Roller Slide Views
FIG. 2A illustrates a partial view of a side elevation of the slide portion of a children's playground slide with a first form of slide surface shown edge-on as a dashed line with roller cylinders shown in phantom and FIG. 2B shows another partial view of a side elevation of the slide portion of a children's playground slide with the closer ends of the roller cylinders shown in dashed phantom lines and the farther roller cylinders shown in dotted phantom line; and
Slide portion 14 includes side support rails 18 joined together by cross struts 20. As shown in FIG. 3, cylindrical bearings 22 are coupled by fasteners 24 to the side support rails 18. Roller cylinders 26 are rotatably coupled to the cylindrical bearings 22, and the plurality of the cylinders 26 cooperate to form a sliding surface 27 for the children (see the phantom dash line in FIG. 2A illustrating one path of the sliding surface). The longitudinal spacing 28 (see FIG. 2A) of the roller cylinders 26 is also chosen to prevent a child from entangling clothing or from passing hands or fingers between the roller cylinders 26.
In addition to having excellent sliding performance and safety characteristics, the sliding surface 27 of the slide 10 can readily be designed to achieve a variety of geometries. For example, as shown in FIG. lB and in FIG. 2, the roller cylinders 26 and the coupled cylindrical bearings 22 can be positioned at various locations and angles relative to the sides of support rails 18. In FIG. 2A, the resulting sliding surface has an undulating, or sinusoidal, geometry and in FIG. 2B the sliding surface has undulations both longitudinally and also transversely. This latter geometry requires the bearings 22 to be mounted at a slight angle relative to perpendicular to the side support rails 18. This versatility in constructing sliding surfaces clearly allows construction of unusual geometries which can include small hills, turns in the sliding surface and other complex geometries which were heretofore extremely difficult to provide using conventional slide construction techniques.
a slide portion including side support rails, cylindrical bearing housings coupled to and extending inwardly from each side of said side support rails and a plurality of roller cylinders with each of said roller cylinders disposed as a single continuous unit between said side support rails, and said cylinders matingly disposed circumferentially about an associated inwardly extending cylindrical bearing, each pair of said cylindrical bearings supporting only a fraction of the length of each associated said roller cylinder and said plurality of cylinders defining a sliding surface; and
Roller Slide Images
