Reciprocating floor conveyor

Abstract

A reciprocating floor conveyor has at least three groups of one or more individually reciprocatable slat members. A drive engages each slat group and moves more than half of the slat members simultaneously in a conveying direction and moves the remainder of the slat members in the opposite direction at least at about twice the rate of speed. The drive includes a fluid pressure source, a flow divider connected to the fluid pressure source which provides a separate, equal rate of flow for each slat group, a separate extensible fluid driven cylinder for reciprocation of each slat group that is connected to a separate flow from the flow divider, a direction valve for each fluid driven cylinder which controls fluid flow into and out of the cylinder, and an unloading valve communicating with the interconnected rod sides of the fluid driven cylinders. The direction valves each have a first position in which the piston side of the fluid driven cylinder is connected to the flow divider such that the fluid driven cylinder and the engaged slat member extend, and a second position in which the rod side of the fluid driven cylinder is connected to the flow divider such that the fluid driven cylinder and the engaged slat member retract. The unloading valve, in one position, directs flow from the extending cylinders to accelerate the retracting cylinder. The retracted cylinder remains stationary in its retracted position until one of the extending cylinders has extended a predetermined distance.