Patent Application
20090114674
The present invention generally relates to sprayers, and more particularly to a sprayer capable of producing continuous sprays with a single engagement of the lever.
Sprayers are commonly found in daily life for spraying deodorants or detergents or other types of liquids. A conventional sprayer, as shown in
Despite that many improvements have been disclosed for the sprayer, most of them still produce a single spray when the lever is engaged once. If a larger amount of mist is required, the user has to continuously engage the lever. This is a laborious process and the speed in producing the required amount of mist is also slow.
The primary purpose of the present invention is to provide a novel sprayer and a related method.
The sprayer of the present invention has a conventional first lever and a second lever with continuous teeth along an edge. When the first lever is engaged, the second lever drives a gear set which in turn engages a rotatable piece inside a gravity wheel. Two blocks at the ends of the rotatable piece, as the rotatable piece turns, intermittently press some ratchets inside the gravity wheel to turn the gravity wheel as well. The gravity wheel in turn drives an eccentric gear with a shaft attached to it so that the shaft is put into continuous back-and-forth movement to work on a pump of the sprayer. As such, a number of sprays are produced continuously with a single engagement of the first lever.
The foregoing objectives 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 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.
As shown in
As shown in
The sprayer 1 has a hollow and approximately L-like body. A nozzle 11 is provided on a front end of the sprayer 1 and the other end of the sprayer 1 is joined with the container cap 13. In addition, a curved first lever 12 is provided between the two ends of the L-shaped body. In turn, a curved second lever 15 has one end fixedly joined to a lower portion of the first lever 12 and the other end extended into a lower portion of the body of the sprayer 1. Please note that continuous teeth are provided along a top edge of the second lever 15.
A resilient element 14 is provided between the body and the first lever 12. In the present embodiment, a torsion spring is used as the resilient element 14 so that, after the first lever 12 is engaged to compress the resilient element 14 and then released, the first lever 12 is restored to its original, non-engaged position as the resilient element 14 expands.
Inside the body of the sprayer 1, the teeth of the second lever 15 engages a gear set 2, which in turn engages a rotatable piece 52 inside a gravity wheel 25. When a linear pressure is exerted on the first lever 12, the linear pressure is converted into a rotational force whose direction is changed intermittently, via the second lever 15, the gear set 2, and the gravity wheel 25.
To achieve that, inside the gravity wheel 25, there are a number of ratchets 51 around the inner circumference and the rotatable piece 52 is diametrically and pivotally mounted inside the gravity wheel 25. When the rotatable piece 52 is engaged by the gear set 2, the rotatable piece 52 spins inside the gravity wheel 25. A flexible block 53 is provided at the two ends of the rotatable piece 52, respectively, to interact with the ratchets 51. The ratchets 51, the rotatable piece 52, and the blocks 53 jointly form a clutch means 5.
The rotational force is further converted to a continuous back-and-forth force by an eccentric means 3. The eccentric means 3 contains an eccentric gear 31 engaged by the gravity wheel 25, and a T-shaped shaft 32 having an elongated hole 321 on one end connected to the eccentric gear 31. The shaft 32 has the other end directly pressed against a pump 4 also inside the body. As such, the rotation force on the eccentric gear 31 is converted into a back-and-forth movement of the shaft 32 and the pump 4 is continuously engaged by the shaft 32 to produce a number of sprays automatically.
As shown in
When the first lever 12 is released, as may be deduced from the drawings of
As 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 at without departing in any way from the spirit of the present invention.
