Patent Application
20090114683
(a) Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to sprayers, and more particularly to a sprayer capable of producing continuous sprays through an energy storage element and a related method thereof.
(b) Description of the Prior Art
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.
Therefore, a novel sprayer and a related method are provided herein.
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 rotatable piece inside a gravity wheel. Two blocks at the ends of the rotatable piece, as the rotatable piece turns, press some ratchets inside the gravity wheel to turn the gravity wheel. The gravity wheel in turn drives a gear set connected to an energy storage element such as a winding spring. The gear set further engages an eccentric gear with a shaft attached to it so. As the energy storage element is wound and unwound, 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.
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.
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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 a first end fixedly joined to a lower portion of the first lever 12 and a second 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 from the second end towards the first end for an appropriate distance. The top edge of the second lever 15 then has a plain, no-tooth segment 151 up to the first end.
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 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 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 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 second lever 15, 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.
When a linear pressure is exerted to press the first lever 12 towards the body of the sprayer 1, the second lever 15 engages the rotatable piece 52, the blocks 53 presses against some of the ratchets 51, and the gravity wheel 25 is rotated synchronously. As the gravity wheel 25 is turned, the blocks 53 may break away from the ratchets 51 and the gravity wheel 25 may turn freely in the opposite direction until the blocks 53 again press against some ratchets 51.
The rotational force is further converted to a continuous back-and-forth force by a gear set 2 and an eccentric means 3. The gravity wheel 25 engages a gear set 2 so that the gear set turns synchronously with the gravity wheel 25.
An energy storage element 6 is connected to the gear set 2. In the present embodiment, the energy storage element 6 is winding spring 61 such as one found in the clockwork. When the gear set 2 is turned synchronously as the rotatable piece 52 engages the gravity wheel, the spring 61 is wound and mechanical energy is stored in the spring 61 and, when the gravity wheel 25 is allowed to turn freely in an opposite direction, the spring 61 is unwound automatically to release the stored energy. As such, the gear set 2 is able to turn in an opposite direction with greater speed and force.
The gear set 2 in turn engages an eccentric means 3 which contains an eccentric gear 31 engaged by the gear set 2, 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 by the gear set 2 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 from the nozzle 11.
When the first lever 12 is pressed until the plain segment 151 has reached the rotatable piece 52, the gravity wheel 25 is allowed to turn feely as the rotatable piece 52 is no longer engaged by the second lever 15's teeth. As such, all the stored energy of the spring 61 is released completely and the spring 61 is ready for the next operation on the first lever 12.
As may be deduced from the drawings of
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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 art without departing in any way from the spirit of the present invention.
