Patent Application
20090220299
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fixture for fixing a board to a base body, and more particularly to a board fixing module that provides an effective positioning effect and an convenient installation or dismount.
2. Description of the Related Art
As Do-It-Yourself (DIY) becomes increasingly popular, many large chain house maintenance stores are established, and many manufacturers constantly introduce various different consumer DIY products to the market and provide users a way of assembling furniture products such as bookshelves, combinational cabinets, and CD racks, etc. Since DIY products require no professional assemblers to go to a customer's house to assemble the products, therefore the DIY products generally come with a lower price and become increasingly more popular, and many DIY furniture use nails or screws for fixing a board onto a base body, and the board can be a tabletop or a partition of a combinational cabinet and the base body can be another piece of board, a table leg or a wall of a combinational cabinet.
Unlike professional assemblers, consumers may need to remove an incorrectly installed part and reinstall the part during the assembling process of DIY furniture. If the DIY furniture is assembled and fixed by nails, then it will be very difficult to reinstall the parts, or any reinstalling may damage the product easily. If the DIY furniture is assembled and fixed by screws, then it is necessary to reinstall the parts by repeatedly loosening and securing the screws, and thus the thread of the screw will be damaged. As a result, the DIY product incurs a higher cost and a less convenient assembling process.
In addition, many other DIY furniture products sold in the market provide a latch module for consumers to assemble the furniture by a simple snap-in action as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,211,519, 5,902,083, 6,048,147, 6,406,235 and 6,540,461.
To make it easy to securely assemble DIY furniture, most of the traditional latch devices usually come with a structural design featuring an easy installation but a difficult dismount, and thus the traditional latch devices cannot overcome the aforementioned shortcomings of uneasy to remove the wrongly installed parts and easy to damage the product. Therefore, the inventor of the present invention developed a board fixing module that can be installed or dismounted easily without damaging the product.
In view of the shortcomings of the prior art, the inventor of the present invention based on years of experience in the related industry to conduct extensive researches and experiments, and finally developed a board fixing module in accordance with the present invention to overcome the shortcomings of the prior art.
Therefore, it is a primary objective of the present invention to provide a board fixing module, so that consumers can use the board fixing module for installing or dismounting a board of a DIY product with a base body easily to provide a convenient application.
To achieve the foregoing objective, the present invention provides a board fixing module comprising: a fixing element embedded into a first fixing hole of a base body; a bottom portion passed through a second fixing hole of a board and latched to a latch element of the fixing element; and a passing rod passed into the latch element for maintaining a latch condition of the latch element and the fixing element, wherein:
The fixing element is in the shape of a pipe and the middle of the fixing element includes a latch hole, and the depth of a first fixing hole on the base body is greater than the length of the fixing element, such that after the fixing element is embedded and fixed, a moving space with an internal diameter greater than the latch hole is defined at the bottom of the fixing element.
The latch element comes with a length greater than the length of the fixing element, an external diameter corresponding to the latch hole of the fixing element, and a middle axially penetrating the through hole of the latch element. The bottom portion has an external diameter greater than the diameter of the latch hole of the fixing element and a latch portion in the elastic claw-shaped, and the internal wall around the periphery of the through hole has an internal flange disposed at a position corresponding to the latch portion. When the latch element is passed through the second fixing hole of the board and the latch hole of the fixing element, the claw-shaped latch portion is elastically retracted. The latch portion is elastically extended when it is displaced into the moving space at the bottom of the fixing element.
The length of the passing rod is greater than the depth of the through hole, and the passing rod is passed into the through hole of the latch element, and the bottom portion has a protruding lump disposed at the internal flange corresponding to the internal wall of the through hole, such that when the protruding lump is aligned with the internal flange, the claw-shaped latch portion is restricted from being retracted, and the latch portion with an external diameter greater than the latch hole of the fixing element is maintained under the fixing element and cannot be taken out. Thus, the board can be fixed onto the base body by latching the latch element and the passing rod to the fixing element.
If it is necessary to remove the board, users simply need to press the passing rod down, such that after the protruding lump is passed through the internal flange of the latch element, the latch portion will resume its elastically retracted state, and the latch element can be removed from the latch hole of the fixing element to separate the board from the base body, so as to achieve the effect of a convenient installation or dismount.
Compared with the prior art, the present invention simply requires users to align the second fixing hole of the board with the fixing element on the base body when the board is fixed to the base body, and then pass the latch element through the second fixing hole and the fixing element, and finally pass the passing rod into the latch element, so as to latch the board with the fixing element through the latch element and fix the board onto the base body. More specifically, when it is necessary to remove the board, the user simply needs to press the passing rod to separate the board from the base body. Thus, the invention provides the effect of a convenient installation or dismount, and prevents the structure of the product from being damaged by repeated insulations and dismounts.
To make it easy for our examiner to understand the above and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention, we use preferred embodiments accompanied with the related drawings for the following detailed description of the invention.
The above and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description taken with the accompanying drawings, wherein like elements are represented by the same numeral.
In
In
To fix the fixing element 10 to the first fixing hole 81 securely, a stop board 12 is extended outward from the periphery around the top of the fixing element 10 for preventing the fixing element 10 from dropping out. The external rim of the fixing element 10 includes a plurality of serrations 13 for latching the internal periphery of the first fixing hole 81 to prevent the fixing element 10 from falling out from the top. In the embodiment, a plastic material is coated onto a contact surface between the external periphery of the fixing element 10 and the internal periphery of the first fixing hole 81 to enhance the strength of fixing the fixing element 10 with the first fixing hole 81.
The latch element 20 comes with a length greater than the length of the fixing element 10, and an external diameter corresponding to the latch hole 11 of the fixing element 10. The middle of the latch element 20 includes a through hole 21 axially penetrating the latch element 20, and the bottom portion comes with an external diameter greater than the diameter of the latch hole 11 of the fixing element 10 and includes an elastic claw-shaped latch portion 22. The internal wall around the through hole 21 at the bottom portion includes an internal flange 23 disposed at a position corresponding to the latch portion 22.
To prevent the latch element 20 from dropping out after the latch element 20 is passed through the second fixing hole 91 of the board 90, wherein the latch element 20 has a nut rim 24 disposed around the top of the latch element 20 and having an external diameter greater than the diameter of the second fixing hole 91.
In
In
Now, the latch element 20 is passed through the second fixing hole 91 of the board 90, and the claw-shaped latch portion 22 is passed through the latch hole 11 of the fixing element 10 downward until the latch portion 22 is situated under the fixing element 10. Since the latch portion 22 is claw-shaped and elastic, and its external diameter is greater than the diameter of the latch hole 11 of the fixing element 10, therefore when the latch portion 22 is passed into the latch hole 11, the latch portion 22 is elastically retracted, and when the latch portion 22 is displaced under the fixing element 10 and elastically extended outward, the latch portion 22 constitutes a temporary latch condition with the fixing element 10.
In
In
In
In this embodiment, the length of the passing rod 30 is preferably designed in a way that the top of the passing rod 30 is precisely and evenly aligned with the top of the latch element 20 when the passing rod 30 is passed into the protruding lump 31 and its external rim is propped at the internal flange 23. Therefore, users can use a finger to pass the passing rod 30 into a fixed position. In addition to the latch feeling, the top of the passing rod 30 is aligned precisely and evenly with the top of the latch element 20 and the passing rod 30 cannot be pressed any further to prevent any unintended movement of the passing rod 30. With the aforementioned latch state, the top of the passing rod 30 is aligned evenly with the top of the latch element 20, such that during the dismount as shown in
In summation of the description above, when a user wants to fix the board 90 to the base body 80, the user simply needs to align the second fixing hole 91 of the board 90 with the fixing element 10 of the base body 80, and passes the latch element 20 through the second fixing hole 91 and the fixing element 10, and then passes the passing rod 30 into the latch element 20 to latch the board 90 at the fixing element 10 and fix the board 90 onto the base body 80 by the latch element 20 and the passing rod 30. When the user wants to remove the board 90 from the base body 80, the user simply needs to press the top of the passing rod 30 downward to separate the board 90 from the base body 80. The invention provides the effect of a convenient installation or dismount and prevents the structure of the product from being damaged during repeated installations and dismounts.
While the invention is described in some detail hereinbelow with reference to certain illustrated embodiments, it is to be understood that there is no intent to limit the invention to those embodiments. On the contrary, the aim is to cover all modifications, alternatives and equivalents falling within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.
