CA1213931A - Vertical filing cabinet - Google Patents

Abstract

ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE

An apparatus for the suspension filing of sheet articles having perforations extending along their upper edges, of the type including a pair of spaced, parallel guide rails and a plurality of suspension carriages extend-ing between and movably mounted on the guide rails, sus-pension compartments being defined between adjacent car-riages. A system maintains each suspension carriage parallel to itself during its movement along the guide rails; each suspension rack consists of a main bar fitted with carrier pins for the sheet articles and end flanges normal to the main bar and extending along the respective guide rails; a coupling lever and a coupling lug are mounted on the end flange at the same end of each suspension carriage, with the coupling lever of a carriage removably engaging the lug of the rearwardly-adjacent carriage to retain the associated compartment in the closed condition; the rearmost lug being stationsy; the system further includes a locking device mounted at the same end as said latching levers but only on the frontmost suspension carriage, said locking device including a lever operated, spring-biased plunger engageable with anyone of two holes longitudinally spaced along the same guide rail at a location to lock the frontmost carriage in either an intermediate position or a fully-open position. The handles of the coupling levers and of the locking lever extend along-side of the bars of the respective suspension carriage for ease in their selective operation. Manipulation of the sus-pension carriages to select a specific suspension compartment can be effected with a single hand

Description

lZ~39~31 fIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to vertical filing cabinets for the removable storage of large sheets, such as maps, plans, drawings and the like, and having perforations extending along their upper edges.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Cabinets for the suspension filing of large sheets have been in use for some time. The major problem associated with such filing cabinets has been to provide easily-manipulated suspension carriage handling systems for retrievingor filing a selected sheet and which allows the carriages to be locked in closed position. It is highly desirable that all these manipulations be carried out with one hand.
Canadian Patent 1,152,143 relates to a filing cabinet of the above type, in which manipulation of the suspension car-riages can be carried by one hand. However, the coupling and locking systems described in this Patent are quite complicated and expensive to manufacture, since they require coupling and locking at both ends of each suspension carriage. Moreover, in this Patent, a handle protrudes upwardly from the center of each suspension carriage constituting an impediment to the handling of large sheets to be filed or retrieved from selected suspension compartments.
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
In view of the above, it is the ge~eral-object of the invention to provide a filing cabinet of the suspension type, in which the suspension carriages can be easily manipu-lated with one hand to move the same by providing at one end of the suspension carriages easily-manipulated coupling levers to couplethe various suspension carriages to each other,and on the frontmost carriage a locking lever to lock the latter to the cabinet in either intermediate or fully-open condition.

~nother object of the invention is to provide a filing

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cabinet in which the guide rails are so shaped so as to form a guiding track for the carraiges and to form part of the means to maintain the carriages parallel to themselves during their movement.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
-The apparatus according to the present invention is for the suspension filing of sheet articles having perforations extending along their upper edges. The apparatus comprises a pair of spaced parallel guide rails, each having a front and rear end; a frame for supporting said rails; a plurality of suspension carriages extending between and movably mounted on said guide rails, whereby suspension compartments are being defined between adjacent suspension carriages, each suspension carriage comprising a transverse bar end flanges fixed to both ends of the bar and normal thereto; intergageable means between each end of each carriage and each guide rail for maintaining the carriages parallel to themselves during movement along the guide rails; and suspension carrier pins mounted on the bars and positioned to engage the perforations in the articles to be filed, these carrier pins being oppositely directed and in staggered relationship to each other from the carriages defining each compartment.
In this apparatus, each pair of adjacent suspension carriages can be moved relative to each other from a closed condition of the associated suspension compartment, wherein the carrier pins of each bar extend across a suspension compartment~
to an intermediate condition in which the carrier pins of the two suspension carriages at least partially overlap each other, and to an open condition in which the carrier pins of the two suspension carriages are spaced apart to permit removal of articles suspended on the pins.
The apparatus according to the invention further includes a hand-operated latch for releasably couplingeach suspension carriage to its rearwardly adjacent carriage. This latch comprises a coupling lever and a coupling lug removably ~, ~

~;~13~31 engageable with the lug of the rearwardly-adjacent suspension carriage, so as to retain the associated compartment in the closed condition. These coupling levers are pivotably mounted onto their carriages and preferably weight unbalanced to be biased under gravity in lug-engaging condition. Each coupling lever extends alon and over the first end flange of the associated carriage and is provided with an operating handle at one end and with a coupling lug-engaging hook at the other end.
The apparatus according to the invention further includes a handle-operated lock including a spring-biased plunger adapted to laterally protrude from the end flange of the frontmost suspension rack to automatically engage anyone of the two selected holes made in the guide rail and positioned to correspond to the fully-open condition and to the intermediate condition, respectively. The plunger is retrac-table under the action of a plunger-releasing lever provided with an actuating handle.
In accordance with the ivnention, the handle of the coupling lever extending along the first end flange of each carriage extends perpendicularly to said first end flange spacedly over the top of the transverse bar of the carriage to enable a user's hand to simultaneously press down on said handle to uncouple the carriage from the rearwardly-adjacent carriage and pull the carriage forwardly by engagement of its transverse bar.
Moreover, the plunger-releasing lever of the lock is mounted on the frontmost carriage adjacent the first end flange of said frontmost carriage and the handle of this plunger-releasing lever extends along the transverse bar of the frontsmot suspension carriage, forwardly of the same, whereby a user's hand can simultaneously press said last-named handle against the transverse bar of said frontmost carriage to move the same along said guide rails.
Due to the particular arrangement and positioning, the handles of the plunger-releasing lever and coupling lever ~13~

associated with the frontmost suspension carriage, can be simultaneous operated using one hand only.
Preferably, e~ch rail consists of a sheet metal member which, when seen in cross-section, defines a lower shoulder, an intermediate indentation and an upper shoulder. The end flanges carry rollers riding on the upper shoulders and vertical rollers riding on the inside face of the indentation, while the lower shoulder supports a chain fixed thereto and with which meshes a sprocket wheel, there being a sprocket wheel at each end of each suspension carriage with both sprocket wheels secured to a common shaft extending below and along the bar of the suspension carriage. These shafts, sprocket wheels and chains constitute in practice said means for maintaining the carriages parallel to themselves during their movement.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
Figure 1 is a perspective view of a filing cabinet according to the invention showing the frontmost suspension carriage in fully-open position;
Figure 2 is a cross-section of some of the carriages - 4a -and taken through their main bar and looking at the end rlanges of the carriages supporting th~e coupling levers;
Figure 3 is a cross-section taken across the two guide rails and showing the suspension carriage which is rearwardly adjacent to the frontmost carriage; and Figure 4 is a plan section taken through the locking plunger arrangement and looking at the frontmost suspension carriage, and also showing this carriage moving to its intermediate position.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Referring to Figure l, there is shown a filing cabinet l having a pair of spaced lateral walls 2 and a rear wall 3.
The front of cabinet 1 is left open, although a front wall could be provided; and a cover could also be provided for the top of cabinet l.
As best seen in Figure 3, the uper edges of lateral walls 2 form inturned flanges and are reinforced by angle bars 2'. A pair of guide rails 4 are secured on top of the two lateral walls in spaced parallel relationship. Each guide rail 4 is made of sheet metal bent to form, when seen in cross-section, a lower shoulder 5, an intermediate indentation 6 and an upper shoulder 7. Guide rails 4 are designed to movably support a plurality of suspension carriages, namely:
a frontmost carriage 8A, one or more intermediate carriages -8B and a rearmost carriage 8C, there being defined a'suspension compartment A between each pair of adjacent carriages and also between the rearmost caxriage 8C and the rear wall 3.
Each suspension carriage 8A, 8B, and 8C includes a transverse extending rigid main bar 9 having its opposite ends movably mounted in the guide rails 4. Each suspension carriage and rear wall 3 are provided with carrier pins 10 and 10' which are adapted to engage top perforations 12 in large sheetsll to be suspended within the respective , t compartments A. In each suspension compartment, the carrier pins 10 extend -towards the back of the apparatus, whilè carrler pins 10' extend towards the front of the apparatus. Carrier pins 10 and 10' are arranged ln staggexed relationship. In the closed position of all the carriages, the pins 10, 10' abut the main bar 9 of the adjacent carriage and, similarly, the carrier pins 10, 10' of the rearmost compartment abut rear wall 3 and the main bar of carriage 8C, as clearly shown in Figure 1.
As is well know~, for instance in Canadian Patent 1,152,183, each suspension compartment A takes an intermediate condition in which the carrier pins 10 and 10' just overlap each other at their outer ends, in order to be able to select a particular sheet article to be retrieved or make room for .
a sheet to be filed in a specific place, this being effected by -transferring the sheets on the pins 10 or 10' and leave a space at the desired filing position. Also, the suspension carriages must be moved so as to provide for an open conditinn of the selected suspension compartment A, in order to insert or retrieve the desired sheet article. In Figure 1, the suspension compartment defined by carriages 8A and 8B is in fully-open condition. The main bar 9 of each suspension carriage 8A, 8B, and 8C is fixed at both ends to an end flange 18 which is normal to said main bar 9. Each end flange-18 carries a guide .
wheel 17, having a vertical axis, which extends below end flange 18 to rollingly engagé the inner surface of identation 6.
Each end flange 18 is further provided with two rollers 19 having a horizontal axis and rollingly engageable with the upper shoulder 7 of each guide rail 4. Means are further provided to maintain each suspension carriage parallel to itself during its rolling movement along the guide rails 4. These means comprise a stationary chain 15 secured to and extending along the lower shoulder 5 and a sprocket wheel 14 at each end of the suspension i~ - 6 -

3~31 carriage and meshing with the associated chain 15. The two sprocket wheels for each carriage~are rigidly secured to a transverse shaft 16 extending underneath and along thP
main bar 9 and journalled in downward extensions of the end flanges 18. Chains lS, shaft 16, sprockets 14 and guide wheels 17 serve to ensure that each carri~ge 8A, 8B, and 8C
~an be moved longitudinally without jamming when hand-pushed at one end of said carriages. Therefore, it is possihle to provide coupling means to couple each carriage to the rear-wardly-adjacent one, and the rearmost carriage to the frame of the apparatus, and also to provide locking means to lock the frontmost carriage 8A in intermediate or open position with said coupling and locking means all disposed only along one end of the carriages. The locking means include a lock-ing plunger 20 slidably mounted within a casing 24, which is secured to the end flange 18 of the frontmost carriage 8A
at one end of said carriage, normally at the right end of said carriage, as shown in the drawings. Obviously, the plunger 20 could be mounted on the left end of the carriage, if so desired. Casing 24 is fixed only to the frontmost carriage 8A at the level of the portion of the rail 14, level with the shaft of the roller 19. Plunger 20 is urged by a compression coil spring 23 surrounding said plunger to a position abutting the inner surface of the rail 4, so as to selectively engage anyone of two holes 21 and 22 upon displacmeen~ of the front-most carriage 8A from its fully-open position to its inter-mediate position. Therefore, when carriage 8A assumes one of these two positions, the plunger 20 automatically engages the corresponding holes 21 and 22 to automatically lock the frontmost carriage 8A in either one of these two positions.
Plunger 20 can be released from holes 21 or 22 by a plunger-releasing lever 25 which is pivoted at 27 to a bracket 32 secured to bar 9 of the frontmost carraige 8A. Lever 25 has an integrally-formed generally orthogonal tab 2S linked to the inner end of plunger 20 by a transver~e pin 35. The handle of the lever 25 extends alongside the adjacent end portion of main bar 9 Gf the frontmost suspension carriage 8A, being spaced therefrom forwardly of bar 9. Its pivotal ~xis 27 is vertically mounted, so that to release the plunger 2 from either one of holes 21, 22, the lever handle 25 is simply pressed against the main bar 9 by a squeezing action or one's right hand surrounding both the bar 9 and the lever handle 25.
All of the suspension carriages 8A, 8B, and 8C can be selectively coupled to each other, and also the rearmost carriage 8C can be releasably coupled to the rear wall 3 by means of coupling devices, also mounted at the same end of the carriages as the locking device. The frontmost end of each end flange 18, at the right end of the suspension carriages, forms an upwardly-protruding coupling lug 31 having a bevelled end. Similarly, a coupling lug 31A is fixed to the rear end of rail 4. Each end flange 18 at one end of the carriages forms an upwardly-extending lug 33 to which is pivotally mounted a coupling lever 30, which extends longitudinally of the end flange 18 and over the same and which is provided at one end with a hook 28 adapted to releas-ably engage the coupling lug 31 of the rearwardly adjacent suspension carriager while the coupling lever 30 of the rearmost suspension carriage 8C is adapted to releasably engage the stationary coupling lug 31A. Each coupling lever 30 is weight-unbalanced, so that it freely pivots under gravity to a substantially horizontal positio~, in which a downwardly-protruding boss 34 formed on.the end section provided with the hook 28,akuts against the top of the end fl.ange 18. In this position, the hook 28 being bevelled, the coupling lever 30 will automatically engage the coupling lug of the rearwardly adjacent carriage upon closing movement 1~13~3~

of the carriages. The same will apply to the rearmost suspension carriage 8C with its coupling lever 30 automatic-ally engaging the rearmost stationary coupling lug 31a.
Each coupling lever 30 is provided with an integral handle 29 extending at right angle to the coupling lever along and spacedly over the top of the right end of each main bar 9.
Therefore, to uncouple the two suspension carriages or the rearmost suspension carriage 8C from the rear wall 3, in order to have access to a selected suspension compartment, the user's right hand need only be pressed against the selected handle ?.9 and, at the same time, the uncoupled carriage can be moved rearwardly by pulling on the main bar of the same carriage.
This pulling action in the forward direction of the apparatus, that is towards the user standing forwardly of the cabinet, causes all of the carriages forwardly of the selected sus-pension compartment to be moved forwardly until the plunger 20 engages hole 22 at the intermediate condition of the selected susp~nsion compartment. Then the user pushes the sheets on the pins 10 or 10' to form the required filing space.
Then again with his right hand, he releases the plunger 20 by pressing handle 25 of the plunger-releasing lever while pulling the frontmost bar 8A in the front direction toward~
himself until the plunger 20 engages hole 21 in the open condition of the selected suspension compartment. During -. .
this last movement, all of the carriages, forwardly of the selected suspension compartment, remain coupled to one another and to the frontmost carriage 8A, whereby this last movement automatically opens the selected suspension compartment. If the selected suspension compartment is defined by the front-most carriage 8A and the rearwardly-adjacent carriage 8B, again only coupling lever 29 of the frontmost carriage 8A
is actuated to uncouple the two carriages and to pull the frontmost carriage to its intermediate position; then g ~135~
only lever 25 of -the frontmost earriage is aetuated to pull the frontmost earriage to its open condition, as shown in Figure 1. The carriages are loeked in either intermediate condition or open condition to prevent accidental closing or opening movement of the same. To elose any open suspension compartment, it is only necessary to press against plunger-releasing lever 25 while pushing on the frontmost earriage rearwardly, and any uneoupled coupling lever will automatie-ally engage the adjaeent eoupling lug 31 or 31~ due to the ramp aetion at bevelled hooks 28 and eoupling lugs 31, 31~.

Claims (3)

The embodiments of the invention in which an exclusive property or privilege is claimed, are defined as follows:

1. In an apparatus for the suspension filing of sheet articles having perforations extending along their upper edges, said apparatus comprising:
a) first and second spaced parallel guide rails, each having a front and a rear end;
b) a support frame supporting said guide rails;
c) a plurality of suspension carriages extending between and movably mounted on said guide rails, whereby suspension compartments are defined between adjacent suspension carriages, each suspension carriage including a transverse bar and a first and a second end flanges fixed to the opposite ends respectively of said bar and normal thereto; said first and second end flanges extending adjacent and along said first and second guide rails, respectively;
d) interengageable means between the end of each carriage and each guide rail for maintaining the carriages parallel to themselves during movement along said guide rails;
e) suspension carrier pins mounted on the transverse bar of each carriage and positioned to engage the perforations in the articles to be filed, said carrier pins being oppositely directed and in staggered relationship to each other from the bars of the carriages defining each suspension compartment;
f) each pair of adjacent suspension carriages being movable relative to each other from a closed condition of the associated suspension compartment, wherein the carrier pins of each bar extend across said suspension compartment to an intermediate condition in which the carrier pins of the two suspension carriages partially overlap each other, and to an open condition in which the carrier pins of the two suspension carriages are spaced apart to permit removal of articles suspended on the carrier pins;
g) a hand-operated latch for releasably locking each suspension carriage to its rearwardly adjacent suspension carriage, said latch comprising a coupling lever and a coupling lug associated with each suspension carriage, the coupling lever of a suspension carriage being removably engageable with the coupling lug of the rearwardly-adjacent suspension carriage to retain the associated compratment in the closed condition, said coupling lever extending along the first end flange of the carriage and being pivotally connected thereto intermediate its ends, said coupling lever further defining a coupling lug-engaging hook at one end and an operating handle at its other end; and h) a handle operated lock including a spring-biased locking plunger carried by the frontmost one of said suspension carriages adjacent the first end flange, of said frontmost carriage, said spring-biased plunger being urged against said first guide rail and automatically engageable with anyone of two selected holes that are made in said first guide rail and are positioned to correspond to the fully-open condition and to the intermediate condition, respectively, said handle-operated lock also including a plunger-releasing lever pivotally mounted on said frontmost carriage, said plunger-releasing lever having a handle and being connected to said plunger to release the same upon actuation of said handle, the improvements wherein:
i) the handle of the coupling lever extending along the first end flange of each carriage extends perpendicularly to said first end flange spacedly over the top of the transverse bar of the carriage to enable a user's hand to simultaneously pres down on said handle to uncouple the carriage from the rearwardly-adjacent carriage and pull the carriage forwardly by engagement of its transverse bar;

the plunger-releasing lever of the look is mounted on the frontmost carriage adjacent the first end flange of said frontmost carriage; and k) the handle of said plunger-releasing lever also extends along the transverse bar of the frontmost suspension carriage, forwardly of the same, whereby a user's hand can simultaneously press said last-named handle against the transverse bar of said frontmost carriage and grasp said transverse bar of said frontmost carriage to move the same along said guide rails.

2. The improved apparatus as defined in claim 1, wherein an additional coupling lug is stationarily mounted at the rear end of said first rail, adapted to be releasably engaged by the coupling lever of the rearmost one of said suspension carriages.

3. The improved apparatus as defined in claim 1 or 2, wherein each guide rail consists of a sheet metal strip bent to form a first lower shoulder, an intermediate indenta-tion and an upper shoulder, said inter-engageable means between each end of each carriage and each guide rail for maintaining the carriages parallel to themselves during movement along the guide rails, including a chain extending along and fixed to the lower shoulder of each guide rail, a shaft extending along and underneath the main bar of each suspension carriage and journalled in the end flanges thereof, a sprocket wheel fixed to each end of said shaft and meshing with the respect-ive chains, each end flange of each suspension carriage further having longitudinally-spaced horizontal axis rollers rollingly engageable with said upper shoulder, and a vertical axis roller in rolling engagement with the inner surface of said indentation.