 whereby the vane 20 catches the wind and orients the base 14 such that the front blade assembly 28 is configured to face into the wind. A rear shaft 42 is coupled to and extends from the rear blade assembly 38. The rear shaft 42 couples the rear blade assembly 38 to the base 14. The rear shaft 42 is freely rotatable relative to the base 14. The front blade assembly 28 and the rear blade assembly 38 are configured to rotate in opposite directions when blown by wind. A linkage 50 couples the front shaft 36 to the rear shaft 42 such that wind pressure on the rear blade assembly 38 counteracts and slows rotation of the front blade assembly 28. The linkage 50 further includes a front gear 52 coupled to a distal end 54 of the front shaft 36 relative to the front blade assembly 28. A rear gear 56 is coupled to a distal end 58 of the rear shaft 42 relative to the rear blade assembly 38, The rear gear 56 is directly engaged to the front gear 56. The front gear 52 may be a chain type gear and the rear fear 56 may be a toothed gear as shown in
In use, the windmill 12 is of the generally decorative type wherein function is limited to providing movement to give an indication of wind direction and wind speed. However, the linkage 50 between the rotor 16 and vane 20 effectively restricts rotation speed of the rotor 16 such that the device 12 would give only an indication of high wind speed beyond a threshold wind speed. The windmill 12 is anchored to remain standing in high winds and the restriction of rotation of the rotor 16 serves to prevent damage due to unrestricted high speed rotation.
With respect to the above description then, it is to be realized that the optimum dimensional relationships for the parts of an embodiment enabled by the disclosure, to include variations in size, materials, shape, form, function and manner of operation, assembly and use, are deemed readily apparent and obvious to one skilled in the art, and all equivalent relationships to those illustrated in the drawings and described in the specification are intended to be encompassed by an embodiment of the disclosure.
Therefore, the foregoing is considered as illustrative only of the principles of the disclosure. Further, since numerous modifications and changes will readily occur to those skilled in the art, it is not desired to limit the disclosure to the exact construction and operation shown and described, and accordingly, all suitable modifications and equivalents may be resorted to, falling within the scope of the disclosure. In this patent document, the word “comprising” is used in its non-limiting sense to mean that items following the word are included, but items not specifically mentioned are not excluded. A reference to an element by the indefinite article “a” does not exclude the possibility that more than one of the element is present, unless the context clearly requires that there be only one of the elements.
