Patent Application
20070119982
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates broadly to liquid dispensers. More particularly, this invention relates to liquid dispensers having foam nozzles with screen doors.
2. State of the Art
Trigger dispensers are ubiquitous in most American homes. They are supplied on plastic bottles which are used to contain and dispense many different kinds of household liquids such as cleaning liquids, scenting liquids, garden liquids, etc. Traditionally, these sprayers have been provided with a rotatable nozzle which rotates among three positions: off, spray, and stream. More recently, it has been desirable to provide trigger dispensers with foaming nozzles.
The basic method of creating a foam is to discharge the liquid as a spray toward an obstruction that is vented to the atmosphere. The spray hitting the obstruction mixes the liquid spray with the air of the atmosphere producing the foam that is discharged from the nozzle. One simple way of achieving this is to put a screen in front of a conventional spray nozzle.
Most conventional spray nozzles are either cylindrical, frustroconical, or cubic. On a cubic nozzle, it is known to form a door with a live hinge extending from one of the exposed edges of the nozzle. The door is moveable from an open position where the outlet of the nozzle is not covered to a closed position where the outlet is covered. These doors may be used to protect the nozzle from dirt when the sprayer is not in use, minimize leaking from the nozzle when not in use, or they may be arranged to carry a screen and thereby make a spray nozzle dispense foam. In any case, the doors must be provided with some kind of locking mechanism which will hold them in the selected two positions (opened and closed).
Most nozzle doors lock to the opened or closed position with a frictional engagement. To lock the nozzle door in the opened position, it is known to provide frictionally engaging shoulders on one of the sides of the nozzle. The shoulders are, by necessity of nozzle dimensions, not very deep and thus do not securely engage the door. It is also known to provide an extension on the door with an orthogonal tongue which engages a mating groove or slot in the sprayer housing. This arrangement requires alterations to the sprayer housing as well as the nozzle and is thus more expensive to implement.
Co-owned co-pending application Ser. No. 11/______ entitled “Foam and Spray Nozzles having a Hinged Door and a Trigger Dispenser Incorporating the Same” and filed on Nov. 22, 2005, discloses a nozzle having a hinged door which is movable between opened and closed positions and locks to the nozzle in both positions. The inventors herein recognize that it is not always necessary to provide a foaming nozzle with the ability to dispense a non-foaming spray or stream.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a foaming nozzle for a trigger dispenser.
It is another object of the invention to provide a trigger dispenser with a foaming nozzle.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a foaming nozzle with a door which is lockable in a closed position and not readily opened.
It is also an object of the invention to provide a foaming nozzle which is inexpensive to manufacture.
It is an additional object of the invention to provide a foaming nozzle which is easy to assemble.
In accord with these objects, which will be discussed in detail below, the nozzle according to the invention has a front, a back, and at least one side surface extending therebetween. A spray head extends from the back of the nozzle towards the front of the nozzle. A door is provided with a portal within which a screen is mounted or molded. The door covers the front of the nozzle and the spray head and is locked, glued, chemically or sonically welded thereto, or otherwise substantially permanently closed thereon.
According to the presently preferred embodiment, as molded, the door is hingedly coupled to the front of the nozzle with a separate screen material insert molded or mechanically fixed to the door; alternatively, with a screen grid of homogenous material molded into the door. The door is provided with means for frictionally engaging the front of the nozzle to hold the door closed. Optionally, it may also be glued or welded shut. For example, the door may be provided with a pair of spaced apart hooks with a tongue therebetween which engage mating slots with a groove therebetween on the front of the nozzle. Alternatively, the hooks and slots are eliminated and only the tongue and groove frictionally engage to keep the door shut while it is glued or welded.
The nozzle of the invention is typically used in conjunction with a conventional trigger sprayer which has a housing, a pump, a trigger, and a bottle coupling.
According to another embodiment, the door is separately molded rather than being molded together with a hinged coupling to the front of the nozzle. The separately molded door has a plurality of hooks (e.g., four hooks) which mate with slots in the front of the nozzle.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reference to the detailed description taken in conjunction with the provided figures.
FIGS. 14 are perspective views of a preferred embodiment of the nozzle according to the invention in its “as molded” state;
Turning now to
As illustrated, it can be seen that the nozzle body is generally cubic in shape having four sides in addition to the front 20 and the back 22. One of the four sides provides the previously described side surface 24. Inside the cubic structure there is a substantially cylindrical spray head 44. The nozzle 18 with the spray head 44 couple to a conventional trigger dispenser pump outlet in a conventional way as described below with reference to
In accord with the invention, the door 26 has a circular portal 46 which, when the door is closed (
Referring now to
An alternate proposed embodiment does not require hooks. In the “no hooks” embodiment, frictional engagement of the door to the front of the nozzle is achieved solely by the tongue and groove and/or engagement of the cylinder 48 with the spray head 44 and gluing or welding is preferably applied to keep it shut.
From the foregoing, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the preferred method of manufacturing the nozzle is to mold the screen as an integral part of the door which is molded together with the live hinge coupling to the nozzle. After this single molding step, the door is closed on its live hinge and held closed by hooks without the need for glue or welding.
Turning to
There have been described and illustrated herein several embodiments of a foam/spray nozzle and a trigger dispenser incorporating same. While particular embodiments of the invention have been described, it is not intended that the invention be limited thereto, as it is intended that the invention be as broad in scope as the art will allow and that the specification be read likewise. Thus, while various locking mechanisms have been described for keeping the door engaged with the nozzle body, it will be appreciated that other mechanisms could be utilized. In fact, it is possible to use an external mechanism to keep the door engaged with the nozzle body. It will therefore be appreciated by those skilled in the art that yet other modifications could be made to the provided invention without deviating from its spirit and scope as claimed.
