Patent Application
20050189129
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document and its figures contain material subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, but otherwise reserves all copyrights whatsoever.
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of hardware and equipment. More particularly, this invention relates to a driver cap for driving shafted bodies into a surface, such as the earth.
2. Description of Related Art
Shafted bodies, such as rods and/or bolts, are driven into a surface, such as the earth and/or a wall. For example, telecommunications technicians drive grounding rods into the earth for new installations of telecommunications services and equipment. These rods are made of a good-conducting material, such as, for example, steel or copper, and these rods have a length of at least three feet to about eight feet. Depending on soil conditions, these rods can be difficult to drive into the ground. And, when extremely forceful impacts are used to drive the rod to the desired depth, the grounding rod can deform. Such impacts may distort the top of the grounding rod into a mushroom shape. This frayed or splayed end tip makes it difficult to install a ground clamp over the top of the rod. And, excessive impacts into the hard soil may bend the top of the rod, thus making it necessary to start a new rod or to try to hammer out (i.e., unbend) the bended portion of the rod. Still another problem with driving the rod into the ground is that the small impact area of the top of the rod can be difficult to hit, especially if the rod is twanging back and forth from the impact of a hammer.
Another example is driving a hammer bolt, also referred to as a “hardhat,” into a telecommunications pole. To drive the hardhat into the telecommunications pole, the technician must forcefully hammer the hardhat. Sometimes the hardhat “bounces” away and falls to the ground below. Other times, when the hardhat is driven into the pole at an angle, the hardhat fractures the surface of the pole, thus making it necessary to start a new hardhat.
Accordingly, there is a need for a driver device that facilitates driving a shafted body into a surface. Additionally, there is a need for the driver device to accommodate a variety of shaft sizes and shapes.
This invention addresses the above needs and others by providing a driver cap assembly that may be positioned over and/or about an end of a shafted body. A force is applied to the driver cap such that the other end of the shafted body is driven into a surface. The driver cap facilitates a variety of shaft sizes and shapes. Moreover, the driver cap prevents fraying and/or splaying of the top of the shaft when it's subjected to a forceful impact. The driver cap assembly may be made of a variety of materials, such as, for example, metal, polymer, plastic, paper, cloth, ceramic, glass, and/or crystal.
In an embodiment, a driver cap assembly includes a tubular body and a driver sleeve. The tubular body has a closed proximal end, an elongated shank, and an open distal end. A first portion of the closed proximal end flares outward from a proximal end of the elongated shank towards a second portion of the closed proximal end and provides both a larger surface area for applying the force and added mass to minimize twanging. An interior section of the elongated shank and the open distal end comprise a longitudinal bore that is shaped to mate with an exterior complimentary section of the driver sleeve. The interior of the driver sleeve includes a second longitudinal bore that is shaped to fit about a shafted body, such as a grounding rod or a hardhat. According to further embodiments, the interior of the longitudinal bore and/or the second longitudinal bore may be threaded such that the tubular body could be screwed onto and/or off of the sleeve or the sleeve could be screwed onto and/or off of the shafted body.
In another embodiment, a driver cap assembly may include a tubular body and an H-shaped sleeve. Similar to the embodiments above, the tubular body includes a closed proximal end, an elongated shank, and an open distal end. A first portion of the closed proximal end flares outward from a proximal end of the elongated shank towards a second portion of the closed proximal end and provides both a larger surface area for applying the force and added mass to minimize twanging. An interior section of the elongated shank and the open distal end comprise a longitudinal bore that is shaped to mate with an exterior complimentary section of the H-shaped sleeve. The H-shaped sleeve includes a first interior, longitudinal bore and a second interior, longitudinal bore. The first interior, longitudinal bore of the H-shaped sleeve is adapted to fit about a proximal end of a shafted body having a first measurement, and the second interior, longitudinal bore of the H-shaped sleeve is adapted to fit about another proximal end of a shafted body having a second measurement. For example, the first interior, longitudinal bore may have a diameter that is approximately half of an inch and the second interior, longitudinal bore may have a diameter that is approximately five-eighths of an inch.
Further details on these embodiments and other possible embodiments including methods for using the driver cap assembly are set forth below. As is appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art, this invention has wide utility in a number of areas as illustrated by the discussion below. These embodiments may be accomplished singularly, or in combination, in one or more of the implementations of this invention.
The above and other embodiments, objects, uses, advantages, and novel features of this invention are more clearly understood by reference to the following description taken in connection with the accompanying figures, wherein:
This invention now will be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which exemplary embodiments are shown. This invention may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein; rather these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of invention to those of ordinary skill in the art. Like numbers refer to like elements throughout. Moreover, all statements herein reciting embodiments of the invention, as well as specific examples thereof, are intended to encompass both structural and functional equivalents thereof. Additionally, it is intended that such equivalents include both currently known equivalents as well as equivalents developed in the future (i.e., any elements developed that perform the same function, regardless of structure). Thus, for example, it will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that the schematics and the like represent conceptual views of illustrative structures embodying this invention.
In the claims hereof any element expressed as a means for performing a specified function is intended to encompass any way of performing that function including, for example, a combination of elements that performs that function. The invention as defined by such claims resides in the fact that the functionalities provided by the various recited means are combined and brought together in the manner that the claims call for. Applicants thus regard any means that can provide those functionalities as equivalents as those shown herein.
The driver cap assembly of this invention may be positioned over and/or about an end of a shafted body having a variety of shapes and sizes. A force is applied to the positioned driver cap such that the other end of the shafted body is driven into a surface. As discussed further below, using the driver cap to drive the shafted body into the surface prevents and/or minimizes fraying and/or splaying of the top of the shaft when it's subjected to the forceful impact. That is, without using the driver cap, the top of the shaft tends to flatten upon being repeatedly subjected to forces to drive the shafted body into a surface, and it tends to develop a flanged or mushroomed rim. Additionally, using the driver cap assembly of this invention provides a larger and/or may provide a brightly colored target for applying the force and driving the shafted body into the surface. Still further advantages of using the driver cap are discussed throughout this section.
Referring now to
As shown in
The driver sleeve 200 has the general shape of a cylinder and an internal diameter 226 that is sized to accept the grounding rod 410. As those of ordinary skill in the art appreciate, the diameter 226 may be sized to accommodate one of a variety of grounding rod diameters, such as grounding rods with a diameter of about ¼ inch and greater (e.g., ½ inch, 9/16 inch, ⅝ inch, ¾ inch, 1 inch, 2 inches, and so on). Because the driver sleeve 200 is easily removable from the tubular body 100, a user could remove a driver sleeve (not shown) having a diameter (not shown) that is not sized for the grounding rod 410 (i.e., the diameter of the removed driver sleeve is too small or too large for the grounding rod) from the tubular body and select another driver sleeve 200 with having a diameter 226 that is sized to accommodate the diameter of the grounding rod 410 and mate it with the tubular body 100. Thus, the tubular body 100 mates with a variety of driver sleeves each having a different sized diameter.
The tubular body 200 has a generally cylindrical shape with the head symmetrically flaring out from the elongated shank 106 to the closed proximal end 102. The external diameter 120 of the closed proximal head is at least 1¼ times that of a diameter 108 of the elongated shank 106. The length 140 of the tubular body 200 is from about 2 to 10 times the external diameter 120. According to embodiments of this invention, the tubular body 100 and the driver sleeve 200 are both concentric, and the driver sleeve 200 slides into the second longitudinal bore 225. According to alternate embodiments, the driver cap assembly 300 may take on a variety of other shapes, such as polygonal and non-polygonal, to accommodate a shafted body that does not have a concentric cross-section. Thus, the driver cap assembly 300 may be positioned over a variety of shafted bodies having alternate cross-sections, such as, for example, rectangular, hexagonal, and so on.
Referring now to
In addition to the above described embodiments, a tubular body 800 similar to the tubular body 100 of
Many modifications and other embodiments of the invention will come to mind to one skilled in the art to which this invention pertains having the benefit of the teachings presented in the foregoing descriptions and the associated drawings. For example, the sleeve of the driver cap assembly may be of various types known to those in the art. Therefore, it is to be understood that the invention is not to be limited to the specific embodiments disclosed and that modifications and other embodiments are intended to be included within the scope of the appended claims. Although specific terms are employed herein, they are used in a generic and descriptive sense only and not for purposes of limitation.
