Patent Application
20150159491
The present invention relates to a fan wheel structure, and more particularly to a fan wheel structure that includes a ring member with a blade seat and a plurality of blades insert-molded on an outer side thereof and a rotor adapted to be fitted in the ring member from either of two open ends thereof to thereby enable manufacturing of fan wheel structures of different blade rotating directions without the need of making two molds.
With the constantly increased density of the electronic circuits on one single integrated circuit (IC) chip in recent years, the heat produced by each IC chip during operation thereof is also constantly increased. When a personal computer operates, the IC chips with high circuit density, such as the central processing unit (CPU) and the graphics processing unit (GPU), of the computer will produce a large amount of heat. For these IC chips to maintain normal operation over a long period of time, it is necessary to maintain them at an optimal working temperature, so as to avoid lowered performance or damage of these IC chips due to overheating. For this purpose, a heat dissipation device is usually provided for directly contacting with a surface of the heat-producing electronic element, so that the heat produced by the electronic element is transferred via the heat dissipation device to dissipate into ambient air to ensure normal operation and prolonged service life of the electronic element.
Among different heat dissipation devices, the cooling fan is featured by its ability of quickly removing the heat absorbed by the radiating fin assembly to enable good air circulation and heat transfer. Therefore, the cooling fan has become an indispensable element for all heat-producing electronic devices.
It is noted the blade assemblies 12 of the conventional fan wheel structures are generally divided into two types according to their rotating directions, namely, a clockwise rotating blade assembly as shown in
In brief, the prior art fan wheel structures have the following disadvantages: (1) requiring increased manufacturing cost; and (2) involving more complicated manufacturing processes.
A primary object of the present invention is to provide a fan wheel structure, which includes a ring member having a blade seat and a plurality of blades insert-molded on an outer side thereof and a rotor fitted in the ring member, such that the fan wheel structure can be manufactured at lowered cost.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a fan wheel structure, which may have either a clockwise or a counterclockwise blade rotating direction simply by fitting a rotor in a ring member from either of two open ends thereof without the need of using two molds.
To achieve the above and other objects, the fan wheel structure according to the present invention includes a ring member and a rotor. The ring member has two opposite open ends and an inner space defined between and communicable with the two open ends. A blade seat is integrally connected to an outer side of the ring member by insert-molding and has a plurality of blades formed therearound. The rotor includes a hub and a rotary shaft. The rotary shaft has a free end and an opposite coupling end inserted into the hub. The hub can be fitted in the inner space of the ring member from either of the two open ends to associate with the ring member and the blade seat. The blades of the fan wheel structure can be changed to a different rotating direction simply by fitting the rotor in the inner space of the ring member from a different open end thereof. Therefore, only one mold is needed to manufacture fan wheel structures of different blade rotating directions to effectively reduce the cost for manufacturing the fan wheel structure.
The structure and the technical means adopted by the present invention to achieve the above and other objects can be best understood by referring to the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments and the accompanying drawings, wherein
The present invention will now be described with some preferred embodiments thereof and with reference to the accompanying drawings. For the purpose of easy to understand, elements that are the same in the preferred embodiments are denoted by the same reference numerals.
Please refer to
The rotor includes a hub 41 and a rotary shaft 43. The rotary shaft 43 has a free end 431 and an opposite coupling end 432. The coupling end 432 is inserted into the hub 41, and the free end 431 is received in a corresponding bearing cup (not shown). The hub 41 is fitted in the inner space 23 of the ring member 2 to associate with the ring member 2 and the blade seat 3. The hub 41 can be fixedly held in the inner space 23 by riveting, inserting, snap-fitting, screwing, welding, and the like. In the illustrated preferred embodiment, the hub 41 is fixedly held in the inner space 23 by riveting.
Since the ring member 2 has two open ends 21 communicable with the inner space 23, the rotor 4 can be associated with the ring member 2 in two ways.
In the first way, the hub 41 of the rotor 4 is extended into the ring member 2 from the first open end 21 and is then moved toward the second open end 21 until the hub 41 is fully fitted in the inner space 23 and riveted to the ring member 2 to complete the fan wheel structure. In this way, the blades 31 on the fan wheel structure are oriented for rotating clockwise to produce air flows, as shown in
On the other hand, in the second way, the hub 41 of the rotor 4 is extended into the ring member 2 from the second open end 21 and is then moved toward the first open end 21 until the hub 41 is fully fitted in the inner space 23 and riveted to the ring member 2 to complete the fan wheel structure. In this way, the blades 31 on the fan wheel structure are oriented for rotating counterclockwise to produce air flows, as shown in
As can be seen in
The base portion 4110 has a centered through hole 4111, in which a shaft holder 45 is fixedly fitted. The rotary shaft 43 is inserted into the shaft holder 45. More specifically, the coupling end 432 of the rotary shaft 43 is inserted into the shaft holder 45 that is fixedly fitted in the base portion 4110 of the hub 41.
According to the present invention, the blade seat 3 and the blades 31 are directly insert-molded on the lip portions 25 of the ring member 2, and the rotor 4 can be fitted in the inner space 23 and riveted to the ring member 2 from either of two opposite open ends thereof to complete a fan wheel structure having either a clockwise or a counterclockwise blade rotating direction. Therefore, only one mold (not shown) is needed for manufacturing both clockwise and counterclockwise rotatable fan wheel structures to largely save the manufacturing cost.
In conclusion, the fan wheel structure of the present invention has the following advantages: (1) enabling lowered manufacturing cost; and (2) enabling different blade rotating directions simply by fitting the rotor in the ring member 2 from a different direction.
The present invention has been described with some preferred embodiments thereof and it is understood that many changes and modifications in the described embodiments can be carried out without departing from the scope and the spirit of the invention that is intended to be limited only by the appended claims.
