Classic Refuse Trucks DAYBROOK

Daybrook Power Packer

Above: A Daybrook Power Packer hoists a 'Sani-Tainer' portable container
THE DAYBROOK ERA
Though the Herman Body Company was still listing their Ram-Pak in the 1956 Municipal Index, advertisements for the "new" Daybrook Power-Packer began to appear as early as January, 1957. The Daybrook Hydraulic Hoist Company was founded just before the second world war, and had supplied portable bridges for the Army. By 1954, they were owned by Young Spring & Wire Company, and eventually became known as the Daybrook Equipment division, building various truck bodies and cranes as well as the Power Packer in their plant at Bowling Green, Ohio.

In 1956, George Wood filed a second patent for improvements to his design, which would eventually be incorporated into the Power-Packer. The biggest change came in the form of a flexible, roll-up type false floor, which replaced the solid steel type of the original model. As can be seen from the illustration below, it enlarged the hopper area considerably, with the claimed benefit of "tumbling" the refuse which was supposed to reduce voids in the refuse load prior to compaction, and result in more uniform overall load densities.

It is possible that early Daybrook Power Packers may have been identical to the Herman Ram-Pak, but the improved version is known to have been in production by Daybrook no later than 1958. As with the first version discussed previously, the improved version utilized a sweeper blade (green highlights) and crusher blade (red highlights) working in conjunction, but now powered by twin hydraulic cylinders. This was a notable improvement, since the load upon the sweep panel would have probably been particularly heavy.

In top drawing, refuse is ready to be loaded over the hopper sill (10) and the retracted flexible floor (1a), falling into the hopper ahead of the sweep panel (2). As before, a pair of pivoting links (1) on either side of the inner tailgate are connected push bars (3). The push bars are in turn connected at their upper ends to a crankshaft (5) which is turned by twin hydraulic cylinders (4), of which only one is shown in this illustration. Like the Ram-Pak, the crusher blade was driven by a compensator cylinder (7) hooked to the same crankshaft as the sweep panel, but note the change in shape of the crusher blade (6), and the use of solid links (9) from the rocker panel (8).

In the lower drawing, we see the cycle commence with the main cylinders (4) fully extended, advancing the sweep panel to scrape the hopper floor (12), and push the load between the crusher blade (6) and the anvil (13). Baffles, looking much like "teeth" on the inside face of the crusher plate were added to help retain the previously crushed load. The cycle was continuous and fully automatic, and allowed new refuse to be loaded on top of the flexible floor (1a) without interruption. The rewinding of the flexible floor onto the drum (1b) was done by via a cable (not shown), with one end wound around a sheave affixed to the drum (1b) and the other affixed to the push bar (3), whereby the return stroke of the bar would rewind the drum, keeping it in synchronization with the packing mechanism.

In successive phases, main cylinders (4) would alternately retract, pushing the sweep panel rearward to the first position and lowering the crusher blade to pre-pack refuse between blade (6) and anvil (13), and then extend to force new refuse under the crusher and the pre-crushed load into the body. This back and forth cycling system was termed F.C.P., or Force-Crush-Pack in trade ads which stressed the benefits of continuous loading and pre-crushing. Among Power-Packer's contemporaries, only Roto-Pac offered continuous loading, and only the Sicard Sanivan had a pre-crushing compaction method.

Simplified drawing above uses same reference numbers to better illustrate F.C.P. action, particularly how the flexible belt false floor (1a) functioned to prevent refuse from falling behind the sweep panel (2) during the packing cycle

Continued

4/2/05