Patent Application
20100038517
(a) Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an adjustable caster for an indoor cook stove, and in particular to an adjustable caster that is mounted to a corner of the bottom of the cook stove and uses horizontal rotation of an adjustment bolt to drive a curved frame that carries a roller so as to carry out adjustment of distance of the stove bottom with respect to the ground and thus improving the difficult operation of rotating a vertical bolt of the conventional leveling foot.
(b) Description of the Prior Art
Counters or furniture that is arranged indoor is often provided with leveling feet on a bottom thereof to adjust the distance between the bottom and ground on which the counters or the furniture is positioned. The leveling foot comprises a vertically arranged bolts, working with an internally threaded member that is positioned in the proximity of a corner of the bottom to adjust the distance of the bottom corner from the ground and also adjust leveling of four corners of the bottom by relative rotation between the bolt and the internally threaded member. For counters or furniture that is not very heavy, the adjustment can be easily done by rotating the leveling foot to elevate or lower the respective corner with respect to the ground, whereby leveling of the four corners can be easily achieved. (Since the ground surface on which the counters or the furniture is positioned may not be irregular, all the four corners or more locations of the counter or furniture must be simultaneously adjusted to set the leveling in order to cope with the irregularity of the ground surface.) However, for a piece of furniture that is very heavy, the weight of the furniture applies a great load to the engaging threading face of the bolt, leading to substantial increase of the friction force acting thereon, thereby making the adjustment very effort consuming.
Further, an indoor cook stove is often heavier than a regular counter or table and this is particularly true for modern cook stoves, for to ease cleaning and wiping operation, a modern cook stove is often composed of a large amount of stainless steel, including stove top and other parts, and the stainless steel parts substantially increase the overall weight of the cook stove. The conventional leveling foot no longer performs easy adjustment of the distance of the furniture from the ground and the leveling of four corners. Apparently, new mechanisms that allow easy adjustment of the distance from the ground and four corner leveling are needed for a cook stove.
Thus, the present invention is aimed to overcome such a drawback that the conventional leveling foot is not sufficiently effortless in adjusting a distance from ground and four corner leveling of a cook stove by providing an adjustable caster for the cook stove.
The primary purpose of the present invention is to provides an adjustable caster for an indoor cook stove. The adjustable caster is provided for being respectively mounted to four corners of a bottom of the indoor cook and includes an adjustment bolt that is arranged in such a way to allow horizontal rotation thereof for driving movement of a curved frame that carries a roller to carry out adjustment of the altitude of the stove bottom with respect to the ground and the leveling thereof, whereby by means of causing the curved frame to stretch to and abut the ground, the drawback that the vertical rotation of bolt to adjust the altitude of the conventional cook stove is hard to perform can be overcome and the adjustment of the altitude of the indoor cook stove with respect to the ground and the leveling among four corners of the cook stove can be easily performed. This is the primary objective of the present invention.
The adjustable caster for an indoor cook stove in accordance with the present invention further comprises a ground-contact roller that is pivotally mounted to an end of the curved frame that threads on the ground. By keeping the ground-contact rollers in contact with the ground, maneuverability realized by sliding can be enhanced. This is helpful in house cleaning, in which the space that is originally occupied by the cook stove can be emptied to help cleaning and once the cleaning is done, the cook stove can be easily moved back. This is another objective of the present invention.
The foregoing object and summary provide only a brief introduction to the present invention. To fully appreciate these and other objects of the present invention as well as the invention itself, all of which will become apparent to those skilled in the art, the following detailed description of the invention and the claims should be read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. Throughout the specification and drawings identical reference numerals refer to identical or similar parts.
Many other advantages and features of the present invention will become manifest to those versed in the art upon making reference to the detailed description and the accompanying sheets of drawings in which a preferred structural embodiment incorporating the principles of the present invention is shown by way of illustrative example.
The following descriptions are of exemplary embodiments only, and are not intended to limit the scope, applicability or configuration of the invention in any way. Rather, the following description provides a convenient illustration for implementing exemplary embodiments of the invention. Various changes to the described embodiments may be made in the function and arrangement of the elements described without departing from the scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims.
With reference to the drawings and in particular to
Collars 72, 73 are respectively fit over portions of the second moving-portion shaft 71 that respectively correspond to the end of the curved frame 20 that is curved away from ground and are located inward of the respective shaft coupling holes 41, 42 of the adjustment nut seat 40 and washers 83, 84 are respectively fit over portions of the first fixed-portion shaft 80 between the central portion of the bending section of the curved frame 20 and the two side walls 12, 13 that delimit the roller compartment 11, whereby sideway shifting and shaking of the central portion of the bending section of the curved frame 20 is eliminated and friction area at the rotating portion is reduced. Further, a plurality of through holes 15, 16 is defined in a top board 14 of the caster retention chassis 10 to facilitate bolting of the whole device to a mounting position. Further, the adjustment nut seat 40 can be formed by a nut 44, which is threadingly engageable with the adjustment bolt 30, fixed by welding to a central portion of a seat board 43 that forms a bore in the central portion thereof for the extension of the adjustment bolt 30 and has the opposite side portions respectively forming perpendicularly bent walls that form therein the shaft coupling holes 41, 42. Further, the two side walls 12, 13 that delimit the roller compartment 11 respectively form perpendicularly bent and inward extending stop blocks 17 at locations corresponding to the central portion of the bending section of the curved frame 20, whereby when the curved frame 20 is rotated in a direction into the roller compartment 11 to a dead point, the curved frame 20 is stopped and constrained by the stop blocks 17.
The adjustment operation is illustrating by
As such, as illustrated in an application shown in
It will be understood that each of the elements described above, or two or more together may also find a useful application in other types of methods differing from the type described above.
While certain novel features of this invention have been shown and described and are pointed out in the annexed claim, it is not intended to be limited to the details above, since it will be understood that various omissions, modifications, substitutions and changes in the forms and details of the device illustrated and in its operation can be made by those skilled in the art without departing in any way from the spirit of the present invention.
