Patent Application
20180259168
The present invention is in the field of flashlights and, more particularly, for a storage compartment for use in a flashlight.
Flashlights are now ubiquitous for a wide variety of uses, and over one hundred million machined aluminum flashlights have been sold by Mag Instrument alone under the registered trademarks MagLite® and Mini Maglite®. The construction of such flashlights is well known and illustrated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,577,263 and 5,260,858, the disclosures of which are specifically incorporated herein by reference.
Machined aluminum flashlights typically have an aluminum barrel, as is the case with the MagLite® and Mini Maglite® flashlights, a tail cap at a rear end of the barrel, which can be removed to replace one or more batteries held in a series configuration within the barrel, and a head at the opposite end of the barrel containing a lighting assembly for emitting light. It is well known that the tail cap can contain a lip seal and threads so that it can be removably threaded into the flashlight barrel and also be configured to receive the conductive spring so that the conductive spring will complete an electrical circuit to produce light when the flashlight is switched on.
The present invention is generally directed to an apparatus and method for creating a storage compartment in a flashlight with a cylindrical barrel, a tail cap and a conductive spring fitted to the tail cap such as existing machined aluminum flashlights already in use.
In accordance with the present invention, the conductive spring is removed from the tail cap and fitted to a barrel end of a cylindrical compartment which has an outer diameter substantially the same as that of the barrel and then the tail cap is threaded into a tail cap end of the cylindrical compartment, thus sealing off an inner compartment (which can be waterproof with only a single opening which is sealed by the tail cap). The cylindrical compartment can have a forward open area, which is proximate the barrel, configured to receive a spare bulb for the flashlight. The cylindrical compartment can be sold as an aftermarket product for use with existing flashlights or be included in the design of new flashlights.
Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide a storage compartment for flashlights.
This and further objects and advantages will be apparent to those skilled in the art in connection with the drawings and the detailed description of the invention set forth below.
The present invention is generally applicable to flashlights having a cylindrical barrel and, more particularly, a machined aluminum barrel, examples of which are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,361,183 and 8,366,290, the disclosures of which are specifically incorporated by reference herein. Hereinafter, the invention will be illustrated by use of a machined aluminum flashlight without limiting the invention solely to such an embodiment.
In accordance with the present invention, a storage compartment, generally designated 10, has threads 21 for threading into barrel 11 of flashlight 1 in the same manner as tail cap 51 is threaded into barrel 11. Storage compartment 10 has an inner wall 15 which seals off compartment 17 from anything within barrel 11. In an especially preferred embodiment, inner wall 15 is recessed from the end of compartment 10 that is threaded into barrel 11 so that there is an open area 16 between spring 58 and inner wall 15 for accommodating an extra bulb in the same fashion as was common for prior art flashlights which used bulbs, rather than LEDs, in their lighting assembly 70. Storage compartment 10 also has inner threads 14 for threadably receiving threads 51T of tail cap 51 at its end opposite inner wall 15 and inner compartment 17 is only sealed off when tail cap 51 is threaded into inner threads 14. It is especially preferred, but not always required, that an O-ring 142 be used with tail cap 51 to create a watertight seal for inner compartment 17 when tail cap 51 is fully threaded into inner threads 14; alternatively, but less preferred, lip seal 42 can be left on tail cap 51, if a second lip seal 12 is either provided with storage compartment 10 or pre-assembled to compartment 10 by placing it over threads 21.
It is especially preferred that the outer diameter 13 of storage compartment 10 be substantially the same as that of barrel 11 (as shown in
A storage compartment according to the present invention can be sold with a new flashlight or sold as an aftermarket kit for adding on to existing flashlights. Because the storage compartment must be capable of threading into a flashlight barrel in the same manner and to perform the same functions as a tail cap (with a conductive spring) for a given flashlight, and also be capable of accepting the tail cap from the same said flashlight, a storage compartment will be designed for use with a given flashlight, or series of flashlights (e.g., MAGLITE® flashlights which accept different numbers of batteries) due to the necessity of matched threading.
Storage compartments according to the present invention can have different lengths, which may be suitable for different uses, and multiple length compartments can be packaged in a single kit; similarly, “stealth” and not “stealthy” storage compartments might be sold in a single kit. Any given number of items, or types of items, can be stored in such storage compartments, with the potential end uses only being limited by user choice and imagination, as well as size of the storage compartment. Indeed, liquids can be carried inside such storage compartments, especially if the liquids are themselves stored in a separate container which is then itself stored within a storage container.
Once a storage compartment according to the present invention is fitted to a flashlight, the tail cap will now function akin to a lid or top for the inner compartment whereas the whole storage compartment itself will need to be removed from the flashlight barrel to gain access inside of the barrel (such as, for example, when batteries need to be changed).
While the invention has been described herein with reference to certain preferred embodiments, those embodiments have been presented by of example only, and not to limit the scope of the invention. Additional embodiments will be obvious to those skilled in the art having the benefit of this detailed description.
Accordingly, still further changes and modifications in the actual concepts descried herein can readily be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosed inventions as defined by the following claims.
