Patent Application
20170291281
The present invention relates to an improved mechanism for release of the clamp force when a work piece is being held in place by clamping tools or vises.
Commercially available clamping tools oftentimes come with a “quick release” button where, instead of turning a gear/knob pitch-by-pitch to loosen the grip, a push on the button releases the engagement of the clamp parts to the work piece.
The construction of such a release button invariably incorporated the element of a spring to provide the resilient force for keeping the engagement in place.
As shown and discussed herein, the current art “quick release” mechanism may lead to thread slipping/jumping problem through repeated use of the device. Also, since the power to keep the work piece engagement is from the resilient force of the spring, the contact may not be too solid, once the spring starts to lose its resilience force, similarly through repeated use of the device.
Consequently, there exists a need to provide an improved mechanism where the thread slipping due to worn-out thread pattern is reduced or eliminated, and the contact power to keep the work piece engaged is made to be more solid by the cam action as more fully disclosed herein.
The implementation of the improved mechanism for the release of the grip also enhances the worker safety, due to reduced accidental work piece becoming loose, on account of the reduction of problem associated with the thread slipping or jumping.
Present invention disclosed an improved release mechanism to release the clamp force applied by a vise or clamp, when a work piece is to be removed from the vise/clamp. The improved release mechanism also reduces the problem of thread slipping/jumping caused by repeated use when the thread lines are worn down or worn out.
A typical vise or clamp generally provides a mechanism to tighten the grasp of a work piece in the form of a shaft where a handle on the shaft can be turned to tighten or loosen the grasp.
When loosening the grasp to allow a work piece to be removed, a quick release button is also provided as part of the mechanism, to save time needed from the untightening, or loosening of the clasp by reverse-turning of the handle.
An example of this current art quick release button is shown in the U.S. Pat. No. 6,860,475 patent (“475 Patent”). However, the current art quick release button suffers from the disadvantage of thread slipping (or jumping) when the thread lines are worn out after repeated uses.
The mechanism as disclosed in present application provides a more solid force to keep the tightening force in place and reduces the problems associated with the thread slipping issues. Consequently, the grip on the work piece is tighter and there is less safety concern to people working around the clamping tool.
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate the preferred embodiments of the invention and together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention.
A brief description of the drawings is as follows:
An example of current art quick release push button can be seen in the 475 Patent. The 475 Patent disclosed a clamping device which can be used to hold workpieces in a three dimensional 90-degree relationship with the addition of the Z-axis attachment. And the workpieces can easily be removed after work by pressing the quick acting push button to release the threaded shafts mounted with the clamping heads. The swing away clamping arm of the Z-axis attachment gives additional room for easier removal of the workpieces if necessary.
Such a clamp contains three mutually perpendicular base plates, one square shape bottom-plate and two smaller rectangular side-plates. The bottom-plate includes two slotted holes along two adjacent edges which are not connected to the side-plates, one along each edge, so that the angle clamp can be fixed to a work desk with two screws. The bottom-plate is equipped with a protruded ear at the vertex away from the side-plates. The ear is positioned to face the opposite vertex.
The quick release mechanism on a clamp, such as that of the 475 Patent, consists of a quick acting push button and a half-threaded nut, mounted in the notch of the ear so that it is free to rotate about its vertical axis. A threaded shaft is inserted through the half-threaded nut in the direction of the diagonal of the bottom-plate. More detailed disclosure can be seen in the specification of the 475 Patent.
Referring to
Threaded shaft 6 is fed through holes 19 and half-threaded nut 13. In normal position, threaded shaft 6 is engaged with the thread inside the hole of half-threaded nut 13. When the quick acting push button 12 is pressed, the thread of half-threaded nut 13 is disengaged from threaded shaft 6 so that shaft 6 is free to slide inside nut 13, hence the floating right-angle head 5 is free to slide over the surface of the bottom-plate 2 for quick and easy clamping and releasing of the workpieces.
Such current art release mechanism has some drawbacks based upon industry experience.
Experience shows that the thread pattern inside nut 13 gets worn out over repeated uses. This sometimes leads to thread slipping (or jumping) that caused the grip on the work piece to become loose, posing a safety issue to workers and people around the work piece or the clamping tools. Also, the engagement of the threaded shaft 6 with the nut 13 is not solid due to the pushing force is from the helical spring 14.
Present invention improved upon the current art release mechanism by putting a housing 50 on top of the cover plate 16. A protrusion 52 is made on top surface of the quick acting push button 12. A cylindrical plunger 51 is inserted horizontally to a hole on one side of the housing 50. A horizontal helical spring 53 sits inside the hollowed portion of the plunger 51 and is compressed by plunger 51 against the other side of housing 50 for its intended operation.
The housing 50 shown in present disclosure is in the shape of a rectangular box, as shown in
The design of the half-threaded nut 13 is modified so that screw threads are made to be on the upper inside half of the nut instead of the lower half, as shown in
The middle of plunger 51 is made to have a section of smaller diameter where one side is cut vertically down to the smaller diameter section and the other side is cut at an angle so that the surface around the longitudinal axle of the plunger 51 takes on a conical shape.
Since the nut 13 is pushed against the threaded shaft 6 by cam action on account of the shape of the plunger 51, the force is more solid than the resilient force of a helical spring 14 used in the current art structure, such as that of the 475 Patent. Also, even if the screw threads are worn out after long-term usage, thread slipping is less likely to happen by the design of present application.
To release the engagement of nut 13 and threaded shaft 6, the plunger 51 is pushed inward to compress the horizontal helical spring 53, as shown in
