Patent Application
20050082320
The present invention relates generally to backpacks, and more particularly to backpacks that make provisions for carrying water.
Carrying a backpack is a convenient method to travel with gear. For many people it is a preferred way to travel into the wilderness to experience the beauty of nature. While traveling this way, it is usually desirable to carry water to drink. This water can be carried in water bottles, or in personal hydration systems. A personal hydration system consists of a water reservoir and a hose that leads to a mouthpiece that is used by a person to obtain a drink.
When traveling in areas where pure water is not available, there are two popular choices to obtain pure water. The first is to chemically treat the water. The second method is to filter the water. Portable water filter systems for backpackers are currently available with pumps associated with them. Producing pure water with these pumps requires pumping dirty water through the filter and into a drinking water bottle or personal hydration system. The disadvantage of pumping is that it requires manual effort and time. Chemically treating water has other disadvantages, including managing the treatment chemicals, needing to wait a period of time for the chemical treatment to become effective, and tasting and ingesting the treatment chemicals.
Convenience is an important factor when traveling with a backpack. Needing to take off a backpack to access important items slows down a traveler, and in a subtle way actually reduces the safety of the backpacker. When an item is difficult to access, the user will naturally access that item less frequently. The result of this is that the backpacker will use a part of his safety margin by delaying his use of the item in question. When snacks are difficult to access, the backpacker will wait longer before he eats. When a map is difficult to get to, the backpacker will refer to it less. When rain gear is difficult to reach, the backpacker will hike longer in drizzle before deciding to put on his rain gear. The drinking tube of a personal hydration system makes accessing water in a backpack easy and convenient. It is important that other items in a backpack also be easy and convenient to access as well. These items frequently include sunscreen, snacks, maps, a compass, insect repellant, a hat and rain gear.
Being able to comfortably carry a varying load is also an important feature of a good backpack. At the start of a week long camping trip, a typical backpacker might carry eleven pounds of food, and this food adds to the weight and volume carried in the backpack. Over the course of that camping trip, the food and its associated weight and volume disappear. A good backpack needs to be easy to carry and conform to the body of the person carrying it, and it needs to retain its properties of comfort and function while carrying loads that differ in volume and weight. Backpacks commonly use rigid frames to stabilize the geometry of the shoulder straps and the waist belts. Frames allow a pack to carry full or partially empty loads, while maintaining unchanging geometries of shoulder straps and waist belts. Backpacks also commonly use horizontal straps and lacing to allow the backpack to shrink its volume.
Backpack frames are also important because they provide a rigid structure that allows the weight of the backpack to be shared between the shoulder straps and the waist belts. When the weight is carried on the shoulder straps, the body of the pack is suspended from the attachment areas of the shoulder straps to the pack, typically near the top of the pack. When the weight of the pack is carried by the waist belt, the body of the pack is lifted from the attachment area of the waist belt to the pack, typically near the bottom of the pack. A rigid, or nearly rigid, connection between the shoulder straps and the waist belts is essential to allow the shoulder straps and waist belts to share the load of the backpack.
The present invention is a backpack incorporating a gravity flow water filtration system. The advantage of the invention is that it provides filtered water for a person carrying a backpack, without requiring the person to spend time and manual effort to pump it. The reservoir for filtered water is a transverse compartment at or near the bottom of the pack. This compartment also serves as a convenient storage place for frequently used items, because it can be accessed while wearing the pack. The pack design also incorporates a lacing system, a strap system, or the like that allows the volume of the pack to vary without changing the vertical dimension of the pack.
The present invention is a backpack incorporating a gravity flow water filtration system. The advantage of the invention is that it provides filtered water for a person carrying a backpack, without requiring the person to spend time and manual effort to pump it.
Gravity feed water filtration is achieved in the backpack by incorporating two water reservoirs, one at the top of the pack and the other at the bottom. The top water reservoir holds untreated water, and the bottom reservoir holds filtered water. The water from the top reservoir passes through a tube and a filter to fill the bottom water reservoir with filtered water. A tube and a mouthpiece can be additionally connected to the bottom reservoir, so as to provide the user with the functionality of a personal hydration system.
The water reservoir at the bottom of the backpack is located in a transverse compartment that extends from one side of the backpack to the other. This bottom compartment can be accessed while the backpack is being worn, by the person wearing it. Reaching into this compartment is as easy and natural as the motion of touching one's hands behind one's back. Because of its size and accessibility, the bottom compartment also serves as a storage compartment for frequently used items such as a map, a hat, rain gear, snacks and sunscreen. This is a desirable feature because it gives the user of the backpack convenient access to a large volume of gear, without the need to take off the backpack or even stop walking. An elastic opening to the compartment is an important feature that makes this possible. The user's hand can find the elastic opening by touch, and then stretch it and reach into it with one motion.
The backpack has been designed to maintain a fixed height while carrying loads with varying volumes. This has the advantage of providing a stable and fixed separation between the top untreated water reservoir, and the bottom filtered water reservoir. It also has the advantage of making the vertical separation between the shoulder straps and the waist straps stable. The backpack incorporates a strap system, a lacing system, or a similar system that allows the backpack to shrink and expand in the horizontal dimension.
The preferred embodiment of the invention does not incorporate an internal frame, as a method to achieve weight savings. In this configuration, the rigid connection between the shoulder straps and the waist belt of the backpack is achieved by having the body of the backpack tightly filled. In this way, the whole pack becomes a semi-rigid structure, which allows the shoulder straps and waist belt to share the load of the pack. The lacing system is the mechanism that permits the pack to be loaded with different volumes of gear, and to achieve a tight compression of that gear into a shape with a fixed height.
To operate this gravity flow water filtration system, untreated water is put into reservoir 1. With a low resistance filter, a vertical separation of sixteen inches between reservoir 1 and reservoir 6 provides enough water pressure to cause water to flow through filter 3 and into reservoir 7. This vertical distance of separation is achievable within the vertical dimension of a backpack. Tee 5 allows a drinking tube 8 and mouthpiece 9 to be connected to the water in the filtered water reservoir. When this gravity flow water filtration system is carried in a backpack, the drinking tube 8 and mouthpiece 9 allow the person carrying the backpack to drink water from the filtered water reservoir.
