The present invention relates to an intake unit used for a drawing device such as a drawer, sliding unit, and so on.
The intake unit to be used for a conventional drawing device such as a drawer, sliding unit, and so on has employed a structure to let a long-sized rack gear be engaged with a pinion gear to control the rotation of the above-mentioned pinion gear by a rotary damper mechanism.
If employing a structure to use a rack gear and pinion gear to convert to a rotary movement from a linear movement of a movement member movably supported to a basic substrate of a drawing device, there are following two methods. One is a method in which the long-sized rack gear 22 is attached to the side of the movement member 2, the rotary damper 4 is attached to the fixed side (basic substrate 12) to let the gearwheel 20 provided on the rotary portion of the rotary damper 4 be engaged with the tooth portion of the above-mentioned rack gear 22 as shown in
In
In the structure of above-mentioned conventional device, when the drawer is pulled out from the external box, the movement member 2 is moved to the right end of the basic substrate 12 in the drawing against the springing force of the spring 18 and is locked in the foregoing position with a locking means (not illustrated). If pushing the drawer toward the back of the external box by hand from the condition in which the drawer is pulled out from the external box, the projection portion 6 is engaged with the 1st engagement portion 8, the pressing force to the first engagement portion 8 of the projection portion 6 releases the locked conditions to the movement member 2, and the movement member 2 is moved leftward by the springing force of the spring 18 along the basic substrate 12 in the drawing. At this time, the projection portion 6 is engaged with the second engagement portion 10 to transfer the movement force on the movement member 2 side by the springing force of the spring 18 to the drawer, which is pulled in toward the back side of the external box by the springing force. For the movement of the movement member 2 by the springing force of the spring 18 along the basic substrate 12, the braking force by the rotation damper 4 is applied to the movement of the movement member 2, which causes the drawer to be slowly pulled in toward the back side without quick action.
If the first method is employed, since the movement member 2 is moved with the long-sized rack gear 22 mounted as shown in
Meanwhile, if the second method is employed, the movement member 2 will move with the rotary damper 4 mounted on the movement route formed with the basic substrate 12 as shown in
If the above-mentioned first engagement portion 8 and second engagement portion 10 are placed at the right angled (width direction) to the above-mentioned rotary type damper mounted position and the above-mentioned movement member 2 movement direction, the direction, that is the size in the width direction of the intake device becomes larger, causing the entire device size to be larger in the result. In addition, if the above-mentioned first engagement portion 8 and second engagement portion 10 are placed at the right angle (Y) (thickness direction) to the above-mentioned rotary damper 4 mounted position, a space needs to be provided in the thickness direction. In addition, particularly if the above-mentioned first engagement portion and second engagement portion are placed at the right angle (d) (width direction) to the above-mentioned rotary damper mounted position and the movement direction of the above-mentioned movement member, or if placed at the right angle (Y) of the device (thickness direction), the device will occupy a space throughout a range of movement.
After all, either in the first method or second method, if the structure using a rack gear and a pinion gear is employed, a space to be occupied by the intake unit will become larger and the size of the intake unit has to be large-sized entirely.
In case that this intake device is assembled and produced from the design stage of a drawing device such a drawer, sliding door, and so on, even if a space to be occupied by the intake device is larger, design can be performed and such a big problem will not be arisen. However, if attaching an intake unit to a drawer, sliding door, and so on which were already completed, that is, if an intake device is regarded as a unit itself, a space where an intake device unit is placed in the completed drawer, sliding door, and so on is limited, and there are many cases of insufficient placement space for an intake device. In these cases, it is impossible even to assemble an intake device unit.
The present invention has an object to miniaturize the intake unit as much as possible and to greatly increase the possibility to assemble it into a ready-made drawer, sliding door, and so on in order to solve the above-mentioned problems.
An intake unit engaging with a projection portion of a drawing device to move a drawer in the predetermined direction, comprises:
a basic substrate;
a cylindrical shock absorber;
a movement member;
a movement member guide mechanism provided to foregoing basic substrate for movably and linearly guiding foregoing movement member along foregoing basic substrate within a scope of predetermined stroke;
an urging means provided on foregoing basic substrate side for urging foregoing movement member in one direction;
a first engagement portion provided in foregoing movement member for engaging with foregoing projection portion when foregoing projection portion moves relatively to foregoing movement member in one direction;
a second engagement portion provided in foregoing movement member for engaging foregoing projection portion when foregoing projection portion moves relatively to foregoing movement member in the other direction;
an locking means which releasably locks movement of foregoing movement member at the end of movement of foregoing movement member resisting an urging force of foregoing urging means and which releases this lock by pressure due to one direction relative movement of foregoing projection portion with respect to foregoing first engagement portion; and
a pulley which is supported to the foregoing movement side as interlocking with the movement side of the shock absorber of the foregoing cylindrical shock absorber; and
a flexible member in which a middle portion is engaged with the foregoing pulley and one end is connected to the foregoing movement member and the other end is connected to the foregoing basic substrate.
The foregoing cylindrical shock absorber has a structure of applying a braking force to a telescopic relative movement between a cylinder and a piston rod, one end of which is a movable side and other end is a fixed side, the cylindrical shock absorber being attached to foregoing basic substrate on the fixed side. The foregoing movement member is released from the lock state, said movement member moves by predetermined stroke in one direction due to urging force of said urging means, and against this movement, a braking force of said cylindrical shock absorber is applied through said flexible member
It is preferable that the foregoing cylindrical shock absorber comprises an initial position returning means pushing the piston rod outward from the cylinder.
It is preferable that the foregoing urging means is a coil spring which is connected to said movement member at one end thereof and connected to said basic substrate at the other end thereof, and which changes direction by a direction change mechanism in the middle thereof.
It is preferable that the foregoing cylindrical shock absorber which comprises: a cylinder filled with oil; a piston formed with a bore for passing through the oil substantially without resistance; a piston rod connected to foregoing piston; a valve opening foregoing bore when foregoing piston moves in one direction inside foregoing cylinder and closing foregoing bore when foregoing piston moves in other direction; and a coil spring disposed between a back end of foregoing cylinder and a spring receiver attached to foregoing piston rod, wherein foregoing coil spring comprises an initial position returning means pushing the piston rod outward from the cylinder.
The present invention enables an intake device unit to be miniaturized and to greatly increase the possibility to assemble it into a ready-made drawer, sliding door, and so on than before by composing the system as above mentioned.
Embodiments according to the invention are hereinafter described with reference to the accompanying drawings.
In
In addition, the foregoing movement member 40 is in a unified manner formed with an emergent-use engagement member 52, which is in a unified manner connected to the movement member 40 through an elongated spring portion 52. The foregoing emergent-use engagement member 52 is formed with a 3rd engagement portion adjacent to an inclined plate 52b. In addition, the foregoing engagement member 52 is in unified manner formed with a projected piece 52c for locking and the end of the projected piece 52c for locking has a little space and faces to a stopper 56 formed in the movement member 40.
Numeral 58 is cylindrical shock absorber and incorporates a resisting means in a cylinder 60 for a case to apply a braking force to a relative movement along the linear direction of a piston rod 62 and the cylinder 60. According to the present embodiment, an oil-type shock absorber with the cylinder 60 filled with oil is employed but not to limited to a shock absorber illustrated, and if a composition can apply a predetermined braking force to a relative movement in one-way direction or reciprocating (2-way) direction along the linear direction between the cylinder 60 and the piston rod 62, it is preferable to compose whatever instead of the shock absorber illustrated.
The cylindrical shock absorber 58 according to the present embodiment as shown in
At this time, since the piston 72 is moved leftward in the cylinder 58 with the through-hole clogged with the valve 74, the piston 72 receives much more fluid pressure by oil passing over a little clearance (not illustrated) between the piston 72 and the cylinder 58. This fluid pressure affects much more braking force to the leftward movement to the cylinder 58 in
At this time, the piston 72 is moved backward along the piston 62 until the valve 76 is locked in the spring holder 76 by the oil pressure passing over the through hole of the piston 72 and is separated from the through-hole of the piston 72 and moved in the recovery direction without receiving much oil resistance due to the release of the through-hole, and is moved in the recovery direction by the springing force of the coil spring 78 in the cylinder 60 in
On a side wall of the foregoing basic substrate 30 and a inner wall of the cover 36, guide grooves 92, 92 extending in a linear direction in parallel with the linear portion 38a of the foregoing groove 38 is formed and a shaft portion 90a of the foregoing pulley 90 (refer to
The foregoing pulley 90 comprises a guide portion to guide the foregoing flexible member 94 in the U-turn direction. This guide portion at the movement side of the shock absorber 58 is not limited to the special composition of the pulley but can undergo various design changes. For example, as shown in
Numeral 100 is an intake spring composed of a coil spring, one end thereof is connected to an fitting 102 formed in a lower portion of the movement member 40 and the other end thereof is position-adjustably connected to one side of the basic substrate through a fitting 104. The intermediate portion of the foregoing intake spring 100 is placed crookedly in a laid-down U-shaped manner by a direction change mechanism composing of a curved guide surface 106 formed in the basic substrate 30.
Next, an intake operation where an intake unit is attached to a drawing device is hereinafter described with reference to
In
The bottom plate of the drawer 110 is protruded by projection portion 6 composed of a pin. The basic substrate is secured to the bottom plate of the external box 108 as a chuck portion 46 of the foregoing movement member 40 is placed on a movement route of the foregoing projection portion 6 and the linear portion 38a of the groove portion 38 is in parallel with the movement direction of the drawer 110. It is preferable that the basic substrate 30 is attached to the drawer 110 side. In this case, the projection portion 6 is provided in the external box 108.
As shown by (A) of
In a condition that the fitting convex portion 44 is fitted into the locking portion 38b of the groove 38, the movement member 40 is clockwise inclined around the fitting convex portion 42 by a predetermined angle as shown in (A) of
In the above-mentioned condition, when the drawer 100 is inserted into the external box 108 by hand and the drawer 110 is moved to the predetermined position in the arrow's direction in
Furthermore, if the drawer 110 is moved in the arrow's direction, the movement member 40 is pushed leftward in
If the fitting convex portion 44 is detached from the engagement portion 38a of the groove 38 by the pressure force from the projection portion 6, the locking condition to the movement member 40 by the locking portion 38b is released, the movement member 40 is moved along the linear portion 38a of the groove 38 leftward in
At this time, the movement operation of the movement member 40 by the intake spring 100 is transferred through the flexible member 94 to the pulley 90, which is moved leftward in
If the drawer 110 is moved to the uppermost back side of the external box 108, as shown in (D) of
If the drawer 110 is pulled out outward by hand from the condition inserted into the external box 108, the projection portion 6 is moved rightward from the condition (D) in
At this time, the movement member 40 is inclined clockwise around the fitting convex portion 42 in
When the foregoing fitting convex portion 44 is fitted into the locking portion 38b of the foregoing groove 38, the position of the joint portion between the foregoing intake spring 100 and the movement member 40, that is, the position of the fitting 102 is located slightly lower than the fitting convex portion 44 in the locking portion 38b. This lets the intake spring 100 pull leftward the lower portion than the engagement position of the movement member 40 with the locking portion 38b to prevent the fitting convex portion 44 from being detached from the locking portion 38b.
In addition, in a condition that the drawer 110 is pulled out from the external box 108 as shown in (A) of
In this case, it is necessary to return to the left end as a steady position (right end in case of
First, if the drawer 110 is pushed by hand in the closing direction as shown by the arrow's direction in
After the projection portion 6 climbs over the inclined surface 52b, the emergent-use engagement-use engagement member 52 is recovered to the original position by the spring force of the spring portion 52a, the projection portion 6 is fitted into the section between the 3rd engagement portion 54 and the second engagement portion 50 and the projection portion 6 is chucked between the engagement portions 54 and 50 (refer to (C) of
While the movement member 40 is returned to the steady position, the 3rd engagement portion 54 receives the pressure at the right side from the projection portion 6 in
For this reason, the engagement member 52 is not greatly inclined by the pressure from the projection portion 6 and the projection portion 6 is not detached from the 3rd engagement portion 54 of the engagement member 52.
According to the above-mentioned embodiments, the linear portion 38a of the foregoing groove 38 and the fitting convex portions 42, 44 fitted into them, comprise a movement member guide mechanism to linearly and movably guide the foregoing movement member 40 along the foregoing basic substrate 30 within the predetermined stroke. In addition, the fitting convex portion 44 which is protruded by the foregoing movement member 40 and is slidably fitted to the groove 38, the first engagement portion 48 formed in the foregoing movement member 40, and the locking portion 38b perpendicularly formed in the foregoing groove 38 comprise a locking means designed to let the movement of the foregoing movement member 40 releasably locked to the movement end in the movement direction of the movement member 40 taking against the urging force of the urging means. In addition, various compositions can be employed as these locking means but not limited to the composition shown in the present embodiments in particular.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
2005-335978 | Nov 2005 | JP | national |
2006-253784 | Sep 2006 | JP | national |
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Number | Date | Country | |
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20070114896 A1 | May 2007 | US |