Patent Application
20050145550
This invention relates generally to water recreational apparatuses, such as spas, hot tubs, swimming pools and recirculating bath tubs.
Water recreational apparatuses, such as spas, hot tubs, swimming pools and recirculating bath tubs are very popular. However, such water recreational apparatuses require continual effort to maintain the quality of the body of water within the apparatus. Such maintenance entails the periodic addition of one or more chemical solutes. Heretofore, such maintenance has had to be carried out manually. Thus such maintenance is a burden for the user.
Accordingly, there is a need for a water recreational apparatus which avoids the afore-mentioned problems in the prior art, in a simple, efficient and inexpensive manner.
The invention satisfies this need. The invention is a combination for automatically adding chemicals to a water recreational apparatus. The combination comprises a) a chemical repository; b) a chemical injection port for injecting chemicals into the basin, the chemical injection port being disposed within one of the walls of the basin; c) a take off conduit for conducting chemicals away from the chemical repository; d) a motor operated valve for controlling the flow of chemicals away from the chemical repository; e) a chemical injection conduit for connecting the take off conduit to the chemical injection port; f) conduit means for connecting the discharge side of the pump to the chemical injection conduit; and g) a controller operatively connected to the motor operated valve for opening and closing the motor operated valve at predetermined intervals to control the addition of chemicals to water within the basin.
These and other features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with reference to the following description, appended claims and accompanying drawings where:
The following discussion describes in detail one embodiment of the invention and several variations of that embodiment. This discussion should not be construed, however, as limiting the invention to those particular embodiments. Practitioners skilled in the art will recognize numerous other embodiments as well.
The invention is a combination 10 for automatically adding chemicals 40 to a water recreational apparatus 12. The term “water recreational apparatus” includes, but is not limited to, spas, hot tubs, swimming pools and recirculating bath tubs. The term “spas” includes prefabricated spas, such as illustrated in
The combination 10 of the invention comprises a chemical repository 28. The chemical repository 28 can comprise one or more cylinders as illustrated in
The chemical repository 28 defines at least one chamber 38 for retaining water maintenance chemicals 40. In the embodiments illustrated in the drawings, the chemical repository 28 comprises three separate chambers 38, one for retaining a chlorine-precursor chemical, one for retaining a non-chlorine oxidizer and one for retaining an aroma therapy chemical. A typical chlorine precursor chemical is sodium dichloroisocynaurate dihydrate. A typical non-chlorine oxidizer is a mixture of potassium peroxymonosulfate, potassium bisulfate, potassium sulfate and magnesium carbonate. The term “aroma therapy” chemical as used in this application means any chemical which can be safely added to recirculating water within the water recreational apparatus 12 to provide the user with a pleasant aroma.
Each chamber 38 in the chemical repository 28 is connected to a take off conduit 42 for conducting chemicals away from that chamber 38 in the chemical repository 28. In the embodiment illustrated in
Each take off take off conduit 38 empties into a chemical injection conduit 48. Each chemical injection conduit 48 is connected in fluid tight communication with a chemical injection port 50 defined in one of the walls 16 or 18 of the water basin 14. In a typical embodiment, the chemical injection port 50 is defined in the side walls 16 of the water basin 14 and is provided by one or more of the recirculating water jets (not shown) providing recirculated water and entrained air bubbles to the water basin 14.
When the chemicals entering the chemical injection conduit 48 are dry chemicals, it is preferable that the chemical injection conduit 48 comprises an in line mixer 53. An in line mixer 53 helps assure that dry chemicals 40 flowing into the chemical injection conduit 48 become thoroughly mixed with the with water within the chemical injection conduit 48. A typical in line mixer 53 is manufactured by Hazzei of Bakersfield, Calif., such as Model LGM-02.
The chemical injection conduit 48 is connected, upstream of its connection with the take off conduit 38, with a pump discharge conduit 54. The pump discharge conduit 54, in turn, is connected to the discharge side 26 of the recirculating pump 22.
In all embodiments of the invention, a motor operated control valve 44 is used to control the flow of chemicals away from the chemical repository 28 and into the chemical injection conduit 48. In the embodiment illustrated in
In the embodiment illustrated in
In the embodiment illustrated in
The motor operated valves 44 are typically solenoid valves, each controlled by a controller 46. The controller 46 is operatively connected to the motor operated control valves 44 for opening and closing those control valves 44 at predetermined intervals to control the addition of chemicals 40 to water within the water basin 14. In a typical embodiment, the controller 46 is a computerized digital controller, programmed to regulate the frequency of chemical additions to the water basin 14. In another embodiment, the controller 46 is programmed to regulate the amount of chemical 40 added to the water basin 46 during each addition cycle.
The controller 46 includes a control panel 56 which is typically easily accessible to a user within the water basin 14. The control panel 56 allows the user to modify the settings of the controller 46 to modify the frequency and/or amount of chemicals 40 added to water within the water basin 14.
In one embodiment of the invention, chemicals 40 are provided to the chemical repository 28 in chemical-containing cartridges 58, such as illustrated in
Many recreational apparatuses 12 comprise more than one recirculating pumps 22, including a high pressure pump 22 and a low pressure pump 22. In such systems, the user has additional options regarding the automatic injection of chemicals 40 into the water basin 14. For example, the system can be set up such that one or more of the pump discharge conduits 54 are connected only to the discharge side 26 of the high pressure pump 22 or only to the discharge side 26 of the low pressure pump 22. In other embodiments, some of the pump discharge conduits 54 are connected to the high pressure pump 22 and some to the low pressure pump 22.
The invention is also a water recreational apparatus 12, such as a prefabricated spa, having the combination 10 for automatically adding chemicals 40 to the water basin 14 described above.
Having thus described the invention, it should be apparent that numerous structural modifications and adaptations may be resorted to without departing from the scope and fair meaning of the instant invention as set forth hereinabove and as described hereinbelow by the claims.
