Patent Grant
7404696
The present disclosure generally relates to drill/drivers and more particularly to a drill/driver with one or more accessories that may be mounted to a non-rotating cover that extends about the jaws of a drill chuck.
In one form, the present teachings provide a power tool with a tool portion and at least one attachment. The tool portion has a tool body and a drill chuck. The drill chuck includes a rotatable spindle, a plurality of jaws that are coupled to the rotatable spindle and a cover that is disposed about the jaws and which is not coupled for rotation with the rotatable spindle. The attachment is coupled to the cover of the drill chuck.
Further areas of applicability of the present disclosure will become apparent from the detailed description provided hereinafter. It should be understood that the detailed description and specific examples, while indicating the preferred embodiment of the disclosure, are intended for purposes of illustration only and are not intended to limit the scope of the disclosure.
Additional advantages and features of the present disclosure will become apparent from the subsequent description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
With reference to
In the particular example provided, the tool portion 12 includes a tool body 20 and a drill chuck 22. The tool body 20 can be constructed in any desired manner, such as that which is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,431,289, which is hereby incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein. Briefly, the tool body 20 can generally include a motor 24 and transmission 26 that cooperate to provide rotary power to an output spindle 28 to which the drill chuck 22 is coupled for rotation.
The drill chuck 22 can be a keyless impacting drill chuck of the type that is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,247,706; 6,257,596; and 6,488,286, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein. With additional reference to
Returning to
With reference to
The guide portion 82 may be unitarily formed with the base portion 80 and can include one or more guide rails 100 that are offset from the rotational axis of the drill bit 92. In the example provided, the guide rails 100 terminate at their distal end in a gently sloping radius 102. The guide portion 82 may include a stop device 104 that can be employed to contact a workpiece W to limit the depth of a hole that is to be drilled. In the example provided, the stop device 104 includes a slotted aperture 110, a screw 112 and a nut 114. The screw 112 is disposed in the slotted aperture 110 and threadably engaged to the nut 114. Clamping force produced by the screw 112 and nut 114 maintains the screw 112 and nut 114 at a desired location, while contact between the nut 114 and the workpiece W signals the operator that the hole has been drilled to a desired depth.
With reference to
The spring fingers 124 extend from the base portion 122 and are oriented generally parallel to the rotational axis of the drill bit 92. The spring fingers 124 may be formed of metal, such as spring steel, a plastic or a polymer and preferably have a length that approximately corresponds to a distance by which the drill bit 92 extends from the drill chuck 22. Prior to drilling, the drill bit 92 is oriented such that both of the spring fingers 124 contact the surface of the workpiece W. If the spring fingers 124 are somewhat longer than the distance by which the drill bit 92 extends from the drill chuck 22, or if one desires to check the perpendicularity of a hole that is being drilled, the spring fingers 124 will deflect as shown in
With reference to
The spring coil collar 154 extends from the base portion 152 and is oriented generally parallel to the rotational axis of the drill bit 92. The spring coil collar 154 can be formed of a relatively light diameter wire that permits the user to visually track the position of the distal end of the drill bit 92 relative to the distal end of the spring coil collar 154 and the coaxiality of the drill bit relative to the coil collar. In situations where the drill bit 92 is not perpendicular to a workpiece W, spring coil collar 154 will buckle and the spacing between the drill bit 92 and the sides of the spring coil collar 154 (at an intermediate point along the length of the spring coil collar 154) will not be even (i.e., a “hump” will be visible to one side where the spring coil collar 154 buckles) as is shown in
While the disclosure has been described in the specification and illustrated in the drawings with reference to various embodiments, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes may be made and equivalents may be substituted for elements thereof without departing from the scope of the disclosure as defined in the claims. Furthermore, the mixing and matching of features, elements and/or functions between various embodiments is expressly contemplated herein so that one of ordinary skill in the art would appreciate from this disclosure that features, elements and/or functions of one embodiment may be incorporated into another embodiment as appropriate, unless described otherwise, above. Moreover, many modifications may be made to adapt a particular situation or material to the teachings of the disclosure without departing from the essential scope thereof. Therefore, it is intended that the disclosure not be limited to the particular embodiment illustrated by the drawings and described in the specification as the best mode presently contemplated for carrying out this disclosure, but that the disclosure will include any embodiments falling within the foregoing description and the appended claims.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/654,847 filed Feb. 18, 2005, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
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