The present invention relates to containers which include a plurality of storage sections, such as drawers, each of which may be opened or closed. When a storage section is closed, its inside (and, hence the contents thereof) is inaccessible to a user of the container. Whereas, when the storage section is open, a user may access the inside thereof. The present invention has particular, although not exclusive, relevance to such containers as are used for holding and transporting tools and the like.
Retention and transportation of tools within a container is a common requirement for tradespeople, who have to be able to transport their tools from one worksite to another, or to be able to store the tools securely within the container. Because such a tradesperson may need regular and frequent access to their tools when working on a jobsite, the ease with which a tool may be removed and then replaced within the container becomes an important issue. A time-consuming process to open and/or securely close a storage section of the container may take up too much valuable time.
Whilst the provision of the ability to lock a storage section in either its open or closed position may be an attractive proposition, as a practical matter, ease of access and speed of opening and closing the storage section is equally important. The ability to lock a storage section in its closed position can be a requirement either as a default position (to prevent inadvertent opening of the storage section, which could cause the contents thereof to be spilled), or as an optional feature to be employed when the container is being transported, for example, from one jobsite to another.
Containers employing lockable storage sections are known. Examples include U.S. Pat. No. 9,901,170 which discloses a cabinet including a plurality of slidable drawers. Each draw can be individually locked (to prevent opening) or unlocked (to permit opening).
U.S. Pat. No. 7,832,584 shows a tool chest having a plurality of drawers which can all be locked by hinged doors to prevent the drawers from sliding open when the chest is being transported from site to site.
There exists a problem with such known lockable containers, however. In order for a user to be able to close the storage section, they need to perform the task of unlocking the storage sections against their movement restraint. This might seem a trivial task, but it takes time and the cumulative effect of repeating this operation over the course of a day's work can become quite time-consuming.
It would be desirable or an object of the present invention, therefore, to provide a container to overcome existing problems of known lockable containers.
Some preferred or advantageous features of the present invention are found in the claims.
By provision of a detent mechanism which permits selective interaction with the engagement means of each storage means such that the storage means is able to be moved from its open position to its closed position even if/when the detent mechanism is arranged to restrain each storage section in its respective closed position, the present invention provides a more versatile container than has hitherto been available. In particular, this enables a user of the container to simply and quickly close an open storage section, even when the container is in its locked/closed state (ie drawers to be prevented from being opened).
According to a further object of the invention, there is provided a container comprising: a housing defining a drawer opening and lock opening; a plurality of drawers disposed in the drawer opening and wherein each of said drawers is configured to move between an open and closed position, wherein in said open position, access to an interior of the drawer is uninhibited, and in said closed position, access to the interior of the drawer is inhibited; a rotating lock disposed in the lock opening and having a series of cams and flats, and wherein said rotating lock is configured to rotate between a locked position and an unlocked position, wherein in said locked position, a cam prevents a drawer from moving from its closed position to its open position, and wherein in said unlocked position a flat permits a drawer may move freely between its open and closed position; and characterized in that each of the drawers includes a stop having a ramped surface and a locking surface, and wherein the ramped surface is configured engage a cam and permit a drawer to move from its open position to its closed position, when the rotating lock is in its locked position, and wherein the stop is configured to engage a cam and prevent a drawer from moving from its closed position to its open position when the rotating lock is in its locked position.
The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. As used herein, the singular forms, “a”, “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the root terms “include” and/or “have”, when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of at least one other feature, step, operation, element, component, and/or groups thereof.
As used herein, the terms “comprises,” “comprising,” “includes,” “including,” “has,” “having” or any other variation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion. For example, a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of features is not necessarily limited only to those features but may include other features not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method, article, or apparatus.
For definitional purposes and as used herein, “connected” or “attached” includes physical or electrical, whether direct or indirect, affixed or adjustably mounted. Thus, unless specified, “connected” or “attached” is intended to embrace any operationally functional connection.
As used herein, “substantially,” “generally,” “slightly” and other words of degree are relative modifiers intended to indicate permissible variation from the characteristic so modified. It is not intended to be limited to the absolute value or characteristic which it modifies but rather possessing more of the physical or functional characteristic than its opposite, and approaching or approximating such a physical or functional characteristic.
In the following description, reference is made to the accompanying attachments and drawings which are provided for descriptive and illustration purposes as representative of specific exemplary embodiments in which the invention may be practiced. Given the following description of the specification and drawings, the apparatus, methods, and systems should become evident to a person of ordinary skill in the art. Further areas of applicability of the present teachings will become apparent from the description and illustrations provided herein. It is to be understood that other embodiments can be utilized and that structural changes based on presently known structural and/or functional equivalents can be made without departing from the scope of the invention.
The above-mentioned and other features, embodiments, and advantages of this invention, and the manner of attaining them, will become more apparent and the invention will be better understood by reference to the following descriptions of embodiments of the invention taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
b shows a detailed view of the circled section of the rotatable lock of
Corresponding illustrated images and attachments indicate corresponding parts throughout the several views of the present invention. The exemplifications set out herein illustrate embodiments of the present invention, and such exemplifications are not to be construed as limiting the scope of the present invention in any manner.
These and other features of the invention will become apparent upon review of the following description of the presently preferred embodiments of the invention, taken into conjunction with the figures.
A detailed description of apparatuses, methods, and systems, consistent with embodiments of the present disclosure is provided below. While several embodiments are described, it should be understood that the disclosure is not limited to any one embodiment, but instead encompasses numerous alternatives, modifications, and equivalents. In addition, while numerous specific details are set forth in the following description in order to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiments disclosed herein, some embodiments can be practiced without some or all of these details. Moreover, for the purpose of clarity, certain technical material that is known in the related art has not been described in detail in order to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the disclosure.
Referring firstly to
The container 2 includes upper 12 and lower 14 locators such that stacking of containers upon each other is possible. The upper and lower locators 12, 14 are lockable to each other via user-moveable latch means 15. The possible stacking of the containers 4 will not be described further herein, as this concept is well-known to those skilled in the art.
The container 2 includes a detent mechanism, here a rotatable lock 16. Reference to
In
Reference to
At one end of the lock 16 is formed a manually-actuable knob 22 and at the other end a snap-fit retainer 24 to hold the lock 16 in place when inserted into the container 2. The lock 16 is generally circular in cross-section and extends along a major axis, z-z (see
Referring now to
At the forward outside edge of the engagement bar 26 is formed an engagement means, in this example wedge 34. The purpose of the wedge 34 is to selectably co-operate with the rotatable lock 16, as will be explained. In this example, the co-operation is between the wedge 34 and the cams 18 and flats 20 of the rotatable lock 16.
In order to understand the interaction between the rotatable lock 16 and wedge 34, reference is made to
In
As has been described above, the rotatable lock 16 comprises an axially-extending series of cams 18 and flats 20 (in this example 3 of each).
Hence, when the rotatable lock 16 has been rotated (via knob 22) into the position shown in
An important feature of the present invention is the wedge 34 which formed on each drawer 8. As the drawers 8 are arranged (via their upper and lower runners 28, 30) to be able to slide into and out of their respective drawer slots 32 (only one of which is shown, for clarity, at
It will be appreciated that, as an alternative to the material of the wedge 34 being resiliently deformable, it is also possible for the engagement bar 26 and/or the outer front surface 36 of wedge 34 to be resiliently deformable, so that, as the wedge 34 is moved past the cam 18 (ie when the drawer 8 being moved from its open to its closed position), the increasing force placed upon the wedge 34/engagement bar 26 interface as a result of the drawer 8 movement, causes flexing and deformation of the engagement bar 26 to (as would be the case when viewing
Importantly, due to the shape of the wedge 34 and the presentation of the outer front surface 36 to the cam 18, subsequent opening of the drawer is not possible unless and until the rotatable lock 16 is rotated through 90° into its open position, shown in
Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the wedge 34 could be made from a non-resilient material. In this case, the cam 18 and/or the engagement bar 26 would need to be resilient and, preferably, made of a resiliently deformable material. The important requirement here is that there is the ability for the wedge 34 to move past the cam 18 when both i) the rotatable lock 16 is in its locked position and ii) the drawer 8 is open and desired to be closed; such that the drawer 8 can be moved (under force) past the cam 18 from its open to its closed position.
From the foregoing, it will be appreciated that by rotating the knob 22 between its two 90° spaced-apart positions, then selective alignment between either i) the cams 18, or ii) the flats 20 with the wedge 34 of each respective drawer 8 occurs.
When a drawer 8 is in its closed position, it is retained completely within the body of the container 2, as shown, for example in
Referring now to
In
Referring now particularly to
The underside of knob 22 carries two spigots; the first spigot, 40 engages with the end 38a of the spring 38. Both the first and second knob spigots 40, 44 respectively are arranged to travel within arcuate slot 46 formed in the body of the container 2 as the rotatable lock 16 rotates.
The rotatable lock 16 may be held in its unlocked position as result of the interaction between the spigots 40, 44 and two diametrically-opposed arcuate lands 48 formed on the inner surface of arcuate slot 46. If the knob 22 (or indeed the rotatable lock 16) is rotated anti-clockwise (as the figures are viewed) with sufficient force that each spigot 40, 44 is able to move past and over its respective land 48, then, on removal of that rotational force, the interaction of the lands 48 with the spigots 40, 40 holds the spigots in place (ie in its unlocked position). Unless sufficient force in a clockwise sense is applied to the rotatable lock 16, the spigots 40, 44 are unable to ramp over the lands 48 to return the rotatable lock 16 to its normally locked position.
In its locked state, the rotatable lock 16 presents its cam 18 to the drawer wedge 34. In its unlocked state, the rotatable lock 16 presents its flat 20 to the drawer wedge 34.
Movement of the drawer 8 towards its closed position, as shown in
Continued closing of the drawer 8 results in the situation shown in
Although the described detent provides physical contact between the engagement means of the storage sections and the detent mechanisms, as described above, other detent mechanisms are within the scope of the invention, such as magnetic switched lock elements. Such a magnetic lock would have magnets (such as an electromagnet) on the rotatable lock and/or each drawer. The electromagnet can be selectably activated (locked) or de-activated (unlocked) to allow the retention (locked) of each drawer in its closed position (and to be able to move from its open to its closed position), or to prevent opening of the drawer (locked)
The example and alternative embodiments described above may be combined in a variety of ways with each other. It should be noted that the present invention may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein; rather, the embodiments set forth herein are provided so that the disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the invention to those skilled in the art. Furthermore, the steps and number of the various steps illustrated in the figures may be adjusted from that shown. The accompanying figures and attachments illustrate exemplary embodiments of the invention.
Although the present invention has been described in terms of particular example and alternative embodiments, it is not limited to those embodiments. Alternative embodiments, examples, and modifications which would still be encompassed by the invention may be made by those skilled in the art, particularly in light of the foregoing teachings.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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21175506.1 | May 2021 | EP | regional |