Patent Application
20220412115
This patent application claims priority to Great Britain (GB) Patent Application No. 2109344.8, filed Jun. 29, 2021, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
The present disclosure relates to floor-to-ceiling mounts for electrical equipment, including mounts that may be employed in multi-story car parks for mounting chargers for electric vehicles.
Currently, AC chargers for electric vehicles are typically provided with one of three mounting options. Floor mount, post mount or wall mount. DC chargers are usually much larger and heavier than AC chargers so are floor mounted in their own cabinet.
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated herein and form a part of the specification, illustrate the embodiments of the present disclosure and, together with the description, further serve to explain the principles of the embodiments and to enable a person skilled in the pertinent art to make and use the embodiments.
The exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. Elements, features and components that are identical, functionally identical and have the same effect are — insofar as is not stated otherwise — respectively provided with the same reference character.
In the following description, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiments of the present disclosure. However, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the embodiments, including structures, systems, and methods, may be practiced without these specific details. The description and representation herein are the common means used by those experienced or skilled in the art to most effectively convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art. In other instances, well-known methods, procedures, and components have not been described in detail to avoid unnecessarily obscuring embodiments of the disclosure.
Current policies of national and regional governments, and public opinion, contribute to a rising demand for charging points for charging of electric vehicles. While issues arise also in respect of charging electrically powered buses, lorries and other vehicles, the present disclosure particularly relates to private motor cars.
Since private motor cars became widely available in the 1950s, infrastructure has built up to enable car drivers to park their cars at will in popular locations such as town centers, shopping centers, airports, railway stations and so on. Multi-story car parks provide improved use of available land than a simple surface car park and have become widespread. Over the years, changes in architectural style and changes in building regulations have meant that multi story car parks are not standardized in dimensions and layout, but almost all multi-story car parks are essentially composed of floor and roof slabs, ramps, external walls and supporting pillars, all of which are typically made from steel-reinforced concrete, or simply from steel. Visible walls may be clad in brick or some other aesthetically pleasing material. Driving surfaces may be coated in a top dressing used in road building, such as tarmacadam or resin-bonded grit, for all-weather grip. Nonetheless, most car parks have several design features in common. They have multiple floors, and a roof, supported by pillars; external walls are largely open to admit light and provide ventilation. Typically, each floor is provided with a low-height wall of about 1.0-1.2 m height, to inhibit users from falling; on the inside of these low walls, a crash barrier is typically provided, often of rolled steel, to reduce the likelihood of vehicle damage to the low-height walls.
The largely open-sided design of these car parks is to promote ventilation and light ingress, meaning that they typically do not have solid external walls of sufficient height to allow chargers for electric vehicles to be mounted.
Typically, chargers for electric vehicles are installed on support columns either directly secured or with bespoke clamps. Any suitable walls are also used.
Post mount chargers tend to have quite large posts and require excavation for both the cables and sometimes even the post. This is not practical in multi-story car parks of steel or concrete floor slabs. Freestanding chargers or post chargers are discouraged due to the damage caused by installing these to the concrete slab and excavation required.
It is difficult to mount wall chargers to the steel or concrete supporting pillars of a typical multi-story car park, as these are for structural purposes and shouldn't be drilled into. They are also typically scarce: the designer of the car park will have aimed to minimize the number of supporting pillars, to facilitate parking.
An object of the present disclosure is to provide a mount which may be used in such circumstances to mount equipment, such as chargers for electric vehicles. The disclosure may be applied to equipment other than chargers for electric vehicles, and to environments other than multi-story car parks, although the present disclosure is thought to have particular application to such installations.
A user 30 is illustrated for scale, but the disclosure is not limited to thereto. As described above, the multi-story car park comprises floor slabs 32 above and below the user, typically of steel-reinforced concrete. A low wall 34 is provided at the edge of the floor slab 32 to reduce the chance of a user 30 falling from the car park. To reduce the chance of damage to the low wall 34 by vehicles using the car park, a crash barrier 36 is provided, separated from the wall by a certain distance and mounted to a floor slab 32 by posts 38. Such posts are typically attached by drilling into the floor slab and bolting the post 38 in place. A support pillar 40 is also illustrated and may be formed by a simple steel I-beam.
In the illustrated embodiment, the present disclosure provides a slim mounting post 42 that may be mounted between the crash barrier 36 and the low wall 34, and may carry a charger 50 for electric vehicles, and/or other equipment as required.
Often in car parks, it is preferred to cable to the ceiling of the car park, as cables can be allowed to run over the surface of the ceiling, sheathed and/or in conduit as required, whereas they would not be allowed to run over the surface of the floor. Cables may also be supported by ceiling mounted cable trays. The illustrated embodiment includes a mounting post 42 that bridges the local ceiling to floor gap, and contacts both the floor and the ceiling. This allows for robust attachment of the mounting post top and bottom, and permits internal cabling from the ceiling, which facilitates routing of cables. It may be found possible to run cabling from a floor below, externally of the wall 34 then through a hole in wall 34, upwards through mounting post 42 to a floor above by similar routing. Where the post 42 is mounted near to a wall the rear lower cable hole could be used with the cable clipped directly to the wall.
Multi-story car parks do not meet any set standards for ceiling to floor height, so the mounting post 42 of the disclosure is adjustable for different ceiling to floor heights.
As best seen in
As illustrated in
The mounting post 42 braces the gap between floor and ceiling, providing a solid structure on which to mount a charger 50. The charger 50 is conventional in itself.
Protrusions or brackets 52 are provided at upper and lower extremities of the mounting post 42. These protrusions or brackets enable the mounting post 42 to be secured to the local floor and ceiling, being floor slabs 32 as illustrated in
As illustrated in the drawings, the charger 50 may be attached to lower section 421 of the mounting post 42. This may be by bolts, brazed studs or other fixings as appropriate. Cables to and from the charger 50 should be routed internally within the mounting post 42 for ease of installation, protection from damage and for aesthetic effect. Cables may be led through an opening in a wall of the lower section 421 of the mounting post, into the charger 50. Such opening is hidden by the charger 50 in the illustrated embodiment.
In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the charger 50 is omitted, and the mounting post 42 is used as a cable conduit to pass cable from one floor to another.
In an exemplary embodiment, the power cable to the charger is either steel wire armored cable or other robust cable suitable for the application. There will always be at least one cable to the charger to provide power but supplementary cables may also be provided, for example to carry communications. These supplementary cables may either be separate cables or extra cores provided within the power cable.
Although not visible in the drawings, there will be apertures in the front wall of the mounting post 42, in lower section 421 in the illustrated embodiment, to allow mounting of the charger 50. There would typically be provided a large hole, for example 35 mm diameter, for power cables to pass from the interior of the mounting post 42 to the interior of charger 50. Smaller holes will also typically be provided, to enable physical attachment of the charger to the post, by bolts, threaded holes, or other suitable fasters. Alternatively, threaded studs may be brazed to the mounting post 42 and pass through holes in the back of charger 50. These holes may be predrilled to support the charger or may be drilled on site during the installation process. In the UK, such chargers 50 for electric vehicles must be mounted at a height of nominally 1.2 m, typically between 0.75 m and 1.2 m, according to building regulations and BS 8300 and to allow wheelchair users to operate the charger.
In the illustrated embodiment, the mounting post 42, made up of lower section 421 and upper section 422, has a slim rectangular cross-section, and brackets 52 with mounting holes 54 are located so as to maintain the slim profile. As illustrated in
In a typical installation sequence, upper section 422 and lower section are assembled together, one sliding inside the other, and nuts and bolts 45, 46 placed on studs 44 but not fully tightened. Threaded studs or bolt anchors are located at appropriate positions in the local floor and ceiling, which are typically reinforced concrete slabs. Cables are threaded through cable access holes 56 and through a hole to access the charger 50 where required. The mounting post may then be positioned by locating holes 54 over the threaded studs 60 or bolt anchors on the floor, with nuts 62 and washers 64 placed on the threaded studs 60, or bolts inserted through holes 54 into the bolt anchors, but not fully tightened. Similarly, locating holes 54 of upper section 422 are located over threaded studs 60 or bolt anchors on the floor, with nuts 62 and washers 64 placed on the threaded studs 60, or bolts inserted through holes 54 into the bolt anchors, but not fully tightened. This will require some relative movement of the upper section 422 and lower section 421 to bring mounting post 42 to the correct length to span the gap between local floor and ceiling. With nuts and washers 62, 64; 45, 46 all in place, all nuts may be tightened to firmly attach the mounting post 42 in place, and to fix its length. Other equivalent fastenings may of course be used. Depending on the location of installation, security fasteners such as shear nuts may be employed.
The charger 50, conventional in itself, may then be mounted to the mounting post 42 as desired and the cables fastened to connectors or electrical terminals within the body of the charger 50.
Example materials according to exemplary embodiments may include the following. The mounting post 42 may be of steel, stainless steel or aluminum and may be powder coated or galvanized and/or painted to resist corrosion. Fixings may be of galvanized or stainless steel, or brass. The mounting post 42 may be made from glass reinforced plastic but this would be initially quite expensive, to provide tooling, and would not be as environmentally friendly, that is to say recyclable, as a metal structure.
In certain embodiments of the disclosure, two or more chargers for electric vehicles could be mounted to one support, one front, one rear and/or one above the other.
In some embodiments, lighting may be provided, attached to the mounting post 42 and supplied with power by a cable passing through the interior of the mounting post 42. Such lighting may provide general illumination, targeted illumination to assist a user of the charger 50 and/or may be colored or otherwise encoded to indicate a status of the charger, such as available/in use/out of order. Signage may also be applied to the post to indicate parking restrictions, tariffs or providing information.
Alternative upper sections 422 with different lengths can be provided, to allow a fitter to select according to local floor-to-ceiling height. Alternatively, a long upper section 422 may be cut down if found too long for local floor-to-ceiling height.
In other embodiments, the lower section 421 may be slotted 43 and of larger cross-section than the upper section 422.
The charger 50 may be attached either to the lower section 421 or to the upper section 422.
In other embodiments, a suitably shaped bracket may be employed to attach the mounting post to structures such as low height walls 34, which may complement or replace the securing of the mounting post at the top and/or bottom, and may make installation easier, according to the specific site.
In other embodiments, some or all of the brackets 52 may be oriented vertically, and the upper and/or lower extremities may be secured to a wall of other vertical surface, if appropriate for the installation location.
The present disclosure accordingly provides a mounting post of variable height, comprising upper and lower parts that slide and are movable within one another. During installation, the mounting post is mounted top and bottom to fixed surfaces and the upper and lower parts are fixed relative to one another by a suitable fastening. In an exemplary embodiment, the mounting post provides cable access holes near its upper and lower extremities. While the mounting posts of the present disclosure are described herein with reference to chargers for electric vehicles, electrical equipment other than chargers for electric vehicles, or indeed no electrical equipment at all, may be mounted on the mounting post of the present disclosure.
It should be noted that the terms “first”, “second”, etc. in the description, claims and abovementioned drawings of the present disclosure are used to distinguish between similar objects, but not necessarily used to describe a specific order or sequence. It should be understood that data used in this way can be interchanged as appropriate so that the embodiments of the present disclosure described here can be implemented in an order other than those shown or described here. In addition, the terms “comprise” and “have” and any variants thereof are intended to cover non-exclusive inclusion. For example, a process, method, system, product or equipment comprising a series of steps or modules or units is not necessarily limited to those steps or modules or units which are clearly listed, but may comprise other steps or modules or units which are not clearly listed or are intrinsic to such processes, methods, products or equipment.
References in the specification to “one embodiment,” “an embodiment,” “an exemplary embodiment,” etc., indicate that the embodiment described may include a particular feature, structure, or characteristic, but every embodiment may not necessarily include the particular feature, structure, or characteristic. Moreover, such phrases are not necessarily referring to the same embodiment. Further, when a particular feature, structure, or characteristic is described in connection with an embodiment, it is submitted that it is within the knowledge of one skilled in the art to affect such feature, structure, or characteristic in connection with other embodiments whether or not explicitly described.
The exemplary embodiments described herein are provided for illustrative purposes, and are not limiting. Other exemplary embodiments are possible, and modifications may be made to the exemplary embodiments. Therefore, the specification is not meant to limit the disclosure. Rather, the scope of the disclosure is defined only in accordance with the following claims and their equivalents.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2109344.8 | Jun 2021 | GB | national |
