Patent Application
20150101947
This invention relates to containers, more specifically to containers for housing and transporting optical instruments while mitigating damage to the optical instruments.
Typically, an optical instrument is transported (e.g. shipped or otherwise moved from location to location) by housing the optical instrument in a box or container lined with conventional packaging material such as foam, EPE foam, packing paper, bubble wrap or the like. During transport of the instrument, the box may experience shocks, which may cause associated shock forces to be transmitted through the box and to the optical instrument. Further, the optical instrument may move inside the box, collide with the sidewalls of the box and experience associated collision forces. Such shock forces and/or collision forces may be harmful to the optical instrument.
Different techniques have been used to reduce the forces experienced by optical instruments during transport inside such boxes. For example, the box may be filled with “peanut foam” which may reduce movement of the optical instrument inside the box and reduce the forces transmitted to the optical instrument. However, peanut foam may settle or otherwise move around inside the box during transport, leaving parts of the optical instrument unprotected.
There remains a general desire for more effective ways to house and transport optical instruments while mitigating damage to the optical instruments.
The invention has a number of aspects. One aspect provides a container for housing an optical instrument. The container comprises an interior surface shaped to define a container cavity, the container cavity sized to accommodate the optical instrument. The interior surface is shaped to define a plurality of ball-receiving concavities which open into the container cavity, each ball-receiving concavity having an opening at an edge between the ball-receiving concavity and the container cavity and an interior region inside the ball-receiving concavity. The container comprises a plurality of elastically deformable balls, each ball located in a corresponding one of the ball-receiving concavities and projecting from the interior region of the corresponding one of the ball-receiving concavities through the opening of the corresponding one of the ball-receiving concavities and into the container cavity such that the balls are deformed to accommodate the optical instrument in the container cavity.
Another aspect of the invention comprises a method for transporting an optical instrument. The method comprises: providing a container for housing an optical instrument, the container comprising an interior surface shaped to define a container cavity, the container cavity sized to accommodate the optical instrument, the interior surface further shaped to define a plurality of ball-receiving concavities which open into the container cavity, each ball-receiving concavity having an opening at an edge between the ball-receiving concavity and the container cavity and an interior region inside the ball-receiving concavity; providing a plurality of elastically deformable balls, each ball located in a corresponding one of the ball-receiving concavities and projecting from the interior region of the corresponding one of the ball-receiving concavities through the opening of the corresponding one of the ball-receiving concavities and into the container cavity; and inserting the optical instrument into the container concavity and thereby deforming the plurality of balls.
Further aspects of the invention and non-limiting example embodiments of the invention are illustrated in the accompanying drawings and/or described in the following description.
The accompanying drawings illustrate non-limiting example embodiments of the invention.
Throughout the following description specific details are set forth in order to provide a more thorough understanding to persons skilled in the art. However, well known elements may not have been shown or described in detail to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the disclosure. The following description of examples of the technology is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the system to the precise forms of any example embodiment. Accordingly, the description and drawings are to be regarded in an illustrative, rather than a restrictive, sense.
Aspects of the invention provide containers for housing optical instruments. An optical instrument container comprises an interior surface, which defines a container cavity for accommodating the optical instrument. The interior surface also defines a plurality of ball-receiving concavities, which open into the container cavity. An elastically deformable ball is located in each ball-receiving concavity. Each ball is sized such that it projects from an interior region of its corresponding ball-receiving concavity through an opening of its corresponding ball-receiving concavity and into the container cavity such that the balls are deformed to accommodate the optical instrument in the container cavity.
Case body 1 and/or cover 4 may comprise several layers of material. For example, in the case of the illustrated embodiment, case body 1 and cover 4 comprise a relatively hard exterior layer 11 (e.g. suitable metal, plastic and/or the like) and a relatively soft interior layer 2 (e.g. foam, EPE foam and/or the like). Exterior layers 11 and interior layers 2 may be of different thicknesses than one another. Exterior layer 11 and/or interior layer 2 of case body 1 may have different thicknesses than exterior layer 11 and/or interior layer 2 of cover 4. In some embodiments, case body 1 and/or cover 4 may comprise a single layer of material or more than two layers of material. In some embodiments, case body 1 and cover 4 may comprise different numbers of layers of material.
Interior layers 2 and/or exterior layers 11 of case body 1 and cover 4 provide a interior surface 10, which defines a container cavity (i.e. an instrument-housing space) 7 for housing an optical instrument 5. Case body 1 and cover 4 (and/or the interior surface 10 thereof) may be shaped and/or sized such that container cavity 7 accommodates a particular optical instrument 5.
As shown best in
Ball-receiving concavities 3 house elastically deformable balls 6. Balls 6 may be made from rubber or other deformable elastic material. In some embodiments, balls 6 may comprise a hollow elastically deformable boundary surface and may be filled with fluid (e.g. air, a suitable gel or liquid and/or the like). Balls 6 may all have the same size or may have different sizes which may correspond to different sizes of ball-receiving concavities 3 as described in more detail below. Balls 6 may all have the same elastic deformability properties as each other or may have different elastic deformability properties from one another.
Preferably, balls 6 are located within container 20 such that various pluralities of balls 6 exert restorative forces, which tend to oppose one another. In currently preferred embodiments, container 20 comprises at least three pluralities of generally opposing balls 6, with the three pluralities of generally opposing balls 6 at least approximately orthogonally to one another. Such pluralities of opposing balls 6 may comprise a pair of balls on directly opposing sides of container cavity 7 (as shown schematically in
Referring to
Balls 6 may be sized or otherwise designed so that with sufficient external force, balls 6 may be inserted into, or removed from, ball-receiving concavities 3, but so that the force of gravity acting on balls 6 is insufficient to deform balls 6 by enough that balls 6 fall out of their corresponding ball-receiving concavities 3. Balls 6 dimensioned as described above and as shown in
As discussed above, ball-receiving concavities 3 are defined by interior surface 10 of container 20 and interior surface 10 may be provided by the surface of interior layer 2 and/or the surface of exterior layer 11. In some embodiments, ball-receiving concavities 3 are defined entirely by interior layer 2 of case body 1 and/or cover 4. In some embodiments, the sidewalls of ball-receiving concavities 3 are defined by interior layer 2 of case body 1 and/or cover 4 and the bases of ball-receiving concavities 3 are defined by exterior layer 11 of case body 1 and/or cover 4. In some embodiments (like the case of the illustrated embodiment, as shown best in
As shown in
Optical instrument 5 may move inside container 20 due, for example, to the application of external forces to container 20 during transport.
Balls 6A, 6B may be chosen to have dimensions and elastic properties such that under a range of typical forces that might be experienced during transport, balls 6A, 6B will compress in a manner which prevents optical instrument 5 from contacting interior layer 2. The use of balls 6 may help reduce the transmission of shock forces to optical instrument 5 by gradually absorbing their energy. The elastic nature of balls 6 prevents the sudden impact of optical instrument 5 with interior layer 2 and hence, prevents damage to optical instrument 5.
As mentioned above, in currently preferred embodiments, container 20 comprises at least three pluralities of generally opposing balls 6 (housed in corresponding ball-receiving concavities 3), with the three pluralities of generally opposing balls 6 (and their ball-receiving concavities 3) oriented at least approximately orthogonally. In this description and the corresponding claims, a generally opposed plurality of balls 6 may comprise a pair of balls 6.
Unless the context clearly requires otherwise, throughout the description and the claims:
Words that indicate directions such as “vertical”, “transverse”, “horizontal”, “upward”, “downward”, “forward”, “backward”, “inward”, “outward”, “left”, “right”, “front”, “back”, “top”, “bottom”, “below”, “above”, “under”, and the like, used in this description and any accompanying claims (where present) depend on the specific orientation of the apparatus described and illustrated. The subject matter described herein may assume various alternative orientations. Accordingly, these directional terms are not strictly defined and should not be interpreted narrowly.
Where a component is referred to above, unless otherwise indicated, reference to that component (including a reference to a “means”) should be interpreted as including as equivalents of that component any component which performs the function of the described component (i.e., that is functionally equivalent), including components which are not structurally equivalent to the disclosed structure which performs the function in the illustrated exemplary embodiments of the invention.
Specific examples of systems, methods and apparatus have been described herein for purposes of illustration. These are only examples. The technology provided herein can be applied to systems other than the example systems described above. Many alterations, modifications, additions, omissions and permutations are possible within the practice of this invention. This invention includes variations on described embodiments that would be apparent to the skilled addressee, including variations obtained by: replacing features, elements and/or acts with equivalent features, elements and/or acts; mixing and matching of features, elements and/or acts from different embodiments; combining features, elements and/or acts from embodiments as described herein with features, elements and/or acts of other technology; and/or omitting combining features, elements and/or acts from described embodiments.
It is therefore intended that the following appended claims and claims hereafter introduced are interpreted to include all such modifications, permutations, additions, omissions and sub-combinations as may reasonably be inferred. The scope of the claims should not be limited by the preferred embodiments set forth in the examples, but should be given the broadest interpretation consistent with the description as a whole.
