Appeal No. 98-2005
Application No. 08/571,156
necessary to actuate or move the actuator pin,
while the motor transmission has 330E of range.
A position feedback sensor monitors the position
of the worm gear and should stop rotation at the
extremes of the 270E range. However, in
practice it does happen that the motor
occasionally moves beyond the 270E range. In
such circumstances, without a stop, the motor
would extend up to 360E of rotation. The motors
typically incorporated into the use systems
allow full rotation, as a limited rotation motor
is unduly expensive. For that reason, the prior
art has typically included a stop to prevent
rotation beyond a greater range (i.e. 330E of
rotation). Thus, as the transmission approaches
330E of rotation, the stop will prevent further
rotation. In the past, the stop often wedges
into the housing structure and locks the gear
motor. One this happens, the system is no
longer functional.
As noted above, appellants’ solution to this problem is
to provide a cushion in the form of spring (40), seen best in
Figures 2 and 3 of the application, for damping the motion of
the stop (42) as it approaches its end of travel at the stop
surface (38) and before it hits the stop surface. This
prevents the stop (42) from impacting against the stop surface
(38) and becoming wedged into the housing so that the system
becomes jammed or locked and is thus no longer functional.
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