Motion conversion mechanism

DETAILED DESCRIPTION Having described my invention in such clear, concise and exact terms as to enable those skilled in the art to understand and practice it, and having described the presently preferred embodiment thereof, I claim: 1.
In a motion conversion mechanism including a housing, spaced levers pivotally mounted on said housing at their respective inner ends and movable about said pivots toward and away from each other to grasp objects therebetween, a reciprocal lever-drive member mounted in said housing, and means operatively connecting said drive member and said lever for causing said levers to move about their respective pivotal mountings in response to reciprocal movement of said drive member, the improvements in said motion conversion mechanism in which said means for operatively connecting said drive member to said levers comprise a pair including (a) a tooth member extending perpendicularly to the axis of reciprocation of said reciprocable lever drive member, (b) means defining a slot for receiving said tooth member and in driving engagement therewith, said reciprocal lever-drive member carrying one of said pair and each of said spaced levers carrying the other of said pair, (c) one of said pair having a convex cam surface formed integrally thereon, (d) the other of said pair having a flat cam engaging surface formed thereon, to provide rolling contact therebetween when said drive member is actuated for reciprocal movement, free of relative movement between the cam surface and the member on which it is integrally formed.




Description:
This invention relates to an improved motion conversion mechanism.
More specifically, the invention concerns an improved motion conversion mechanism for converting reciprocal motion of a drive member to produce pivotal movement of one or more levers with which the drive member is operatively engaged.
In still another respect, the invention concerns an improved motion conversion mechanism of the type described in which the operative connection between the drive member and the lever or levers is a tooth member-receiving slot pair which has surfaces contoured to provide rolling contact therebetween as distinguished from so-called "knife edge" point contact or sliding contact