BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The invention is described below with reference to an example shown in the drawings in which
FIG. 1 is a schematic top view of a series of battery cells of a heavy duty accumulator,
FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a filling plug according to the invention,
FIG. 3 is a cross sectional view of an adapter sleeve to be fastened to the lower end of the housing of the filling plug, and
FIG. 4 is a bottom view of the adapter sleeve of FIG. 3.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PRESENTLY PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
FIG. 1 shows the top view of an accumulator 10 during the mounting phase of a series of interconnected filling plugs 12. The upper horizontal wall 14 of the accumulator 10 is provided with filling openings 16 each of which is made up of a circular hole 18 which has two diametrically opposed ledges 20 protruding radially inward.
As illustrated in FIG. 2, each filling plug 12 comprises a cylindrical housing 22. In a manner known per se and not illustrated, each plug 12 contains a float 32 for actuating a valve system positioned in said plug housing 22 and connected to two feeding tubes 24 horizontally protruding as a T-piece from an upper portion of the housing 22 which is closed by a lid 26.
The housing 22 is provided at its lower end 28 with an adapter sleeve 30 fastened to that lower end 28 by fastening elements which correspond to fastening elements provided at said lower end 28, e.g. a thread, a snap fastener or a bayonet fastener.
In the example of FIGS. 3 and 4, the adapter sleeve 30 is provided at its inner wall 34 with radially inward extending annular protrusions 36 for engaging annular grooves provided at the lower end 28 of the housing 22, such that the adapter sleeve 30 may be turned by 360° on said lower end 28 of the housing 22.
The lower end of the adapter sleeve 30 is in the form of an axially extending tubular snap ring element 38 which is provided with two axially extending slits 40 allowing a radially elastic contraction of the snap ring element 38.
The tubular snap ring element 38 is further provided at its outer wall 42 with bayonet coupling elements 44 each of which is made up of a shoulder 46 radially projecting from that outer wall 42. These shoulders preferably have a circumferentially limited extent. Each shoulder 46 has a downward sloping surface 48 to facilitate insertion into the filling opening 16 of the corresponding battery cell.
In the configuration of the filling openings 16 of FIG. 1, in which their radially inward protruding ledges 20 are parallel to each other, care should be taken to have the right position of the adapter sleeve 30 at the lower end 28 of the housing 22, i.e., as depicted in FIG. 4, the two feeding tubes 24 should be parallel to the plane 50 connecting both slits 40.
In the upper part of FIG. 1, the kit made up of a series of interconnected filling plugs 12 is shown in which each pair of adjacent feeding tubes 24 is connected by a short hose 52. Such premounted series of filling plugs 12 is then mounted into the filling openings 16, simply by pressing the lower ends 28 or the adapter sleeve 30, respectively, of each filling plug 12 into the corresponding filling opening 16. In this way, the tubular snap ring element 38 will be elastically contracted in the radial direction whereupon, at the end of the insertion, the shoulders 46 of the bayonet coupling element 44 will click behind the ledges 18 of each opening 16. If it is necessary to dismount the filling plugs 12, the connecting hoses 52 will have to be pulled off the feeding tubes 24 whereon each filling plug 12 may be rotated by 90° such that the shoulders 46 of each bayonet coupling element 44 may be drawn out through the hole 18 of each cell.
The invention is not limited by the embodiments described above which are presented as examples only but can be modified in various ways within the scope of protection defined by the appended patent claims.
Patent Application
20080020269
