Patent Application
20160174770
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to watertightness of knife shafts, and more particularly to a watertight structure applicable to a shaft assembly of a blender blade device.
2. Description of Related Art
The modern life makes people suffer from working pressure and lack of exercise. For maintaining a healthy condition, people tend to increase daily ingestion of cellulose and vitamins by taking fruit juice that is made through cutting and blending fresh vegetables and fruits with a blender, with the hope that quick absorption of natural nutrition helps to preserve our health.
A blender typically has a base powered by a motor, a container mounted on and operated by the base, and a blade device that is driven by the motor. The blade device is installed in the container and passes through the bottom of the container. Such a blade device usually has a downward-opened shell. The shell receives therein a bearing having an axial through hole and an oil seal having an axial through hole that are stacked vertically. The shell has its top surface formed with a through hole that is communicated with the through hole formed on the bearing and on the oil seal. A shaft body passes through the through holes. The shaft body has its upper and lower ends projecting from the top surface of the shell and the bottom surface of the bearing, respectively. An upper knife and a lower knife are mounted around the upper end section of the shaft body with the shaft body on top while a gear is mounted around the lower end section of the shaft body. The gear is operationally connected to a transmission of the motor so as to drive the upper knife and the lower knife to revolve and cut vegetables and fruits into small pieces and juice. With proper angular arrangement between the upper and lower knives, the pieces and juice of the cut vegetables and fruits can be well blended into uniform fruit juice. In the existing configuration, the shaft body directly contacts the oil seal and tends to get worn after long-term use. Conventionally, for improving watertightness, a watertight pad is arranged between the shaft body and the oil seal to prevent fruit juice from leaking. However, when the shaft body is worn after long-term use, gaps can generate between the shaft body and the watertight pad, making the watertight pad gradually lose its filling and water-blocking functions. When this happens, once the shaft body revolves at a high speed, the great fluid pressure generated by the fruit juice in the container can make the fruit juice flow along the gaps between the shaft body and the watertight pad and permeate into the blade device. This may damage the bearing and even the motor in the base. Hence, the inventor of the present invention identifies the focus of the improvement in the prior art as how to prevent the shaft body from wear and tear.
In view of the shortcomings of the prior art, it is the objective of the present invention to provide a shaft assembly of a blender blade device, which prevents the peripheral wall of the shaft body from directly contacting and rubbing against other objects, and in turn prevents generation of gaps between the shaft body and the watertight pad that might otherwise occur due to the worn shaft body, thereby ensuring watertightness.
In order to achieve the above and other objectives, the present invention provides a shaft assembly of a blender blade device, characterized in that: the shaft assembly penetrates the blender blade device, and the blender blade device is disposed in a blender container and penetratingly disposed at the bottom of the blender container to connect with a blender base. The shaft assembly comprises a shaft body and a wear-resistant sleeve. A stop ring is disposed at the upper segment of the shaft body and axially protrudes outward from the circumferential wall of the shaft body. The wear-resistant sleeve axially fits around the outer wall of the shaft body and has the top rim abutting against the bottom rim of the stop ring.
Regarding the shaft assembly of the blender blade device, the thickness of the sidewall of the wear-resistant sleeve equals the distance by which the stop ring protrudes from the circumferential wall of the shaft body.
Regarding the shaft assembly of the blender blade device, the top wall of the wear-resistant sleeve not only faces the shaft body but also inclines downward to slope from the outer sidewall to the inner sidewall, such that an annular space is defined jointly by the bottom surface of the stop ring, the circumferential wall of the shaft body, and the inclined top wall of the wear-resistant sleeve, thereby allowing an watertight ring to be disposed in the annular space. Since the wear-resistant sleeve fits around the outer circumferential wall of the shaft body, it is practicable to allow the wear-resistant sleeve to come into contact with an oil seal and generate friction therebetween, so as to not only lessen any damage done to the outer circumferential wall of the shaft body because of direct contact and friction but also reduce the chance of forming a gap therebetween even after long use of the shaft body, thereby waterproofing the shaft assembly. Waterproof rings are disposed between the shaft body and the oil seal to reduce the chance of forming a gap between the shaft body and the waterproof rings; hence, the waterproof rings function well.
The present invention is hereunder described in terms of structures and features, illustrated with embodiments, and depicted by the accompanying drawings.
Referring to
Since the wear-resistant sleeve 42 fits around the outer circumferential wall of the shaft body 41, the wear-resistant sleeve 42 has to be made of a wear-resistant or high-rigidity material. In this embodiment, the wear-resistant sleeve 42 is made of SUS440C stainless steel, whereas the shaft body 41 is made of SUS303 stainless steel, with a view to lessening any damage done to the outer circumferential wall of the shaft body 41 because of direct contact and friction; hence, with the wear-resistant sleeve 42 being wear-resistant and the shaft body 41 being immune to friction-induced damage, the shaft body 41 is unlikely to get spaced apart from the waterproof rings even after long use of the shaft body 41, thereby waterproofing the shaft assembly 4. Furthermore, since the thickness of the sidewall of the wear-resistant sleeve 42 equals the distance by which the stop ring 411 protrudes from the circumferential wall of the shaft body 41, it is not necessary to manufacture the other components of the blender blade device 3 in order for the blender blade device 3 to match the shaft assembly 4, thereby incurring no additional production cost. Moreover, the watertight ring 44 achieves a waterproof purpose by stopping the advance of a liquid seeping along the shaft body 41.
In conclusion, the present invention has high industrial applicability, has never been published or openly used before the filing of this patent application, has never been disclosed to the general public, and has non-obviousness. Hence, the present invention meets all the requirements of patentability.
The present invention is described above and illustrated with a preferred embodiment. All equivalent changes made to the preferred embodiment of the present invention should fall within the scope of the present invention as set forth in the appended claims.
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/CN2014/000178 | 2/26/2014 | WO | 00 |
