阅读说明：本技术 用于振动膜的张紧系统 (Tensioning system for a diaphragm ) 是由 塞缪尔·贾斯廷·韦尔奇 帕特里克·B·奥维尔 于 2018-09-04 设计创作，主要内容包括：一种线缆和带轮或导向装置,用于通过多个不平行于鼓肚上-下轴线的角度固定带轮或导向组件或者多个不平行于鼓肚上-下轴线的角度可调带轮或导向组件对圆柱形鼓肚上的可调音振动膜进行准确调音和固定,该线缆和带轮或导向装置内置于或附接至专用鼓框中,或经由开孔或槽附接至具有凸缘的鼓框,或附接至固定在环形鼓框边缘的爪形或钩形装置；通过该线缆和带轮或导向装置,线缆被束紧并进给到张力机构以增加或减小线缆上的张力,从而张紧鼓肚上的振动膜或鼓面；带轮或导向组件的角度可调节为与沿鼓肚的圆周延伸的线缆的自然角度一致。(A cable and pulley or guide for accurate tuning and fixing of a toneable diaphragm on a cylindrical drum shell by means of a plurality of angularly fixed pulleys or guide assemblies that are not parallel to the up-down axis of the drum shell or a plurality of angularly adjustable pulleys or guide assemblies that are not parallel to the up-down axis of the drum shell, the cable and pulley or guide being built into or attached to a dedicated drum frame, or to a drum frame having flanges via apertures or slots, or to a claw or hook-shaped device fixed at the edge of an annular drum frame; through the cable and pulleys or guides, the cable is tightened and fed to a tensioning mechanism to increase or decrease the tension on the cable, thereby tensioning the diaphragm or drumhead on the drum belly; the angle of the pulley or guide assembly can be adjusted to coincide with the natural angle of the cable extending along the circumference of the drum belly.)

1. A tensioning system for tuning and securing an adjustable diaphragm to a cylindrical drum belly, the tensioning system comprising:

a plurality of angled pulley, guide or grommet assemblies attached to or built into one or more drum rims, the pulley, guide or grommet assemblies being fixed or conforming in a manner that best matches the natural angle at which the cable extends along the circumference of the cylindrical drum belly;

a cable threaded between the angled pulleys, guides or grommet assemblies; and

a tensioning mechanism for tightening the cable; wherein

When the tensioning mechanism is tightened:

the tunable film is fixed and stretched at one or more ends of the cylindrical drum belly;

tuning the membrane, and;

the pulley-cable arrangement is stretched to the most suitable cable-pulley geometry.

2. An angled pulley, guide or grommet for a toneable diaphragm tensioning system, wherein,

the fixed angle pulley, guide or grommet assembly has a structure that allows the pulley, guide or grommet to be placed at a fixed angle parallel to a cable extending along the circumference of the cylindrical drum belly for assembly or integration within the drum rim by attachment to or built-in to the drum rim.

3. An angled pulley, guide or grommet for a toneable diaphragm tensioning system, wherein,

the angularly adjustable pulley, guide or grommet assembly includes an upper assembly fixed or built into the drum frame having a geometry that attaches to a rotating or pivoting lower assembly;

a lower assembly pulley, guide or grommet bulge attached to the upper assembly so as to be rotatable or pivotable, and employing a pulley, guide or grommet.

4. A tensioning mechanism mounting bracket for a tunable diaphragm tensioning system comprising:

a geometry separating a tensioning mechanism component from a cylindrical drum belly, located outside the cylindrical drum belly;

a flip, lug, or other geometry for securing the drive gear shaft;

an opening for attaching the winding post to a linkage gear driven by the drive gear shaft.

5. A tensioning mechanism mounting bracket for a tunable diaphragm tensioning system comprising:

a geometry separating a tensioning mechanism component from a cylindrical drum belly, located outside the cylindrical drum belly;

an opening for attaching the winding post to the linkage gear;

geometry for attaching a tensioning mechanism mounting plate using a lug or flip and a spool for a drive gear shaft with a driven gear or a planetary gear.

6. A wrapping post for wrapping a cable, wire, rope or cord comprising:

a cylindrical shaft;

wherein the cylindrical shaft uses one or more flanges to prevent the spooled cable from slipping off the end.

7. The device of claims 2-3, wherein

A bracket mounted on the cylindrical drum belly receives or houses an angled pulley, pulley housing, guide or grommet.

8. The device of claims 2-3, wherein

An alignment guide, lip, protrusion, ridge or boss is integrated within the pulley, guide or grommet assembly for guiding the attachment point to its proper alignment position.

9. The device of claim 2 or 3, wherein

Angled pulley, guide or grommet assemblies built into or attached to the claw members to hook the sides of the annular drum rim;

the claw members use a container, gasket, or interface to receive a hook and loop fastener, set screw, washer, or other form of attachment to the annular drum rim.

10. The device of claim 3, wherein

A member that sets an angular stop point is integrated into the angularly adjustable pulley, guide or grommet assembly to limit the range of movement or rotation of the housing angle.

11. The device of claim 3, wherein

The adjustment bolt is threaded into a component within the upper assembly that is received by the lower assembly pulley, guide or grommet bulge so that the angle of the pulley can be manually adjusted when the adjustment bolt is engaged.

12. The device of claims 4-5, wherein

The drop down damper tensioning mechanism is received or attached to the tensioning mechanism mounting bracket.

13. The device of claims 4-5, wherein

A top bracket member is used to receive or flip open one or both sides of the drive gear shaft.

14. The device of claims 4-5, wherein

The contact points of the mounting bracket are in accordance with the geometry of the underlying surface.

15. The device of claim 6, wherein

One or more recessed receptacles for receiving a ball, crimp or other structure protruding from one or both ends of the cable so that the cable can be wound around the ball or crimp;

the receiving portion is in linkage with a through opening or slot in the cylindrical shaft, wherein the size of the receiving portion is greater than the size of the through opening;

the cable, wire or cord is fully threaded into the opening in the cylindrical shaft so that the cable does not become loose from the shaft before the cable is unscrewed from the through opening.

16. The device of claim 6, wherein two or more through openings are used on the shaft to facilitate threading one or both ends of the cable through the shaft and back through the linkage openings to facilitate cinching the cable to the shaft.

17. A retrofit kit comprising the device of claim 2.

18. A retrofit kit comprising the device of claim 3.

19. A retrofit kit comprising the device of claim 4.

20. A retrofit kit comprising the device of claim 5.

Background

For a musical drum, whichever type of drum, the drumhead must be properly tensioned (or tuned) prior to playing. The conventional drumhead tensioning system (fig. 13) includes a system having a threaded tension rod 42 and a bracket 40. The bracket 40 having the internal female screw part is bolt-fastened to the outside of the drum belly 10. A tension rod 44 having an external male threaded portion 42 is inserted through an opening in a tension drum frame 50 secured to the rim of drumhead 20. The respective tension rod 44 is then screwed into the bracket 40 on the drum belly 10. When tuning the drum, each tension rod 44 is tightened and the drumhead is fully tuned by striking the drumhead 20 with a mallet or by gently striking the drumhead at locations near each tension rod 44, gradually bringing the entire drumhead to the desired tension and tone quality.

Since tightening of any tension rod affects the overall tension, the process must be repeated multiple times to achieve the final tension on the drumhead. If the drum has a drumhead at each end, the entire process is repeated for each drumhead. The method has the following defects: the connection of the frame to the drum belly requires that the drum belly have a large number of openings therethrough, which not only adversely affects sound quality, but also significantly increases manufacturing costs. More importantly, the drum cannot be tuned quickly during the performance, since the tap-and-pull tuning method is not only time consuming but also requires a quieter environment to be able to hear the tone at the location of each tension rod. When striking the drum surface at a location near the edge or tension bar, the sound volume is significantly lower than when striking the drum at the center of the drum surface. Striking the central position of the drumhead to check the overall tuning is effective only when all the tension rods are equally adjusted. For a bottom drumhead, the drum must also be removed from the drum stand and turned over and the process repeated. A music performance venue in the field may not provide the time needed or a quiet environment and therefore tuning or retuning during the performance is not possible. These problems are also commonly present in other musical instruments having similar membrane-shell structures.

Existing devices for tuning drums by tensioning cables are impractical or disadvantageous for several reasons:

they are very complex mechanisms involving a large number of moving parts which are susceptible to improper adjustment and therefore do not meet the requirements of percussion players (see us patent No.9,349,355 fig. 2).

They require the use of a dedicated drum to take advantage of their particular tuning mechanism and are therefore useless to percussion players using a standard drum kit (see us patent No.7,488,882).

They require the use of bulky components or separate hand tools (see us patent No.795,034).

They relate to a pulley (pulley) housing device which is fixed parallel to the upper-lower axis of the drum belly and does not allow the angle of the pulley to vary with the angle at which the cable extends along the circumference of the drum belly (in fig. 10 (prior art), the pulley is fixedly placed parallel to the drum belly so that the cable passes around the pulley at an oblique angle), and (fig. 1 shows the path along which the cable extends along the circumference of the drum and illustrates that during extension along the circumference of the drum, the cable cannot leave the parallel pulley on an axis perpendicular to the pulley axis because the pulley is parallel to the drum belly). In the latter case, the angle of inclination at which the cable passes through the pulley creates uneven stress on the pulley assembly (pulley assembly) and the cable. Any cable tensioning system using a pulley assembly that does not cause this phenomenon will generate a greater friction force resulting in uneven cable tension, and then uneven drumhead tension will be generated around the entire drum circumference, eventually resulting in a mistuning. Further, the cable may exert uneven forces on the pulley, the pulley shaft, and the pulley housing when it exits the pulley at an angle that is not perpendicular to the pulley axis. The drumhead is tuned to very high tension and this uneven force inevitably results in uneven wear of the pulley shaft, deformation of the pulley assembly and pulley housing, and premature failure of the entire pulley assembly. This is a phenomenon which is particularly undesirable in the use of the drum. Due to the violent and frequent use, the durability and reliability of the drum is a very important quality in the case of untimely major repairs.

Disclosure of Invention

The present invention is distinct from all types of drumhead tensioning systems available and overcomes all of the drawbacks described above.

When arranged in a configuration using a single cable (fig. 1), both sides of the drum are simultaneously tensioned through one adjustment point. The cable is threaded between the upper and lower drums by a plurality of angled pulleys or guide assemblies and then fed to the tensioning mechanism. The single cable configuration is the simplest configuration, provides the least number of moving parts, and only the tensioner mounting bracket passes through the drum belly. Since the drum is tuned as a whole, the drum tone can be heard by tapping the central portion of the drumhead without tapping each tension bar; tapping the center portion of the drumhead hears louder sound, facilitating tuning in a noisy environment. When the bottom drumhead tension is checked, the drum need not be removed because this structure tunes the top and bottom drumheads simultaneously.

In another configuration (fig. 15), the present invention can be used with top and bottom drumheads that are individually tunable by using a dual system of individually associated pulleys or guide assemblies attached to each drumhead 1501, and with an angled pulley or guide assembly mounted to the drumhead body. The only hardware required is: an angled pulley or guide assembly, a tensioning mechanism mounting bracket, and a cable. The angled pulley or guide assembly can be attached to standard drum frames and retrofit drum frames. This means that it can be retrofitted to existing drums without requiring any modification to the drum rim, nor to the drum belly body, or with only minor modifications, in addition to use on the new drum. Furthermore, this can be done using a standard drum frame that any drum has, without replacing all the drum frames (two for each drum belly) on the entire drum kit with new custom-made drum frames.

Unlike conventional tension rod-stent systems (fig. 13), the present invention may or may not use a stent attached to the drum belly and does not use a tension rod at all. This also eliminates the need for a drumstick key or other separate hand tool to tune the drum.

Unlike prior cable systems (fig. 10), this system allows the angle of the pulley housing to be parallel to the natural path of the cable extending along the drum belly of any size, rather than parallel to the up-down axis of the drum belly, thus inherently providing more accurate tuning and also greatly improving the reliability of the overall system.

If the pulley assembly fails, the old pulley assembly is simply unscrewed, the bolt tightens the new pulley assembly and the cable is re-tensioned. Because each pulley assembly is modular, the spare part of the drum kit is easy to carry and inexpensive, just as a guitar player carries additional strings or a drummer carries additional drumsticks, further increasing the overall utility of the system.

The invention is applicable to any drum having a toneable diaphragm, such as percussion hand, concert percussion and marching percussion, and to any other instrument having a toneable diaphragm, such as banjo or tin tower, where the resonant cavity in the instrument is essentially a flat drum belly and a drumhead assembly with a rim and lugs.

Other systems, methods, features and advantages of the invention will be or will become apparent to one with skill in the art upon examination of the following figures and detailed description. The features, functions, and advantages that are discussed can be achieved independently in various embodiments of the present invention or may be combined in yet other embodiments further details of which can be seen with the following description and drawings.