Patent Application
20230381932
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The disclosure relates to hydrant devices and more particularly pertains to a new hydrant device for opening a fire hydrant in a controlled manner. The device includes a cordless tool, a socket that is attachable to the cordless tool and a rod that is insertable into the cordless tool. The socket has dimensions that match the top nut of a fire hydrant to facilitate the cordless tool to open the fire hydrant in a slow and controlled manner. The rod has a prying tool and a ratchet drive that can engage the socket when the cordless tool has insufficient torque to rotate the top nut.
The prior art relates to hydrant devices including a fireman's hand tool that includes a window breaker and a pry bar. The prior art discloses a fire hydrant wrench that has a pentagonal aperture for engaging a top nut of a fire hydrant. The prior art discloses a fan clutch wrench that includes a cordless tool, an extension and a wrench that engages a fan clutch and which is attachable to the extension. The prior art discloses a wrench that has a pair of apertures for engaging fire control devices. The prior art discloses a fire hydrant wrench that includes a primary handle, a secondary handle and a motor mounted to the primary handle.
An embodiment of the disclosure meets the needs presented above by generally comprising a cordless tool that has an output shaft and a trigger. A socket is attachable to the output shaft of the cordless tool and the socket has dimensions matching a top nut of a fire hydrant thereby facilitating the cordless tool to open the fire hydrant. A rod is attachable to the handle of the cordless tool thereby facilitating the rod to be gripped for manipulating the cordless tool. A ratchet driver is attached to the rod and the socket is attachable to the ratchet driver when the cordless tool has insufficient torque to loosen the top nut. A prying tool is coupled to the rod and the prying tool has a claw element and a hook element to grip an object for prying the object.
There has thus been outlined, rather broadly, the more important features of the disclosure in order that the detailed description thereof that follows may be better understood, and in order that the present contribution to the art may be better appreciated. There are additional features of the disclosure that will be described hereinafter and which will form the subject matter of the claims appended hereto.
The objects of the disclosure, along with the various features of novelty which characterize the disclosure, are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part of this disclosure.
The disclosure will be better understood and objects other than those set forth above will become apparent when consideration is given to the following detailed description thereof. Such description makes reference to the annexed drawings wherein:
With reference now to the drawings, and in particular to
As best illustrated in
A socket 36 is attachable to the output shaft 14 of the cordless tool 12 such that the cordless tool 12 rotates the socket 36. Additionally, the socket 36 has dimensions matching a top nut 38 of a fire hydrant 40 thereby facilitating the cordless tool 12 to open the fire hydrant 40. The fire hydrant 40 may be a fire hydrant of any conventional design that is commonly employed in cities and municipalities in the United States of America. The socket 36 has a forward end 42 and a rear end 44, and the socket 36 has an output well 46 extending into the rear end 44. The output well 46 has a bounding surface 48 and the bounding surface 48 has a plurality of intersecting sides 50 such that the output well 46 has a rectangular shape.
The output well 46 insertably receives the output shaft 14 of the cordless tool 12 and each of the intersecting sides 32 of the outer surface 30 of the output shaft 14 conforms to a respective one of the intersecting sides 50 of the bounding surface 48 of the output well 46 thereby facilitating the output shaft 14 to rotate the socket 36 when the cordless tool 12 is turned on. The socket 36 has a nut well 52 extending into the forward end 42 of the socket 36, the nut well 52 has a bounding surface 54 and the bounding surface 54 of the nut well 52 has a plurality of intersecting sides 56 such that the nut well 52 has a pentagonal shape thereby facilitating the nut well 52 to conform to the top nut 38 of the fire hydrant 40 for rotating the top nut 38. The output shaft 14 may have a maximum rotational speed of 100.0 rpm thereby facilitating the fire hydrant 40 to be opened slowly to inhibit water hammering that can damage fire control equipment such as a fire engine, water tenders and other fire control equipment commonly employed by municipal fire departments.
A rod 58 is attachable to the handle 22 of the cordless tool 12 thereby facilitating the rod 58 to be gripped for manipulating the cordless tool 12. The rod 58 has a top end 60, a bottom end 62 and an outer surface 63 extending between the top end 60 and the bottom end 62 of the rod 58. Additionally, the top end 60 is insertable into the rod well 26 in the bottom end 24 of the handle 22 of the cordless tool 12. A ratchet driver 64 is attached to the rod 58 and the socket 36 is attachable to the ratchet driver 64 thereby facilitating the rod 58 to be manipulated to loosen the top nut 38 on the fire hydrant 40 when the cordless tool 12 has insufficient torque to loosen the top nut 38.
The ratchet driver 64 is disposed on the bottom end 24 of the rod 58 and the ratchet driver 64 has a top face 66 and a bottom face 68. The ratchet driver 64 is oriented such that an axis extending between the top face 66 and the bottom face 68 is perpendicularly oriented with an axis extending between the top end 60 and the bottom end 24 of the rod 58. The ratchet driver 64 has an output 70 shaped in a cube thereby facilitating the output 70 to engage the output well 46 in the rear end 44 of the socket 36. The output 70 is rotatably disposed on the bottom face 68 of the ratchet driver 64 and the ratchet driver 64 includes a direction knob 72 that is rotatably disposed on the top face 66. The direction knob 72 is in mechanical communication with the output 70 to adjust a rotational direction of the output 70 between a counterclockwise direction and a clockwise direction.
A prying tool 74 is coupled to the rod 58 and the prying tool 74 has a claw element 76 and a hook element 78 which can each grip an object for prying the object. The prying tool 74 has a first end 80, a second end 82 and an outside surface 84 extending between the first end 80 and the second end 82, and the outside surface 84 has a front side 86 and a back side 88. The prying tool 74 has a series of bends 90 that are spaced apart from each other and are distributed from the first end 80 toward the second such that the first end 80 is directed toward the front side 86 of the outside surface 84 thereby defining the claw element 76. The prying tool 74 has a curve 92 extending from the second end 82 toward the first end 80 such that the second end 82 is directed toward the front side 86 of the outside surface 84 thereby defining the hook element 78. The back side 88 of the outside surface 84 is attached to the outer surface 30 of the rod 58 at a connection point extending between the curve 92 and the series of bends 90. Furthermore, the prying tool 74 is positioned closer to the bottom end 24 of the rod 58 than the top end 60 of the rod 58.
In use, the socket 36 is attached to the cordless tool 12 and the socket 36 is placed on the top nut 38 of the fire hydrant 40. The trigger 16 is depressed to turn on the cordless tool 12 for opening the top nut 38. In this way the fire hydrant 40 is opened in a slow and controlled fashion to inhibit water hammering that can occur if the fire hydrant 40 is opened too rapidly. The ratchet driver 64 can be attached to the socket 36 instead of the cordless tool 12 the manually open the fire hydrant 40 when the cordless tool 12 does not have sufficient torque to rotate the top nut 38. Additionally, the prying tool 74 can be employed for prying doors or other objects that are stuck or immovable.
With respect to the above description then, it is to be realized that the optimum dimensional relationships for the parts of an embodiment enabled by the disclosure, to include variations in size, materials, shape, form, function and manner of operation, assembly and use, are deemed readily apparent and obvious to one skilled in the art, and all equivalent relationships to those illustrated in the drawings and described in the specification are intended to be encompassed by an embodiment of the disclosure.
Therefore, the foregoing is considered as illustrative only of the principles of the disclosure. Further, since numerous modifications and changes will readily occur to those skilled in the art, it is not desired to limit the disclosure to the exact construction and operation shown and described, and accordingly, all suitable modifications and equivalents may be resorted to, falling within the scope of the disclosure. In this patent document, the word “comprising” is used in its non-limiting sense to mean that items following the word are included, but items not specifically mentioned are not excluded. A reference to an element by the indefinite article “a” does not exclude the possibility that more than one of the element is present, unless the context clearly requires that there be only one of the elements.
