EP0355668B1 - Fork prong adjustment device for a fork lift truck - Google Patents

Description

The invention relates to a fork tine adjustment device for forklift trucks with a lifting carriage movable on a lifting frame and with a base support plate connected to the lifting carriage, on which a first guide, this guide preferably consisting of a pair of guide rails, one of which is arranged above and one below is fastened, on which at least one fork tine is slidably mounted, a second guide being fastened to the base plate, this second guide preferably also being composed of a pair of guide rails, one of which is arranged at the top and the other at the bottom, on which at least one further fork tine is slidably mounted, a total of six fork tines being provided, two of which are rigidly connected to one another at a predetermined distance and are arranged on one side of the fork tine adjusting device and are configured on the first, preferably as a pair of guide rails Guide are slidably mounted, two of the six fork tines are also rigidly connected to each other at a predetermined distance and arranged on the other side of the fork tine adjustment device and are slidably mounted on the second guide, which is preferably designed as a pair of guide rails, and between these two pairs of Forks, where each pair consists of two spaced-apart forks, two further forks are slidably mounted, each of which can be operatively connected to a coupling device that can be released during operation, and the guides extend at least substantially over the entire width of the fork adjuster and wherein with each of the middle, ie between the two pairs of fork tines arranged a spacer is operatively connected or at least can be brought. Preferably in both pairs of Forks equal the distance (DE-OS 3420005).

In a known fork adjuster of this type, in which each guide consists of a pair of guide rails, one of which is arranged at the top and one at the bottom of the base support plate, the two middle fork tines are slidably mounted on a third pair of guide rails, so that a total of six Guide rails are required.

The two additional guide rails on which the two middle fork tines are mounted require additional material, in addition to the material for the four guide rails, two of which are used to support one pair of fork tines and the other two to support the second pair of outer fork tines. In addition, manufacturing effort is required to connect these guide rails to the base plate. The material for these guide rails is expensive, and this material also increases the dead weight of the fork tine adjustment device, which is arranged from the front axle of the forklift, so that the dead weight of the fork tine adjustment device reduces the usable payload.

The invention has for its object to reduce the costs for the manufacture of the fork tine adjustment device, namely both the processing costs and the material costs and also to reduce the weight of the fork tine adjustment device.

This object is achieved according to the invention in that each of the two, between the two outer pairs of fork tines, each pair consisting of two forks connected at a fixed distance, arranged fork tines is mounted on the same guide as that of the other Pair of fork tines arranged on the side of the fork tine adjustment device. It is convenient the operative connection that can be produced by the coupling means can be established between one of the two fork tines arranged between the two pairs of fork tines and the pair of fork tines arranged on the same side of the fork tine adjustment device. Another conceivable, but more complex embodiment has its own additional adjusting unit for the middle fork tines. That is, the invention is not limited to omitting the pair of guide rails available in the known prior art, which is only used for the storage of the two inner fork tines, but the idea of the invention also relates to the existing guide rails in addition to the storage of the two middle fork tines use one of the two existing guides to support one of the middle forks. This means that the existing guides, which mostly extend over the entire width of the fork tine adjustment device for practical reasons of manufacture, are used for a further purpose, namely for the storage of the middle tines, one of the guides being assigned to one of the middle fork tines .

This results in a further advantage, namely that the height of the base plate can be reduced in accordance with the omitted upper guide rail, so that there is also an additional saving in material and thus in both costs and weight.

In the case of light fork tine adjustment devices for low payloads, the guide will only consist of an upper guide rail, with each fork tine being supported against the base plate in a sliding manner or by means of a support roller. In normal and heavier fork tine adjustment devices for larger payloads, each guide will consist of a pair of guide rails, one of which is arranged in the upper region of the base plate and one in the lower region.

In the known fork tine adjustment device, two arbitrarily controllable coupling devices are provided, one of which can be used to establish an operative connection between one of the inner fork tines and the base plate. Furthermore, a second, operative connection dependent on the first can be produced by non-controllable magnets between each of the inner fork tines and with a pair of fork tines arranged on the same side.

Such fork tine adjusters serve the task of either being able to pick up three pallets next to one another or only being able to pick up two correspondingly wider pallets next to one another, or two or three identical narrow pallets, for example longitudinal Euro pallets, can also be picked up. An additional task is to either move the picked-up pallets against each other in such a way that they are directly adjacent to one another or to move them apart to such an extent that a space remains between them which makes it possible, for example, when loading railway wagons or trucks with stanchions Retract the loaded load so that the stanchion is in the gap when retracting, while when the load is fully retracted and is behind the stanchion, the pallets can be moved together again.

A cylinder-piston arrangement is assigned to each pair of fork tines as a lateral shift drive, while the two middle fork tines are either carried along by the associated outer pair of fork tines through the coupling means or are held on the guide by friction on the guide.

Figur 1

zeigt eine Seitenansicht des Gerätes.

Figur 2

zeigt eine Vorderansicht des Gerätes mit soweit wie möglich zur Mitte verfahrbaren Gabelzinken.

Figur 3

zeigt ebenfalls eine Vorderansicht des gleichen Gerätes, wobei die Gabelzinken in die Position zur Aufnahme von drei Paletten gefahren sind.

Figur 4

zeigt eine Vorderansicht des gleichen Gabelzinkenverstellgerätes, wobei die Gabelzinken in die Position zur Aufnahme von zwei weit auseinander stehenden bzw. breiten Paletten gefahren sind.

In the drawing, as an embodiment of the subject matter of the invention, a fork tine adjustment device is shown, in which each guide consists of a pair of guide rails.

Figure 1

shows a side view of the device.

Figure 2

shows a front view of the device with forks that can be moved as far as possible to the center.

Figure 3

also shows a front view of the same device, with the fork tines moved into the position for receiving three pallets.

Figure 4

shows a front view of the same fork tine adjustment device, the fork tines being moved into the position for receiving two widely spaced or wide pallets.

The base plate consists of an upper base plate part 1 and a lower base plate part 2, these two base plate parts 1 and 2 being connected to one another by two lateral connecting parts 3 and a central connecting plate 4.

On the upper base plate part 1, two guide rails 5 and 6 are attached. On the lower base plate part 2, two guide rails 7 and 8 are fastened, each of these guide rails 5, 6, 7 and 8 being T-shaped.

The guide rail 5 is encompassed by a guide body which, for manufacturing reasons, consists of two guide body parts 9 and 10, this guide body 9, 10 being connected to the fork tine 11.

In the same way, the guide rail 6 is surrounded by a guide body which consists of both parts 12 and 13 and is connected to the fork tine 22. In a corresponding manner, the guide rail 7 is surrounded by a guide body, which consists of an upper part 14 and a lower part 15, this guide body 14, 15 is connected to the fork tine 11. In a corresponding manner, the head of the guide rail 8 is surrounded by a guide body which is formed from the two parts 16 and 17, this guide body in turn being connected to the fork tine 22.

The fork tine adjustment device has six fork tines 11, 18, 19, 20, 21 and 22.

As already mentioned, the fork tine 11 is connected to the guide bodies 9, 10 and 14, 15. The guide body 9, 10 and the guide body 14, 15 extend so far to the center of the device that they also protrude behind the fork tine 18, the fork tine 18 as well as the fork tine 11 being connected to the guide bodies 9, 10 and 14, 15. Each of the guide bodies 9, 10 and 14, 15 protrudes beyond the fork tine 18, this projecting part forming a stop part 23.

The guide body 12, 13, which comprises the head of the guide rail 6, is connected in the same way to the two fork prongs 21 and 22 and the guide body 16, 17, which comprises the head of the guide rail 8, is also rigid with the fork prongs 21 and 22 connected so that these two prongs 21 and 22 are rigidly connected to each other at a predetermined distance by the guide body 12, 13 and 16, 17.

Accordingly, the fork tines 11 and 18 are connected by the guide bodies 9, 10 and 14, 15 at a predetermined rigid distance to a pair of fork tines 11, 18. The fork tine 19 is connected to two guide bodies 24 and 25, the guide body 24 being slidably mounted on the guide rail 8 and corresponding in structure to the guide body 16, 17 and the guide body 25 being mounted on the guide rail 6 and in its structure being the guide body 12 , 13 corresponds.

The fork tine 20 is connected in a corresponding manner to two guide bodies 26 and 27, the guide body 26 being slidably mounted on the guide rail 5 and essentially corresponding in structure to the guide body 9, 10 and the guide body 27 being mounted on the guide rail 7 and in its structure corresponds to the guide body 14, 15.

With the connecting plate 4, the cylinder 28 of a cylinder-piston unit is connected, the piston rod 29 of which is connected to the fork tine 11. A cylinder 30 of a cylinder-piston unit is also connected to the intermediate plate, the piston rod 31 of which is connected to the fork tine 22.

A coupling means 32, known in its construction, is connected to the guide body 9, 10, through which a connection between the guide body 9, 10 and the fork tine 19 can be produced or released arbitrarily by arbitrary actuation.

A coupling means 33 is connected to the guide body 12, 13, and a connection between the guide body 12, 13 and the fork prong 20 can be established or released by its arbitrary actuation. The coupling means 32 and 33 are controlled together.

If, starting from the position shown in FIG. 2, both coupling means 32 and 33 are opened and the cylinder-piston assemblies 28, 29 and 30, 31 are extended, the fork tines 19 and 20 remain on the guide rails 5, 6, 7 as a result of the friction and 8 in their position which they already had in the position shown in FIG. 2, while the fork pairs 11, 18 and 21, 22 are being moved apart. This situation is shown in Figure 3. However, the coupling means 32 and 33 are closed so that they have an operative connection between the fork tine 19th and the fork pair 11, 18 or fork 20 and the fork pair 21 and 22, and then starting from the position shown in FIG. 2, the cylinder-piston assemblies 28, 29 and 30, 31 are stretched, respectively, the fork 19 moves together with the pair of forks 11, 18 to the outside and the fork 20 moves with the pair of forks 21, 22 to the other side. In the same way as the guide body 9, 10 is extended to a spacer 23 and the guide body 14, 15 is also extended to a spacer 23, the guide bodies 12, 13 are extended to a spacer 36 and the guide body 16, 17 to a spacer 36, wherein the spacer 23 cooperates with the guide body 26, 27 and the spacer 36 with the guide body 25 or 24, so that in this way it is prevented that the two middle prongs 19, 20 move closer together than is permissible or desired during operation .

When the pair of forks 11-18 and 21-22 is moved towards the center of the device, the forks 19 and 20 are moved from the position shown in FIGS. 3 and 4 to the position shown in FIG. It is essential that each of the inner fork tines 19 and 20 is mounted directly on the respectively assigned guide rail 5 or 6 by means of the guide body 24 and 25 or 26 and 27 assigned to them.

Claims (2)

1. Fork-prong adjustment device for lateral displacement of fork prongs (11, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22) of fork lifts, comprising a lift carriage which is movable along a lift frame, and a base-support plate (1, 2, 3, 4) which is connected to the lift carriage and to which is attached a first guide (5, 7) with at least one fork prong (11) displaceably mounted thereto, whereby a second guide (6, 8) is attached to the base-support plate (1, 2, 3, 4) with at least one further fork prong (21) displaceably mounted thereto, whereby a total of six fork prongs (11, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22) is provided, of which two (21 and 22) are rigidly connected to one another at a predetermined distance and are arranged at one side of the fork-prong adjustment device and displaceably mounted onto the second guide (6, 8), and of which another two (11, 18) are also connected to one another at a predetermined distance to form a second pair of fork prongs and displaceably mounted onto the first guide (5, 7), and whereby two further fork prongs (19 and 20) are displaceably mounted between the two pairs of fork prongs (11, 18) and (21, 22), characterised in that each of the fork prongs (19 and 20) arranged between the two pairs of fork prongs (11, 18 and 21, 22) is mounted on the same guide (5, 7 or 6, 8 respectively) as the respective fork-prong pair (11, 18 or 21, 22 respectively) which is arranged on the respective other side of the fork-prong adjustment device.

2. Fork-prong adjustment device according to claim 1, in which each of the fork prongs (19 and 20) arranged between the two fork-prong pairs (11, 18 and 21, 22) is effectively connectable to a coupling means which is releasable at will during operation, characterised in that the effective connections established by means of the coupling means (32 and 33), are established between one of the two fork prongs (19 and 20), which are arranged between the two fork prongs (18, 11 and 21, 22), and the pair of fork prongs (11, 18 or 21, 22 respectively), which are arranged at the same side of the fork-prong adjustment device.

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