Improvements in or relating to the braking of belt driven apparatus

832,419. Friction brakes. BEDCO Ltd. Sept. 10, 1958 [Sept. 10, 1957], No. 28552/57. Class 103 (1). In a braking mechanism for a belt-driven apparatus, a brake member in the form of a 'pulley 6 pivoted at 7 is adapted by a helical spring 9 to be located in an inoperative position adjacent stop member 10 in which it lies completely out of the path of the driving belt 5 whilst the latter is being driven by a pulley 1 secured to the take-off shaft 2 of an electric motor and is driving the apparatus through a larger pulley mounted on shaft 4 of the rotary apparatus (e.g. a spin drier), but will be frictionally engaged by the driving belt when the power source is shut off and the inertia of the apparatus takes over the driving of the belt to press the brake member 6 against the belt 5 and bring the latter and the driven apparatus to rest. As shown in Figs. 1 and 2, the brake member 6 is in the form of a pulley having an eccentric or cam-shaped peripheral edge which is moved wholly out of the path of movement of the belt 5 when the driving pulley 1 is being rotated to drive pulley 3 of the rotary apparatus. When the motor driving the pulley 1 is stopped and the inertia of the rotary apparatus takes over the driving of the belt and causes one run of the latter to be taughtened as shown in chain-dotted lines in Fig. 1, such that the belt frictionally engages the peripheral edge of the pulley 6 and rotates the latter in a direction such that the belt 5 is pushed by the pulley farther away from the axis of rotation of the latter as shown in Fig. 2 to perform a braking action on pulley 3.