This invention generally relates to an apparatus for blowing snow. The present invention more specifically relates to a snowblower including an angled drive for connecting to a snowblower power unit. The present invention also relates to other features adapted to improve the drive assembly of a snowblower.
Apparatuses for removing snow come in various configurations. They come in small size for personal snowblowers and they reach significant sizes in industrial applications. Generally, snowblowers are designed to remove snow, ice, and sometimes other debris, from the ground and propel the snow and ice at a distance to clear the ground.
Snowblowers can use different mechanical configurations to perform the required task. Some snowblowers are using an endless screw in front of the apparatus to break the snow and the ice in smaller portions, in a first stage, and then use a rotatable impeller to propel the snow and the ice at a distance from the snowblower, in a second stage. Alternative snowblowers can use a single stage. Both snowblower configurations are requiring a drive portion to be actuated. The distance and the direction of the projected snow are managed with a directional nozzle. The snowblower can be powered in different ways, generally with an engine via a drive member. The engine can be part of the snowblower in some configurations. A vehicle carrying the snowblower can alternatively provide power to the snowblower in other configurations.
The rotatable impeller generally includes a series of vanes or blades sized and designed to carry snow and ice. Rotation of the blades is propelling the snow and the ice. The snow is generally pushed toward the exterior diameter of the impeller when propelled by the rotating impeller, subjected to centrifugal forces. To some extents, the impeller can be compared to a turbine that is pumping air and snow.
Nowadays, power units for powering snowblowers, generally tractors or industrial equipment including a power take off (PTO), or the like, are increasingly powerful. These powerful equipments are getting larger and are generally higher due to their size and the corresponding size of their wheels. The PTO of such equipment is therefore at an increased vertical distance from the ground. Conversely, the snowblowing mechanism, more precisely the impeller of the snowblowing mechanism, is preferably disposed low next to the ground to collect and blow as much snow as possible. In other words, the rotation axis of the PTO is higher than the rotation axis of the impeller and that difference in height has to be compensated with an angled drive shaft interconnecting the PTO to the rotating impeller. Such drive shafts are generally equipped with a pair of universal joints, or constant velocity joints, to transmit rotational power at an angle between the drive input and the drive output. This height compensation is requiring the universal joints of the drive shaft to be substantially angled, which is detrimental to the mechanical integrity of the drive shaft in addition to limit the amount of power that can be transmitted through the drive shaft.
It is therefore desirable to provide an improved snowblower over the existing art that is configured to mitigate the height difference between the rotation axis of the PTO and the rotation axis of the snowblower impeller.
It is also desirable to provide an improved snowblower designed to locate the snowblower impeller as low as possible to the ground while limiting the required angle in the drive shaft interconnecting the PTO of the power unit driving the PTO and the impeller's rotation axis over the existing art.
Other deficiencies will become apparent to one skilled in the art to which the invention pertains in view of the following summary and detailed description with its appended figures.
One aspect of the present invention is to alleviate one or more of the shortcomings of the background art by addressing one or more of the existing needs in the art.
The following presents a simplified summary of the invention in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the invention. This summary is not an extensive overview of the invention. It is not intended to identify key/critical elements of the invention or to delineate the scope of the invention. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts of the invention in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description that is presented later.
Therefore, the present innovation is generally described as an improved snowblower impeller configuration for mitigating a height difference between a rotation axis of a power unit power take off (hereinafter referred to as PTO) and a snowblower impeller drive and other improvements thereof as described below.
The invention is generally described as a snowblower including an impeller housing disposed at an angle, in respect with the snowblower body and a reference planar ground level, to locate a rotation axis of the impeller at an upward angle toward a power unit PTO to reduce an angle in a drive member operatively interconnecting the PTO and the impeller.
The invention is generally described as a snowblower including an impeller housing and a portion of the body of the snowblower disposed at an angle in respect with a lower portion of the snowblower body that is designed to remain substantially parallel to the ground. The impeller housing and the portion of the body that are disposed at an angle in respect to the ground are locating a rotation axis of the impeller at an upward angle toward a power unit PTO to reduce an angle in a drive member operatively interconnecting the PTO and the impeller.
The invention is generally described as a snowblower including an impeller housing and an impeller with a rotation axis thereof rotatably assembled in the impeller housing disposed at an angle in respect with a lower portion of the snowblower body that is designed to remain substantially parallel with the ground in a snow-removal configuration. A snowblower snow-directing mechanism being operatively assembled with the snowblower housing in a perpendicular direction with respect to the rotation axis of the impeller.
The invention is generally described as a snowblower including an impeller rotation axis that is not parallel with a PTO rotation axis of a power unit powering the snowblower in optimal snow removal configuration, with a lower portion of the snowblower body that is designed to position a cutting blade in an optimal cutting position substantially parallel with the ground for proper operation of the snowblower.
The invention is generally described as a snowblower including an impeller housing that is angled upwardly toward an external power source to reduce the angle managed by drive joints of an interconnecting drive shaft.
The invention is generally described as a snowblower including an impeller rotating about a rotation axis thereof that is non-parallel with the snowblower body and the ground to reduce the angle in the driveshaft interconnecting the snowblower to a tractor hence reducing the angle sustained by the driveshaft joints, or other angle management elements, of the driveshaft.
The invention is generally described as a snowblower including a body designed to be utilized at an angle to angle the impeller rotation axis in a direction of an external power unit to reduce the angle of a drive shaft operatively interconnecting the impeller and the external power unit while maintaining a levelled ground-contacting portion.
Aspects of our work, in accordance with at least one embodiment of the invention, provide an improved snowblower impeller performance over the existing art.
Additional and/or alternative features, aspects, and advantages of embodiments of the present invention will become apparent from the following description, the accompanying drawings, and the appended claims.
Our work is now described with reference to the figures. In the following description, for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention by way of embodiment(s). It may be evident, however, that the present invention may be practiced without these specific details.
As a preliminary matter, it will readily be understood by one having ordinary skill in the relevant art (“Ordinary Artisan”) that the invention has broad utility and application. Furthermore, any embodiment discussed and identified as being “preferred” is considered to be part of a best mode contemplated for carrying out the invention. Other embodiments also may be discussed for additional illustrative purposes in providing a full and enabling disclosure of the invention. Furthermore, an embodiment of the invention may incorporate only one or a plurality of the aspects of the invention disclosed herein; only one or a plurality of the features disclosed herein; or combination thereof. As such, many embodiments are implicitly disclosed herein and fall within the scope of what is regarded as the invention.
Accordingly, while the invention is described herein in detail in relation to one or more embodiments, it is to be understood that this disclosure is illustrative and exemplary of the invention and is made merely for the purposes of providing a full and enabling disclosure of the invention. The detailed disclosure herein of one or more embodiments is not intended, nor is to be construed, to limit the scope of patent protection afforded the invention in any claim of a patent issuing here from, which scope is to be defined by the claims and the equivalents thereof. It is not intended that the scope of patent protection afforded the invention be defined by reading into any claim a limitation found herein that does not explicitly appear in the claim itself.
Thus, for example, any sequence(s) and/or temporal order of steps of various processes or methods that are described herein are illustrative and not restrictive. Accordingly, it should be understood that, although steps of various processes or methods may be shown and described as being in a sequence or temporal order, the steps of any such processes or methods are not limited to being carried out in any particular sequence or order, absent an indication otherwise. Indeed, the steps in such processes or methods generally may be carried out in various different sequences and orders while still falling within the scope of the invention. Accordingly, it is intended that the scope of patent protection afforded the invention is to be defined by the issued claim(s) rather than the description set forth herein.
Additionally, it is important to note that each term used herein refers to that which the Ordinary Artisan would understand such term to mean based on the contextual use of such term herein. To the extent that the meaning of a term used herein—as understood by the Ordinary Artisan based on the contextual use of such term—differs in any way from any particular dictionary definition of such term, it is intended that the meaning of the term as understood by the Ordinary Artisan should prevail.
With regard solely to construction of any claim with respect to the United States, no claim element is to be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) unless the explicit phrase “means for” or “step for” is actually used in such claim element, whereupon this statutory provision is intended to and should apply in the interpretation of such claim element. With regard to any method claim including a condition precedent step, such method requires the condition precedent to be met and the step to be performed at least once during performance of the claimed method.
Furthermore, it is important to note that, as used herein, “a” and “an” each generally denotes “at least one,” but does not exclude a plurality unless the contextual use dictates otherwise. Thus, reference to “a picnic basket having an apple” describes “a picnic basket having at least one apple” as well as “a picnic basket having apples.” In contrast, reference to “a picnic basket having a single apple” describes “a picnic basket having only one apple.”
When used herein to join a list of items, “or” denotes “at least one of the items,” but does not exclude a plurality of items of the list. Thus, reference to “a picnic basket having cheese or crackers” describes “a picnic basket having cheese without crackers”, “a picnic basket having crackers without cheese”, and “a picnic basket having both cheese and crackers.” When used herein to join a list of items, “and” denotes “all of the items of the list.” Thus, reference to “a picnic basket having cheese and crackers” describes “a picnic basket having cheese, wherein the picnic basket further has crackers,” as well as describes “a picnic basket having crackers, wherein the picnic basket further has cheese.”
Referring the drawings, one or more preferred embodiments of the invention are next described. The following description of one or more preferred embodiments is merely exemplary in nature and is in no way intended to limit the invention, its implementations, or uses. Hence, a novel manner to numerically design a cabinet adapted sustain a predetermined arc flash will be described herein after. Our work is now described with reference to the figures. In the following description, for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention by way of embodiment(s). It may be evident, however, that the present invention may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, when applicable, well-known structures and devices are shown in block diagram form in order to facilitate describing the present invention.
The features provided in this specification can relate to an apparatus to propel snow and ice, principles of methods of use thereof, or other machines adapted to accommodate such mechanical structure to provide such results.
A snowblower 10 driven and powered by a power unit 14 is illustrated in
Still referring to
The text that follows is going to describe a snowblower 10 in the configuration illustrated in
The snowblower 10 body 38 of the embodiment illustrated in
As best seen in
In reference with
In some embodiments, the blade 110 can be vertically located relative to the body 38 at a predetermined distance from the ground 32 in a position adapted to closely follow the ground 32 to scrape, grade and remove snow and ice from the ground. The distance of the blade 110 in respect with the ground 32 is generally significantly small since the blade 110 is intended to remove ice and snow and also be a sacrificial element wearing out with time preventing other elements of the snowblower 10 to undesirably wear.
In a first exemplary design, the optimal position of the blade 110 is occurring when the lower arm axis 98 (or equivalent if lower arms 40 equivalents are part of a monocoque body 38 structure of the snowblower 10) is designed to be parallel with the ground 32, as illustrated in
In a second exemplary design, the snow scraping (or snow grading) action of the snowy ground 32 is made by the blade 110 located at a lower portion of the body 38, as illustrated in
Another embodiment is schematically illustrated in
The non-parallelism 104 of the impeller rotation axis 66 with the ground level reference line 100 is illustrated at 2 degrees heading higher toward the tractor 18 PTO 22. This impeller rotation axis 66 angle 68 is positioning the impeller rotation axis 66 upward toward the rear of the snowblower 10 thus reducing the power transmission angle in the universal joints 74 of the drive shaft 50. This reduction in the universal joints 74 transmission angle is mitigating the effect of the height difference 70 between the impeller drive 62 and the PTO 22.
The description and the drawings that are presented above are meant to be illustrative of the present invention. They are not meant to be limiting of the scope of the present invention. Modifications to the embodiments described may be made without departing from the present invention, the scope of which is defined by the following claims:
The present application is a nonprovisional of, and claims priority under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) to, United States provisional patent application no. 63/050,928, filed Jul. 13, 2020, entitled ANGLED DRIVE FOR SNOWBLOWER, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Any publication of and any patent issuing from the foregoing U.S. patent application is hereby incorporated herein by reference.
Number | Date | Country | |
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63050928 | Jul 2020 | US |