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(A drag & push luggage trolley can do 3 works - LIFT, MOVE & PLACE the luggage)

 INTRODUCTION:

 Here is to a  new device that lets you   do LIFT, MOVE  and  PLACE your  own  luggage  yourself  with ease  without  depending porters/others   while you are at  the Air Port/ Railway  and Bus Stations. Of course, the trolleys now available at the air Port/ Railway Stations can help us to carry our luggage. But this trolleys will not help us to  lift the luggage from the conveyor belt in Air Ports/from Trains or to place it in vehicles. Now this Mechanical porter comes to your rescue  and this single machine can do all this  three works (LIFT, MOVE & PLACE)  that  a manual porter  can do - so it is called Mechanical Porter.

          Actually Mechanical porter replaces the need of lifting/placing  the luggage because we can able to raise/lower the luggage platform of the trolley  to the level/height  of the luggage ( where as the plat form  in the  conventional  trolley  is fixed).  Here all we have to do now is just DRAG or PUSH  the luggage. So it is otherwise called DRAG & PUSH trolley. Even  your  small child can able to  lift you  to a height of  4 feet  by just pedaling by hand or foot.

          This machine is cost effective.  It may  be noted here  that some  kind of  very costly lifting  machines (with motorized hydraulic  jockeys) are usage at industries. But this mechanical porter runs on  simple mechanism  without motors, batteries  or costly hydraulic  jockeys. Actually the commuters  uses the trolleys occasionally for  small movement of 5 to  10 minutes and thus there is no need of  motorizing  this machine. More over motorizing this machine make pollute the busy Air port/Railway stations besides makes it costlier and subject to periodical maintenance as well.  Thus  the  pedaling system in this  mechanical porter makes this machine  not only cost effective but also maintenance free and power free  and thus environmental free also. The applications of this machine is  not only  restricted with Air Port and Railway stations but also has wide range of usage at  homes, Departmental stores and libraries  as well.

 AIM OR OBJECT OF INVENTION:

The rationale behind the construction of the model is the absolute necessity for avoiding the physical hard work in LIFTING and PLACING HEAVY LUGGAGES at the Air Port Railway Stations by the commuters( especially women  &old age  and Physically challenged people) from Train/Conveyor belt to trolley and trolley to car or to other vehicle. 

 THE PRESENT SYSYEM:

At the Air port or Railway Station or Bus stations, at present the trolleys are available, giving the helping hand to the passengers to carry the luggage from one place to another. Even then, the passengers find it very difficult to lift their heavy luggage from the conveyor belt (at Air ports) or from train or other vehicles to the trolley and from trolley to vehicles (outside the Airport/Railway Stations/Bus Stations). For this work, they have to be dependent on porters or some helping minded people.  Lifting the luggage IN/OUT of trolley is more troublesome for the lady passengers, senior citizens and physically challenged people, especially when they travel alone. Likewise there is a risk of allowing strangers inside the house as the  house wives at homes depending some body  to lift and carry  gas cylinders(30Kg) and water bottle(20 lt) and other heavy domestic things.

 SOURCE OF IDEA:

     I am Masha Nazeem, a girl student who designed this device.  I used to go by air often to attend various science expos and seminars. At times, I had to travel alone.  While entering into or coming out of the Air port, I felt it very difficult to lift the luggage at various points.  The trolley available at Airports helps the passengers only to move the heavy luggage from one place to another. But lifting the same at various points at the Air Ports is something difficult for the passengers of above mentioned category. This problem exists not only in Indian Air Ports but also in all over the world including Dubai and Tokyo - the Air Ports I have visited so far. This led me to design �A Lift  Carry & Place Trolley�, otherwise called MECHANICAL PORTER.

THE  BASIC FACTORS IN DESIGNING THE MECHANICAL PORTER

While designing the Mechanical Porter the following concepts are taken in to account.

  Economically viable.  The present model of  the trolley that is used in  the Air port is very simple,  and maintenance free.  So the new solution should  be  even more simple, less maintenance  and  economical  at the same time with more  added facility.

  Commercially viable.  The model should be a commercially viable alternate to the existing model available in the market in terms of price.

 Customer friendly: The targeted users  of  this  product are weaker sections of  the society. � such as old age people,  physically challenged people, ladies and boys & girls. So the handling of the machine should be very easy.  

 Environmental  friendly: The places where this machine  actually put in use are thickly populated  busy areas (Air port/Railway Station).  So this machine should be  environmental friendly.  So the usage of motors or batteries should be avoided.

 Exploiting users psychology: The people  who use this machines are only occasional users. The pedaling work that they have to do is neither  an additional job nor a full time job. As the passengers  remain idle in their seat  in a same position for a long time during their travel, they will feel happy to  do this  one minute   easy manual  work  as a warming up exercise.

Universal application:  A product should be successful if it has a domestic usage. So the design should be of universal application in domestic, libraries, departmental stores and Hospitals and  now even the house wives  can carry  carrying gas, water bottles  to kitchens  without allowing strangers inside the houses.

 

HOW DOES IT HELPS IN  LIFTING THE  OBJECTS ?

  With the help of this trolley, we can easily drag the luggage from the conveyor belt or from train coaches towards the trolley by moving the platform of the trolley to the desired height. Here we need not lift the luggage. All we have to do is just drag the luggage. Again by rotating the pedal we can move the platform little bit down and adjust the level of the already placed suitcase/box again to the level of the conveyor belt or train.  Now, drag and load the second luggage and so on. Like wise, we can place  the luggage in the car by pushing the luggage one by one by adjusting the level of the platform to the necessary height. Thus, by doing the simple things, �Drag & Push�, we can easily move heavy luggage from one place to another comfortably without straining much  and without expecting help from others in lifting the same

 

CONSTRUCTION AND OPERATION OF SCISSOR MECHANISM

 This machine is as same as the luggage trolley with slight modifications. In the existing trolley the luggage platform is fixed. But in the MECHANICAL PORTER, this Platform is movable with the help of steel plates arranged in a scissor like lifting mechanism. This scissors can be move up and down slowly by a rotation of a  pedal. When we rotate the  pedal clockwise, the platform of the trolley moves upwards and vice versa. Actually, when we activate through the pedal, it will  move the scissor mechanism to move in a gliding bar  and as this result the scissor move upwards/downwards. Thus with the help of scissor type mechanism we can able to raise the carriage platform to the maximum level of 4 feet by moving the sliding bar to just  4 inches along the stud by pedaling .  So the user feel easier in lifting objects through this machine than lifting objects by hand directly.

 

CONSTRUCTION AND OPERATION OF GEAR SYSTEM WITH CABLE.

(Latest Model)

Here the platform tray  is  designed in such a way that it can be freely movable vertically  up and down along the  3 feet high square pipe.  The Platform tray is connected to a  horizontal gliding bar  with 2 rivets and connecting clamps so that the  entire tray is lies in suspension on the gliding bar.  Each  end of the  gliding bar is connected to a  6 inches high square pipe(movable)  in such a way  that  this  pipe is  sliding  up and down along the  inside walls of  the outer (fixed) square pipe. This horizontal gliding  bar is connected to a steel  rope  at the centre and the other end  is vertically fixed with a gear system. When the gear rotates the  metal rope also rotates and get  wound up in the bobbin of the gear box.  This results in upward movement of the rope and the connected gliding bar and the tray upward and downward. The gear box enables lifting of heavy objects with  effortless rotations  of the gear box.

 

 

  

VARIOUS MODELS OF MECHANICAL PORTER:

 1.  Screw rod with Cycle pedal (Hand Pedaling):

Actually, when we activate through the hand lever, it will rotate a threaded steel stud or shaft which moves over a two bolts fixed on  sliding bars. This two  nuts are fixed on the centre of the  sliding  bars which slide  over the U channels on either side of the stud. By movement of threaded stud  by pedaling,  the nuts get screwed along the stud which in turn move the  two sliding bars  in opposite direction.   Actually the sliding bars moves in opposite direction when pedaling because the stud is threaded in such a way- half  portion of the stud is threaded in clock wise direction and remaining portion is in anti clockwise direction. Thus, while pedaling  the sliding  bars moves equal distance in opposite direction.  The advantage of double side- opposite threading   minimizes the rotation of pedaling  and provides  stronger grip to the machine  so that the machine can withstands even  loading  of heavy weights up to the maximum of 100 Kilos. The sliding arm (bottom rib) of the scissors type jack fixed on the either side of  the sliding bars.

  Result:  This the first level model. Though this  system   works well it has some operational  demerits. The use has to do as many as 30 more rotations to lift the object to 4 feet is high.  As the hand pedaling system is connected by chain in upward direction, it  causes inconvenience to the users. There are possibilities of staining of dresses of the user  by the lubricants used in the chain  and  the dresses will get trapped into the chain at times. So to avoid this, foot pedaling system was developed.

 Advantages

  • Succeeded in  lifting heavy object without much strain

Disadvantages

  Loss of energy due to pedaling from distance position.

  40 pedaling rotation to achieve 3 feet height.

  Staining of dresses by the lubricants used in the chain.

  Weight of the trolley  is very high.

 Specifications

  Weight                                     :  44 Kgs.

  No. of Threads in one inch     :  8

  Thread Type                           :  Normal (BSW)

  Scissor Type                           :  Double step.

  Displacement of glide bars

            to achieve 3 feet height          :  4 inch

  Degree of rotation                   :  360 per rotation.

  No of Rotations                       :  (40 Rotations)

  Pedaling                                  : By hand

 . Credits

National Level First Prize by NIF(National Innovation Foundation), ,Ahmadabad under Dept. of Science and Technology, Govt. of India.

                                       

2. Screw rod and spur gear system -  (foot pedaling)

             A spur gears system consists of 3 pair of wheels is fixed on the stud. The flywheel fixed in the gear system gets rotated while pedaling by foot. The fly wheel in turn rotates the gear system slowly. A shift  liver is also  fixed  in the gear system to change the rotation of the stud to clockwise/anti clock wise.   When we turn the shift lever to RIGHT side, the right  wheel  get contacted  with the central wheel. As this right   wheel rotates in clock wise direction it will in turn moves the stud  and sliding arm  forwardly   resulting in the upward motion of the carriage platform. When we move the  shift  lever to LEFT side, the right wheel released and the left wheel get contacted  with the   central wheel. As the left wheel rotates in anti clock wise  direction, the platform moves downwards while pedaling.

 

mech1 copy.jpgSpecifications

  Weight                                   :  35 Kgs.

  No. of Threads in one inch     :  8

  Thread Type                           :Normal(BSW)

  Scissor Type                           :  Double step.

  •  
  • Displacement of glide bars

to achieve 3 feet height          : 4 inch

 

  • Degree of Stroke                    :  35 to 40  per 

                                                stroke.

 

 

 

Dis advantages

 

  The pedaling system in this model is as same as the system in sewing machine.

 

  The fly wheel system failed to give initial momentum to rotate the gear and the stud.

 

Result

  The fly wheel system fails to give initial momentum to rotate the  gear and the stud. This model abandoned.

 

 

3. Screw rod and Ratchet wheel  system-( foot pedaling)

       Here a ratchet wheel is fixed  directly on the screw rod .  The screw rod  gets rotated by  pedaling the  arms of the ratchet wheel.

 Specifications:

  Weight                                   :  30 Kgs. Masha MP 2e.jpg

  No. of Threads in one inch:  4

  Thread Type                          :  ACME

  Scissor Type                         :  Three  step.

  • Displacement of glide bars to

           achieve 3 feet height           : 1 inch

 

  • Degree of Stroke                  :  35 to 40  per           

                                                   Stroke.

  

 

 

Advantages

  •  Foot pedaling is very easier to the user.   So work load reduced.
  •  Load directly applied. So there is no loss of energy
  •  ACME Thread used. So movement of gliding bars along the stud faster.
  •  Displacement of gliding bars to achieve 3 feet height is just 1 inch.
  •  Three step scissors used. This minimizes the pedal strokes.
  •  Foldable handle bar facility. So easy portability of Trolley.

 

Disadvantages

  •  Friction in the rib during the initial upward movement.

Credits

First Prize in International Competition - Kurushetra - Conducted by Anna University under the patronage of UNESCO

 

4. Cable and Gear system  using scissor mechanism( hand pedaling ):

         The chain block gear system is used here as  lifting mechanism. For this the input and out puts of the chain blocks are further modified and adopted here. The input has been modified as the hand lever  and the out put of the chain block system has been modified into the space for roller wherein  a steel cable wound up when we rotate the pedal. When we rotate the hand pedal  clock wise  the steel cable which is connected with the scissor mechanism through 3 pulleys in turn moves the stud of the scissor mechanism up wards. When we rotate the hand lever  anti clock wise direction, the scissors comes  to downward position. Thus with the help of steel cables and the modified chain block we can lift heavy objects up and down easily.

 

Advantages

�          The number of rotations has been reduced to 12.

�          Very easy to lift heavy objects.

�          Foldable handle bar facility. So easy portability of Trolley.

 

Specifications:

  • Weight                                   :  30 Kgs.

 

  No. of Threads in 1 inch     :  Cable System

  Thread Type                          :Cable System

  Scissor Type                         :  Three  step.

  • Displacement of glide bars to

           achieve 3 feet height           : 2 inches

 

  Degree of rotation                :  360 per rotation.

                                            (12 Rotations)

 LATEST MODEL

 

5.Cable and Gear system without  using scissor mechanism( hand pedaling )

 

        Here the platform tray  is  designed in such a way that it can be freely movable vertically  up and down along the  3 feet high square pipe.  The Platform tray is connected to a  horizontal gliding bar  with 2 rivets and connecting clamps so that the  entire tray is lies in suspension on the gliding bar.  Each  end of the  gliding bar is connected to a  6 inches high square pipe(movable)  in such a way  that  this  pipe is  sliding  up and down along the  inside walls of  the outer (fixed) square pipe. This horizontal gliding  bar is connected to a steel  rope  at the centre and the other end  is vertically fixed with a gear system. When the gear rotates the  metal rope also rotates and get  wound up in the bobbin of the gear box.  This results in upward movement of the rope and the connected gliding bar and the tray upward and downward. The gear box enables lifting of heavy objects with effortless rotations  of the gear box.

 

Advantages

�          The number of rotations has been reduced considerably.

�           Effortless rotation even to lift very heavy objects

�          Foldable handle bar facility. So occupies less floor

space and  easy     portability.

�          Market ready sleek model.

�          Simple maintenance free mechanism.

�         Less weight but lift heavy objects.

 

ADVANTAGES OF MECHANICAL PORTER

 

1     MECHANICAL PORTER is a very useful device and will be very handy to use in Airports, Railway Stations, Bus Terminals, Hospitals etc., to lift and move heavy luggage and baggage.(Refer photograph)

2      MECHANICAL PORTER has various other domestic applications also. Now  the home care takers can lift, carry and place the heavy objects such as gas cylinders(30Kg), mineral water(20 liters cane) to the height up to 4 feet very comfortably without the help of others. Thus handling of heavy  material  at homes becomes easier.(Refer Photograph)

3     Also this MECHANICAL PORTER has wide range of utilities in commercial departmental stores, and central libraries in the educational institutions etc.

4     At present, no such multi purpose devices, for lifting, carrying and  placing the objects simultaneously, in the above mentioned places, are available anywhere in the world.

5     This machine is cost effective. In large scale production the price may lesser than the conventional trolleys.

6     Actually the commuters  uses the trolleys occasionally for  small  movement of 5 to  10 minutes and thus there is no need of  motorizing  this machine. More over motorizing this machine make pollute the Air port/railway stations besides makes it costlier and subject to periodical maintenance as well.  Thus  the  pedaling system in this  mechanical porter makes this machine  not only cost effective but also maintenance free and power free  and thus environmental free also Mechanical porter is Environmental friendly.

The platform tray  freely movable vertically  up and down along  the square pipe. 

 

The Platform tray is connected to a  horizontal gliding so that the  entire tray is lies in suspension on the gliding bar.