1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to appliances such as food appliances and, more particularly, to handheld mixers that are powered by an electric motor and that have one or more attachments for a variety of food mixing operations and conditions.
2. Description of Related Art
It is known in the art to provide handheld, electric mixers comprising a body that houses an electric motor and drive system with an integral handle so that a user may hold the mixer in his or her hand during use. Known mixers of this type have a pair of chucks or similar attachment means for selectively attaching mixer attachments such as egg beaters or dough hooks. The pair of chucks are driven by the drive system and, thus, impart rotational movement to the mixer attachments.
Such mixers have various shortcomings including limited size of the mixer attachments because each of the pair of mixing attachments must coexist in a relatively small space without physically interfering with the other. Thus, the rotational work radius of each mixer attachment head is limited. Also, the flow of food product between the simultaneously moving mixer attachments becomes turbulent due to the effects of both mixer attachments at the same time. In addition, food product that is not easily mixed or crushed may get momentarily stuck between the mixer attachments causing undue wear or strain on the motor, the drive gears, and the attachments themselves. Another drawback of known handheld mixers is that the user is required to rotate the entire mixer in a circular or orbital path while the individual mixer attachments are spinning in order to obtain desired mixing. This can cause user fatigue.
It is desirable, therefore, to provide a handheld mixer that overcomes the abovementioned shortcomings of known handmixers, and that achieves further advantages that are inherent to the embodiments described below.
These and other objects are achieved by the present invention described herein.
The present invention handheld mixer is directed to a body comprising a housing that houses a motor and drive system and an integral handle, and to an eccentric drive arrangement that is adapted to accept a single mixer attachment that is rotatably mounted about its own axis and that is orbitally mounted about a second, parallel moving axis in order to impart an eccentric orbit in combination with rotation. To date, the existence of such compound motion of mixing attachments—both rotational and orbital—is limited to free standing mixers what tend to be much larger and heavier.
A handheld mixer (10) according to the present invention is shown in
The compound movement of the attachment, orbital and rotational, is achieved by an internal gearing arrangement (not shown) that is a planetary gear system of the type known to those generally skilled in the art. Essentially, a single output shaft from the motor, as is commonly known, is geared to drive multiple “planet” gears in coordination with an internally toothed ring gear, and then to a single output shaft that drives the chuck (26). This gearing arrangement per se is not regarded as novel, but instead novelty is in the combination of the gearing arrangement with the other elements of the present invention including the single mixer attachment in use with a handheld mixer.
Thus, the handheld mixer (10) may be held in a user's hand and the mixer attachment (28) is lowered into a bowl or other food container with food to be mixed. The electric motor is powered causing the attachments (28) to spin about its own axis as shown by “R” in
While the preferred embodiment of the present invention has been described, it is understood that various modification and variation may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention.
This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/485,124 filed on Jul. 7, 2003, incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Number | Date | Country | |
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60485124 | Jul 2003 | US |