The present invention is directed to stabilizing devices of a type that are attached to the lower support structure of a machine or article of equipment and support such machine or article of equipment on an underlying floor-like support surface to prevent wobbling or tipping during use.
Machines, work tables, and other equipment having a rigid support structure are typically designed to rest on an underlying flat, horizontal support surface, such as a factory or shop floor. Due to various factors such as poor building construction or the ground shifting and settling over time, however, many underlying floor-like support surfaces are uneven and/or non-level or flat. In addition, many shop floors are intentionally constructed to be at a slight angle to accommodate liquid drainage. In such instances, machines and equipment resting on these support surfaces are often wobbly and unstable. A related problem occurs where the lower support plane of the machine or article of equipment framework is uneven or imperfectly balanced, either due to a manufacturing flaw, wear or structural damage, or even varying atmospheric conditions which can cause expansion and contraction of the structural support members, which conditions would also cause the entire machine to be inadequately supported even on a level floor surface. Not only can wobbly or poorly balanced machinery and equipment be dangerous to the operator and others in close proximity while the machinery is in use, but such condition can also cause damage or excessive wear to the machinery itself. When a machine or article of equipment, especially heavy-duty machinery and equipment, becomes unstable or wobbly, typically an operator will first attempt to stabilize the equipment either by using a makeshift stabilizer, such as a wedge-shaped shim or the like, or by adjusting one or more of the legs using a heavy-duty wrench or other tools. If these solutions fail, the owner will usually have to employ a professional to make the proper repairs, which in a manufacturing environment can create a significant stoppage in production and cost the user both time and money.
There is need therefore for a device that enables operators to quickly and easily adjust and stabilize machinery and equipment if it becomes unstable or wobbly without having to resort to makeshift solutions that may only be temporarily effective and which are frequently tenuous at best and therefore the machinery is still dangerous to the user, or having to pay a professional to install replacement legs or make other costly repairs. Such a stabilizer device would also be a convenience for anybody who uses equipment in an industry setting, including small and large fabrication shops, on assembly floors, in the home, hobby shops, offices, hospitals and wherever mobile equipment is too rigid to conform to an uneven floor. Recognizing this need, the present inventor has developed such a stabilizer device, where in one arrangement one of the devices can be placed on a given corner or leg of a piece of mobile equipment and then used to properly balance such equipment. In another arrangement, two stabilizers, placed on adjacent corners, can be used with equipment having wheels to keep such equipment and wheels stationary, while in yet another arrangement a plurality of stabilizers can be positioned on the underside of each corner or supported area and used to adjustably stabilize such equipment from any side. The stabilizer device is foot actuated and can be used to balance unstable equipment in a matter of seconds, saving the user time and money not only in attempting to diagnose the problem, but also then possibly having to pay to have the equipment repaired. The present inventor's stabilizer device is also convenient and compatible with nearly every type of machinery or mobile work table and is exceptionally sturdy and durable for its weight and manufacturing cost, and further has a long life and is shock resistant and suitable for rough use.
Several leveler devices are known in the prior art. However, as far as the present inventor is aware, none of such foot-actuated devices is sufficiently sturdy to be capable of being used to balance or stabilize heavy machinery or industrial equipment. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,186,453 issued to L. Redbone on Feb. 13, 2001, entitled “Foot Adjustable Levelers”, discloses a leveler device for use on the legs of relatively light objects such as restaurant tables. The Redbone device consists of a threaded bolt that extends upwardly into a threaded aperture in the bottom of the table leg; in one embodiment, the bolt flange is encased in a hard rubber insert covered by a thin metal jacket which engages with the floor surface, and a soft rubber foot adjustment disc is secured extending radially outwardly from the bolt. Thus, the Redbone device is primarily a leveler device for placing the entirety of a table surface on the same horizontal plane, with the disc being engaged by the sole edge of the user's shoe to rotate the bolt. Such device is not designed to be used with industrial machinery or heavy-duty equipment to stabilize and therefore maintain the equilibrium of such machinery or equipment over long use periods. In particular, the soft rubber disc of the Redbone device would not generate a sufficient torque value into the vertical threaded shaft to enable the shaft to be rotated using only manual foot pressure if used to level heavy machinery or equipment. In addition to weight, other normal use factors would further reduce the effectiveness of the Redbone device, including the presence of a carpet, dirt and other grit under the foot of such leveler, buildup of dirt in the threads of the vertical threaded shaft, and lack of lubrication. Other factors, such as the type and material of the user's shoe soles, and the presence of a shoe polish or water repellant containing a wax, silicone, or oil, would further reduce the effectiveness of the Redbone device. The present inventor's stabilizer device, on the other hand, does not suffer from such drawbacks and is capable of being used to quickly and easily stabilize industrial machinery or articles of equipment as well as other items solely through the use of foot pressure on the outwardly extending blades of the device.
It is an object of the present invention, therefore, to provide a foot-actuated stabilizer device that can be used to stabilize wobbly equipment and machines, and in particular both heavy and light duty equipment and machines.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a stabilizer device having a foot rotor assembly to facilitate manual adjustment and rotation of said stabilizer device using one's foot or shoe sole.
It is a still further object of the invention to provide an equipment stabilizer device actuated by a foot rotor assembly having a plurality of spaced apart individual rotor blades or rotors extending outwardly from the hub section of the rotor assembly at an acute angle to the plane of the hub section, said rotor blades being spaced apart a sufficient distance to enable an operator to exert a pressure or force with his or her shoe sole against the side surface of the rotor blades.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a stabilizer device that can be adapted for use with a wide range of machinery devices and articles of equipment in either a male or female configuration.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a stabilizer device that is convenient to use and compatible with nearly every type of machinery or mobile work table, that is exceptionally sturdy and durable for its weight and manufacturing cost, and that has a long life and is shock resistant and suitable for rough use.
Additional objects, advantages and uses of the invention will become evident from reference to the description of the invention and the attached drawing figures.
The present invention is directed to a foot-actuated stabilizer device capable of being used to stabilize and balance both heavy-duly and light-duty machinery and equipment. The device includes a threaded shank having a preferably rounded floor engaging head section, and a foot rotor rigidly connected to the shank adjacent the head section and having a plurality of individual rotor blades rotors extending outwardly at an acute angle from the rotor hub. In use, the steel shank of at least one stabilizer device will be threadably connected near a corner or support area of the bottom support structure of a machine or article of equipment, and the side surface of one of the rotor blades is then repeatedly forcibly contacted by the front sole of a user's shoe to turn the rotor and shank in either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction, thereby adjusting the effective height of the device to alleviate a wobble and stabilize the machine on an underlying floor surface. In a preferred embodiment, the foot rotor is formed of polypropylene with four spaced apart rotor blades with the hub section rigidly secured to the stabilizer shank. The present stabilizer device may also be offered in a kit form containing both male and female threaded shanks for added user convenience in attaching the device to different already existing support structure arrangements.
The following detailed description is of the best mode or modes of the invention presently contemplated. Such description is not intended to be understood in a limiting sense, but to be an example of the invention presented solely for illustration thereof, and by reference to which in connection with the following description and the accompanying drawings one skilled in the art may be advised of the advantages and construction of the invention.
Leveling adjustments incorporated into the bottom or lower portions of industrial as well as home machinery such as washing machines or home workshop equipment have been widely used for many years. Typically, such adjustments include a threaded bolt-type arrangement with a flat or curved lower end next to an angular configuration of the shaft which can be gripped, frequently with some difficulty, with an adjustable wrench to rotate the shaft and thereby alter the distance the shaft extends from the bottom of the leg. These arrangements while fairly basic mechanically are difficult to use to level a machinery platform or stand because a wrench has to be placed parallel to the support surface to grip and turn the rotatable shaft and the leg structure of the supporting stand frequently obscures the portion of the shaft upon which a wrench has to be secure or gripped. Frequently one cannot even bring their head close enough to the supporting surface to view the portion of the shaft to be gripped because the user's head cannot be brought level with the gripping portion of the shaft to see the requisite portion of the shaft which must be gripped with the jaws of the wrench. In addition, if the machinery is fairly heavy, it may be quite difficult to rotate the shaft of a conventional leveling device with a small wrench. The construction of the stabilizing device of the present invention, however, allows the user to stand or remain upright while easily adjusting a helical stabilizer on the leg of a machinery table or the like by contact with the sole of the shoe of the person wishing to stabilize the apparatus stand.
While bolt 12 and foot rotor 14 may be integrally formed, in the presently described embodiment foot rotor 14 is manufactured as a separate part from bolt 12 and then is rigidly secured to such bolt. As shown in
As is also shown in
While foot rotor 14 may be made of any material having suitable strength and appropriate hardness characteristics, such as certain metals, woods, aluminum, or thermoplastic polymers, the present inventor has discovered through trial and error that a preferred material for use in forming foot rotor 14, due to its high tensile strength, stiffness, and surface hardness characteristics, is polypropylene. Polypropylene also provides or transfers sufficient torque values into the threaded shank, and furthermore is resistant to degradation due to chemical and electrical exposure as well as cold and heat degradation, and therefore such material can be used in the manufacture of foot rotor 14. Although the thickness of polyproylene foot rotor 14 may be varied, a thickness of ⅜ inches will transfer sufficient torque to rotate shank 16 in most circumstances, as is discussed in greater detail below, while shank 16 preferably has a thickness of either ⅜ inches or ½ inch, although this can also be varied depending upon the desired strength of the shaft for supporting and stabilizing certain articles of equipment and machinery. As shown in
As shown in
A key difference of the present inventor's stabilizer device from other adjustable support devices known to the present inventor and currently available in the marketplace is that none of the such other known foot-actuated devices are designed to stabilize heavy machinery or equipment. In experimental trials performed by the present inventor, a single stabilizer device 10 having a ⅜ inch diameter shank measuring approximately 3″ in height and having ⅜ inch thick polypropylene rotors 3.875″ in diameter across pairs of oppositely aligned rotors was secured to the bottom support surface of an equipment table having a total weight of 1,100 pounds. In such trial, the stabilizer device was able to support and adjustably stabilize one-half of the total weight of the table, or 550 pounds, with the rotor being easily rotated with application of only a foot-actuated force on the rotor blades. Thus, a stabilizer device having such listed properties and dimensions could be used as at least one of four floor supports used to evenly support a piece of equipment or machinery having a total weight of 2,000 pounds. The ⅜-inch polypropylene foot rotors used in such trial are able to withstand the same torque values as the vertically disposed threaded shank. More particularly, it was found that using ⅜ inch polypropylene foot rotors, a stabilizer having a ⅜ inch shaft has a torque value of 25 foot pounds, while a stabilizer having a one-half inch shaft has a torque value of 55 foot pounds. The foot rotors thus can withstand a considerable amount of wear and rough use, which they are likely to be subjected to in a workplace such as a machine shop. The stabilizer device also has good side thrust stability that allows versatility in mounting such device to mobile equipment such as the bottom center of a leg, the inside or outside of a straight leg, center leg, inside or outside of a compound angle leg, or on outrigger type supports and mobile bases. The acute angle of the individual blades or rotors with respect to the hub section of the foot rotor also greater improves the user's ability to engage the rotors with the front sole of his or her shoe and to turn the foot rotor in either direction. Due to its good torque value, the stabilizer device could also be used for light-duty, hold-down clamping on machinery.
As will be evident to those skilled in the art, the two attachment constructions shown in
In the case of a kit for application of the two versions of supported levelers of the invention to various equipment, therefore, there will desirably be included in such kit several of the rotors of the invention plus several longer externally threaded members for attachment to the rotors and short coupling members for embedding in or attachment to a support member for machinery or equipment which member will be internally threaded for receipt of the threaded shaft frequently up into a leg or supporting member, while the coupling member remains stationary frequently as the result of separate fastenings through the flange of the coupling into the supporting member.
In the alternative arrangement, however, there will be a shorter externally threaded member arranged for securing to the exterior of a machinery support plus a supply of longer internally threaded members for threading over the shorter externally threaded member, thereby providing an adjustable length to the stabilizer. If the internally threaded member is itself made angular and particularly hexagonal on the surface, in case a sufficiently either forceful or accurate rotation cannot be accomplished by a rotation of the stabilizer with the foot, a more accurate adjustment can be made with a wrench slipped over and grasping the rotatable sleeve or internally threaded coupling unit. In both versions of the invention, the rotor is directly mounted upon a main shank, which in a female version of such shank will be internally threaded and preferably angular on the surface and may be rotatably threaded over an externally threaded member complementary to the internally threaded member and in the other principal embodiment, the main shank attached or secured to the rotor is externally threaded and will be adjustably screwed into a usually shorter internally threaded fitting secured to the leg or supporting surface of machinery support structures.
It has been found that ⅜th inch thick polypropylene blades are sufficiently thick so as not to cut into the shoe or sole of one wearing shoes with thin soles to rotate the stabilizer device, although ¼ inch to ½ inch thicknesses will also be sufficiently thick and sufficiently strong or rigid to both apply sufficient side pressure to prevent breaking of the blades and not to cut into the shoe sole of the operator. A smooth metal blade will be similar. In the event a softer or less marring side contact surface were desired, the side of the plastic blades could be molded to increase in thickness toward their edge or to take an extended shape or be otherwise padded. In all cases, the side configuration of the rotor blades should have a surface texture and shape which will not cut into or damage the sides of a pair of shoes even if not so-called safety shoes.
While the present invention has been described at some length and with some particularly with respect to the several described embodiments, it is not intended that it should be limited to any such particulars or embodiments or any particular embodiment, but it is to be construed with references to the appended claims so as to provide the broadest possible interpretation of such claims in view of the prior art and, therefore, to effectively encompass the intended scope of the invention.
This application claims the benefit of provisional application 60/955,203 filed on Aug. 10, 2007, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
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Number | Date | Country | |
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60955203 | Aug 2007 | US |