Not applicable
This invention relates to pumps, both compressors and vacuum pumps, and in particular to improvements to improve the assembly and manufacture of pumps.
Pumps of the general type described herein are well known. Such pumps may have one, two, or more pumping chambers and generally have a piston (e.g., a wobble piston, an articulated head piston or a diaphragm piston) reciprocating in the pumping chamber that is driven by a motor. If there are two pumping chambers with parallel axes, the motor is typically between two housings that define the crankcases of the pump and join the motor to the pumping chambers, with the motor shaft axis perpendicular to the pumping chamber axis. In a useful form, a monolithic head spans the two pumping chambers, for example as in U.S. Pat. No. 6,056,521, which is hereby incorporated by reference.
The ends of the housings opposite from the motor have typically been closed off at least partially with a fan guard that lets air through or a cover of some kind that required additional fasteners to hold the cover on. This required additional assembly and additional parts. In addition, the valve plate, which, if separate from the head, is typically provided right below the head, typically had flanges through which the tie rods would extend that hold the head on the housing, with the cylinder and possibly other parts in between. These flanges could create problems in assembly by requiring orientation of the valve plate to register with the bolt holes of the head and also in some cases could result in leakage, for example if the head flange would interfere with the flange of the valve plate. In other structures, the valve plate required separate fasteners apart from the fasteners that held the head on, to hold the valve plate on.
In addition, each piston is assembled to the drive shaft and formerly this was typically done with flats on the motor shaft, the flat on one end being 180° out of phase with the flat on the other end so that the pistons were out of phase also. The set screw against a flat introduces errors in assembly in that they do not necessarily result in the pistons being 180° out of phase. For single-ended pumps, the phase is not an issue, but for double-ended pumps, a reliable method is needed to assure that the pistons are 180° out of phase, while not making assembly difficult.
In addition, these pumps can find many different applications. For that reason, it is useful to have different port arrangements possible for these pump configurations.
Pumps of this type also can be provided with different removable or separate port arrangements. For this purpose, it would be useful to have an easy way to add a port or a plug to the pump.
Also as is well known, pumps of this type can produce significant noise and vibration. Isolation is a major design goal in most applications. A solution is needed in this area as well which results in good performance at low cost and easy assembly.
In one aspect, the invention provides a pump with a boltless cover that is held on the end of a housing of the pump by only a compressed ring between the cover and the housing. The hole in the housing has a chamfer that compresses the ring when the cover is inserted into the hole and the ring seats against the hole to hold the cover to the housing. The cover has a flange that stops excessive insertion of the cover into the housing. The cover can be provided with a port, and can be subjected to a vacuum force by the crankcase, particularly if intake of the pump is through the crankcase.
In another aspect the pump has a flangeless valve plate, meaning that the valve plate has no flange through which bolts that secure the head to the pump extend. Elimination of the flange helps cure a leak problem between the valve plate and the head that can be caused by the flanges. With the flange gone, other features may be provided on the valve plate and the head so as to angularly orient the valve plate relative to the head. Angular orientation is preferred in some applications to prevent interference with the valve or valves on the valve plate.
In another aspect, the pump has an eccentric and pistons that all have holes in them so that the pistons at opposite ends of the pump can be assembled to the shaft of the motor 180° out of phase. Two holes 180° spaced apart are provided in one of the piston and the eccentric and one hole alignable with either of the two holes is provided in the other of the piston and the eccentric. At one end of the pump, the one hole and one of the other two holes are aligned with each other and at the other end of the pump the one hole and the other of the other two holes are aligned with each other, which results in the required 180° out of phase relative positions between the two pistons. In this aspect, a magnetic fixture can be provided with two pins to help align the three holes.
In another aspect, a monolithic head that includes the two head members of the pump and the tube that connects them also has an integrally formed port that provides a passageway into the tube, between the two head members. In the preferred form, the port is halfway between the two head members.
In another aspect, the pump is supported by elastomeric tubular members from its ports. Elastomeric tubular members may extend between a base and the ports of the pump, and the ports may be the inlet ports, the outlet ports, or both. In this aspect, the elastomeric mounting could be such that it is stiffer when the pump is operating so that when the pump is not operating the pump is rested on a hard mount, as may be useful during shipping.
In another aspect, the pump has a push-in fitting that can be pushed into a hole in a member such as the head, the housing or the base so that once pushed in, a ring around the fitting expands outwardly behind an edge of the body to trap the fitting in the opening. A sealing ring can also be provided around the fitting that seals between the fitting and the body.
These and other objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the detailed description and drawings.
The foregoing and other objects and advantages of the invention will appear in the detailed description which follows. In the description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings which illustrate a preferred embodiment of the invention.
Referring to
Referring particularly to
The covers 18 and 20 are plastic molded components, and do not have any openings through them, although they could have an opening through them, for example, a port, and a filter such as a HEPA filter or a felt filter could be provided on the inside of the cover to filter the incoming or exiting air. As illustrated, the covers need not have any holes through them, since the intake is through the bottoms of the housings. The covers could also be fan guards that would let air through them, if a fan blade was provided on the motor shaft.
Only cover 20 is described in detail, since cover 18 is identical. The cover 20 is held onto the housing 14 by being of a circular shape and fitting into a circular hole 50 that is machined in the end of the housing 14, which may be a cast aluminum alloy material or another hard, strong material. Referring to
When operating, the cover 20 is subjected to a cyclic vacuum force from the reciprocation of the piston in the cylinder, when the piston is drawing air into the pumping chamber through the bottom of the housing 14. This vacuum also helps hold the cover 20 in the hole 50. The ring 64 provides the only constant force that holds cover 20 in the hole 60 secured to the housing 14 and therefore the cover may be referred to as “fastenerless”, which enables easy push-in assembly of the cover 20 to the housing 14. A screwdriver slot or recess 57 may be provided in the edge of the flange 58 to create a space to allow prying the cover 20 out of the hole 50 for disassembly.
The o-ring 64 also provides a seal to keep air, dirt, liquids, and other debris from entering the housing 14 through the interface between the cover 20 and the housing 14. The sealing ring 64 could be an elastomeric o-ring, as illustrated, or could be any of a number of other types of sealing rings, such as a quad ring, a square cross-section or other shaped cross-section of an o-ring, or a standard o-ring. The material of the o-ring may, for example, be silicone, which is a standard material for an o-ring. If the interface between the cover 20 and the housing 14 did not need to be sealed, for example if the cover 20 was a fan guard, the ring 64 could be a split ring, for example of plastic or metal, which is capable of creating a friction force against the hole 50 to retain the cover 20. In addition, a groove or shoulder could be formed in the hole 50 for the ring 64 to seat in, so as to provide a form fit as well as a friction fit, to increase the holding force.
It is also noted that subjecting the cover to a vacuum, which a ring 64 that seals facilitates, stresses the cover which tends to stiffen it and reduce noise that may otherwise emanate from the cover.
Referring to
Using flanges or separate fasteners in prior art valves had the effect of providing an orientation of the valve plate, which is desirable so that the fastener that holds the flapper on the valve plate does not interfere with formations on the underside of the head, such as the ejector pin lands. When the flange and separate fasteners of the valve plates are eliminated, the valve plates can be assembled in any orientation unless some other means is provided to limit the orientation. For this purpose, the upperside of each valve plate 26, 28 is provided with a kidney shaped recess 72 (
The valve plates 26 and 28 are shaped so as to have an extending portion 82 that extends down into the top of the respective cylinder 22 or 24. The extending portion 82 has a sealing ring groove 80 in which a sealing ring 84 is positioned to seal against the inside surface of the respective cylinder 22 or 24. The sealing ring may be a standard o-ring, a square cross-section o-ring, a quad ring, or any other kind of sealing ring. The inside of the respective cylinder 22 or 24 provides an especially preferred surface for sealing against, as its roundness is superior to that of the exterior surface of the cylinder, and it is anodized for a good smooth surface to seal against. Also, the sealing ring slides into the cylinder better than it slides on the outside surface of the cylinder.
The part of the valve plate 28 that is near the top of the valve plate and extends above the extending portion 82 is referred to herein as portion 86. The portion 86 may be formed with one or more recesses 87 to allow prying the valve plate out of the cylinder with a flat blade screw driver.
Referring to
Referring particularly to
Referring to
The two pistons 92 at opposite ends of the pump 10 are assembled 180° out of phase from each other so that when one of the pistons is at top dead center, the other piston is at bottom dead center. To accomplish this, each piston 92 is provided with two holes 110 and 112. The two holes 110 and 112 are 180° apart from one another about axis 106 and have centers on a line that intersects their centers and intersects the axis 106 of the stub 98. Each eccentric 94 is also provided with a hole 114 that is 180° away from the axis 106 about axis 104, on a line that extends through the axis 106, the axis 104, and the center of the hole 114. All of the longitudinal axes of the holes 110, 112, and 114 are all parallel to the axes 104 and 106. Thus, when the hole 114 is lined up with the hole 110, as shown in
A magnetic pin fixture 115 as shown in
A pump 10 like that described above would typically be mounted from the housing some form of mounting bracket, which mounting bracket may include vibration isolators, such as elastomeric components. Tubing would then be run from the inlet and outlet ports to make connections to the pump, and typically the tubing would have excess slack in it so that the vibrations of the pump are not transmitted through the tubing to other parts of the machine.
A preferred embodiment of the invention has been described in considerable detail. Many modifications and variations to the preferred embodiment described will be apparent to a person of ordinary skill in the art. Therefore, the invention should not be limited to the embodiment described, but should be defined by the claims which follow.
This application is a divisional of U.S. application Ser. No. 11/383,315 filed May 15, 2006 now abandoned which claims domestic priority from 60/681,814 filed May 17, 2005.
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Number | Date | Country | |
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20090104052 A1 | Apr 2009 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
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60681814 | May 2005 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 11383315 | May 2006 | US |
Child | 12345065 | US |