This claims the benefit of Italian patent application no. MI2012A 000237 filed 17 Feb. 2012, incorporated herein by reference.
The invention relates to a hinge. In particular, the present invention relates to a hinge for a household appliance, adapted to connect to one another at least one flat closing element, to the body of said household appliance in correspondence to an opening provided in said body, said hinge allowing to rotate said flat closing element between a first operative position wherein it closes said opening, to a second operative position angularly spaced by at least 90° with respect to said first operative position, and preferably angularly spaced by at least 100°. An object of the present invention is a hinge according to the pre-characterizing part of claim 1.
Hinges of the type indicated above have long been known; they are for example described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,471,709 and have long been marketed under the trademark “INGOL”.
The known hinges are used to support doors of refrigerators of small or medium size but have not up to now been used for large dimension refrigerator doors, i.e. for doors which can weigh up to 100 kg and with opening angles equal to or greater than 100°.
The known hinges also do not allow the housing therein of tubes for the passage of fluids, for example water, from the inside of the refrigerator to its door.
The known hinges also comprise elastic means therein that despite having a good operability if the refrigerator door provides gaskets of magnetic type are not always able to guarantee to exert a force upon the refrigerator door so as to ensure that it remains closed and in contact with the refrigerator body even in the absence of said magnetic gaskets.
Furthermore the elastic means of known hinges while having a good operability in normal use conditions are not able to overcome wear tests involving particularly burdensome cycles of opening/closing of the hinge (e.g. tests involving more than 900,000 cycles of opening and closing).
The known hinges used for large dimension refrigerator doors, for example of the type produced by the company Hettich, are connectable to said doors only by inserting them into appropriate recessed seats, formed in the body of the refrigerator by removing a portion of its insulating material, i.e. compromising in part the refrigerator insulation.
The purpose of the present invention is to provide an improved hinge dimensioned and shaped so that it can comprise more reliable elastic means than those present in the hinges of the prior art and so that the components of the hinge are dimensioned and shaped so as to be able to support large dimension refrigerator doors and/or which may allow door opening angles greater than 90° and/or that allow not having to modify and/or decrease the insulating material of the refrigerator body.
A further object is to provide a hinge whose components are dimensioned and shaped so as to be able to provide a tube inside the hinge, for example for the passage of a fluid or electric cables.
These and other objects which will be apparent to one skilled in the art are attained by a hinge according to the appended claims.
The hinge is for a household appliance, adapted to connect to at least one flat closing element to the body of said household appliance in correspondence to an opening provided in said body, said hinge comprising: a first supporting structure adapted to be bound to a structure or a front bearing wall of the body of said household appliance, a second supporting structure adapted to be bound to said flat closing element, first and second connecting elements adapted to connect to one another said first and second supporting structure, and elastically deformable means interacting with at least one of said two connecting elements, to exert a force that pushes said closing element against said opening of the body of the household appliance, wherein said first and second connecting elements and the first and second supporting structure form an articulated quadrilateral lying in one or more planes, perpendicular to said flat closing element, the sides of said articulated quadrilateral being formed by: said first connecting element, said second connecting element and at least a first and a second portion respectively of said first and second supporting structure, said quadrilateral being adapted to define means for opening and closing said closing element between said two operative positions, said quadrilateral comprising hinge means of external portions of said first and second connecting elements to said first and second portion of said supporting structures.
For a better understanding of the present invention drawings are attached by way of a not limitative example wherein:
With reference to the above figures, they show a hinge for a household appliance 1 (partially represented in
The hinge allows to rotate the closing element 7 and the eventual panel 7A associated therewith from a first operative position (O1
The hinge preferably comprises:
Preferably each of the supporting structures 9 and 11 comprises two base walls 9B, 11B overlapping and parallel to each other and two further walls 9A, 9C, 11A, 11C perpendicular to said base walls and connecting them to each other along two of their adjoining and perpendicular edges, so as to form a box-shaped element open on two faces from which protrude the connecting elements 13 and 14.
The first and second connecting elements 14, 13 and the first and second supporting structure 9, 11 form an articulated quadrilateral lying in multiple planes parallel to each other, and perpendicular to the plane of the door 7; the sides of said articulated quadrilateral are formed by: the first connecting element 14, the second connecting element 13, and by at least a first 9D and a second 11D portion respectively of said first and second 11 supporting structure. The quadrilateral is adapted to define means to open and close the door 7 between the two operative closing O1 and opening O2 positions and between all the positions comprised between these two. In the case wherein the household appliance is a refrigerator of the type adapted to be built-in, thanks to the above articulated quadrilateral it is possible to move, the door 7 and the respective said panel 7A so that said door and said panel does not interfere with an angular portion 2A of the cabinet element 2 in which the refrigerator is built-in (as shown in
The articulated quadrilateral comprises hinge means 16 of external portions 13A, 13B, 14A, 14B of the first and second connecting elements 13, 14 to the first and second portions 9D, 11D of the supporting structures 9, 11; adapted to allow the quadrilateral to assume a plurality of different operative positions between the closed position O1 and that of maximum opening O2.
In the closed position O1 (
Preferably, the distances D1, D2, D3, D4, are all different from one another, and:
(165.5 mm×K1)<=D1<=(169.5 mm×K1),
(131 mm×K1)<=D2<=(135 mm×K1),
(53.2 mm×K1)<=D3<=(57.2 mm×K1)
(20.4 m×K1)<=D4<=(24.4 mm×K1),
It should be noted that thanks to the particular above dimensioning, of the articulated quadrilateral hinge axes of the hinge according to the invention, it is possible to obtain the desired rotation positions of the refrigerator door (at least from 0° to 90° and preferably at least up to 100°) also for particularly heavy and thick doors (up to 3 inches in thickness of the doors) and at the same time conveniently allocate a helical spring adapted to exert a significant force on the quadrilateral (at least a force of 800N but that can be increased even up to 2000N), is to be underlined that with the flat springs of the hinges so far known it was not possible to achieve said results.
According to the invention, the elastically deformable means 15 comprise a helical spring 115, which is connected and acts only upon one of said two connecting elements, preferably the shorter and closer to the opening 8C of the household appliance 1. According to the invention the spring 115 is adapted to exert a force F which pushes the connecting element 13 towards the opening 8c of the household appliance body at least until the door 7 is rotated by 50° with respect to its first operative closing position O1.
More particularly, as can be seen in
Preferably, the two connecting elements 13 and 14 have mutually different lengths and the supporting element 116 for the helical spring 115 is hinged to the shorter connecting element 13, i.e. to that nearest to the opening 8c of the body 8 of the household appliance.
In this way, the elastically deformable means 15, and in particular the spring 115, can be housed substantially within the supporting structure 9, and preferably substantially in the space comprised between two hinge pins 16 of the connecting elements 13, 14 bound to said structure 9 which houses the spring. In this way, the spring 115 may have a length substantially equal to or slightly less than the distance D3 between the hinge axes A3 and A2 of the two connecting elements 13 and 14 connected to the supporting structure 9.
The supporting element 116 has along its outer surface a thread 116A which engages a tubular element 118, on which the spring is fitted, and having an abutment 117 for one end of the spring, for example a bolt.
The other end of the spring abuts against an inner face of the wall 9A of the first supporting structure 9.
The tubular element 118 has its other end 118A (
Advantageously, the supporting element 116 is a solid element and at its free end a dowel 120 is provided adapted to lock, in a desired adjustment position of the spring 115, the tubular element 118 and consequently the spring 115, avoiding that these, for example due to vibration, change positions.
It should be noted that, thanks to the fact that the spring 115 is connected to the connecting element 13 having a lesser length, it is possible to restrict the compression movement of the spring to a 25-30% of its length at rest and then to increase the period of time wherein the spring works efficiently and constantly (i.e. to increase the useful life cycle of the spring).
It should be noted that the force F that the spring 115 exerts on the connecting element 13 increases gradually up to his maximum, for a first angular variation of said element between 0 and an angle less than 80°. After said angle the element 13 reverses the rotation and the spring gradually begins to decompress pushing the supporting structure 10 towards the open position O2 (
In other words, thanks to the particular dimensioning of the articulated quadrilateral the spring 15 exerts on the connecting element 13, closest to the household appliance, (and more generally on the hinge), a force which initially facilitates the closure of the hinge, i.e. is such that the door of the household appliance 7 is pushed closed against the body of the household appliance itself.
When the door 7 of the household appliance and consequently also the hinge opens, exceeding a predetermined angle (which may for example be about 60°±20°), the spring facilitates the opening of the door, because the first connecting element 13 reverses its rotation and consequently the spring pushes open and no longer in closure said first element 13 and more generally the hinge.
Preferably the spring 115 is adapted to generate a force F of about 800N when the hinge is in closing position O1 (
It is to emphasize the fact that the spring 115 is connected to the connecting element 13, in correspondence to its hinge pin closer to the opening 8C of the refrigerator 1, and so as to be always positioned outside said connecting element during the movement of the latter, this allows to always have, i.e. in any operative position of the hinge, a free space S between the two connecting elements 13 and 14, wherein it is possible to insert a tube 130, for example for the passage of water or electric cables, which connects the inside of the refrigerator with the door 7 of the same. Advantageously, to increase the space for the tube 130 and to avoid pinching in particular when the hinge is in the fully open position O2 (
As shown in
Preferably the hinge means 16 of the external portions 13A, 13B, 14A, 14B of the first and second connecting elements 14 and 13, to the first and second portions 9A and 11A of the supporting structures 9 and 11, provide pins (not shown) passing through cylindrical seats provided in the external portions of the connecting elements 13 and 14 and in holes formed in the parallel and overlapped base walls 9B (
Advantageously both the first 14 and the second connecting element 13 comprise a first and a second connecting rod 13A, 14A of a substantially flat shape, preferably arcuate or straight profile, and lying in a vertical plane, and a wing 13B, 14B that for the first element 14 extends from the upper edge of the connecting rod 14A, while the other connecting element 13 extends from the lower edge of the connecting rod 13A. Said wings 14B, 13B are sized and shaped so that during the rotation movement of the elements 14 and 13 of the quadrilateral of the hinge they would always close the open space that is created between a connecting rod 13A and the other 14A so as to prevent a user of the household appliance from inserting a finger between said parts of the hinge i.e. that the hinge is designed to overcome the so-called test finger test. Thanks to the wings 14B, 13B, hinge plastic covers of the connecting rods can be avoided, that is covers that are unsightly and of dubious effectiveness with respect to the test finger test, and at the same time it is possible to obtain connecting elements with greater bending strength with respect to elements which provide only a connecting rod without wings. It should be noted that the wings 14B and 13B both provide a chamfer 13C 14C (
Advantageously the hinge in the closed position has a substantially parallelepiped shape and the connecting elements 14, 13 are substantially housed inside the supporting structures 9, 11, i.e. between the vertical walls 11A 11C and 9A 9C of said structures and between walls or horizontal wings departing from the upper and lower edges of said vertical walls.
The hinge also provides advantageously, means 160 (
Finally, it is reaffirmed that the embodiment described above has been provided only by way of example and that numerous modifications are possible, all falling within the same inventive concept, so for example the hinge according to the invention can also be used in household appliances, and in particular not built-in refrigerators, i.e. of the free-standing type, and with doors having thicknesses up to three inches.
In addition, the panel 7A of the door covering 7 of a refrigerator may be made in any suitable material such as wood or sheet metal, for example stainless steel, which entirely covers the refrigerator door and possibly also its lateral sides.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
MI2012A 000237 | Feb 2012 | IT | national |