Patent Application
20150132049
The present invention relates generally to a spring loaded retainer device for securing suction wands.
Industrial vacuum equipment has dozens of wet and dry uses such as hydro excavation, air excavation and vacuum excavation. In addition, the equipment can be used for directional drilling slurry removal, industrial clean-up, waste clean-up, lateral and storm drain clean-out, oil spill clean-up and other natural disaster clean-up applications. The vacuum systems may be mounted to a truck or trailer and are typically powered by gas or diesel engines.
The vacuum systems include a debris tank that is used to collect the material using a large three or four inch diameter hose. The hoses are typically long and flexible with spiral wound corrugations along the length of the hose. Accordingly, the hoses are generally heavy and cumbersome to handle. The hoses are conventionally stored on the rear of the debris tank using hooks to coil the hoses and secure to the tank. However, often times a rigid hose extension also know as a suction wand is connected to the end of the flexible vacuum hoses, which the suction wand is adapted to be held by an operator so that the end of the suction wand can be forced into the ground when vacuuming up debris. The suction wand is not adapted to be coiled and stored on the debris tank. Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a storage system for storing suction wands that is easy to use to safely and securely store the suction wands.
The following presents a simplified summary of one or more embodiments in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of such embodiments. This summary is not an extensive overview of the one or more embodiments, and is intended to neither identify key or critical elements of the embodiments nor delineate the scope of such embodiments. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts of the described embodiments in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description that is presented later.
In a particular embodiment, a spring loaded retainer device for securing suction wands is disclosed. The device includes a handle configured to be gripped by an operator, a hollow cylinder, and a plunger disposed within the hollow cylinder, where a proximate end of the plunger is secured to the handle used to pull the plunger outward of the hollow cylinder. In addition, the device includes a spring that surrounds the plunger and biases a distal end of the plunger inward of the hollow cylinder and when the handle is released the spring pushes the plunger inward of the hollow cylinder. Opposing lateral tips of the handle are each configured to restrain an end of a suction wand being stored inside a compartment when the handle is rotated in line with a substantially horizontal axis, where the handle is configured to be pulled outwards and rotated in line with a substantially vertical axis when removing the suction wand from the compartment.
To the accomplishment of the foregoing and related ends, one or more embodiments comprise the features hereinafter fully described and particularly pointed out in the claims. The following description and the annexed drawings set forth in detail certain illustrative aspects and are indicative of but a few of the various ways in which the principles of the embodiments may be employed. Other advantages and novel features will become apparent from the following detailed description when considered in conjunction with the drawings and the disclosed embodiments are intended to include all such aspects and their equivalents.
The word “exemplary” is used herein to mean “serving as an example, instance, or illustration.” Any embodiment or design described herein as “exemplary” is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other embodiments or designs.
Referring to
The spring loaded retainer device 110 includes a handle 112 that is generally planar in shape. The handle 112 is configured to contact a respective end of the suction wand 114 to prevent the suction wand 114 from sliding out of an open end of the storage compartment 108 when the handle 112 is in line with a substantially horizontal axis as shown in
Referring now to
Referring now to
As described above, the storage compartment 108 may include hollow tubes for the suction wands 114 to slide into and once the lateral ends 115 of the handle 112 are rotated out of the way, the operator can pull the suction wands 114 out from the storage compartment 108. As shown in
The plunger 122 may be rod-shaped with the stopper 124 secured to the distal end of the plunger 122 as shown in
The previous description of the disclosed embodiments is provided to enable any person skilled in the art to make or use the disclosed embodiments. Various modifications to these embodiments will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art, and the principles defined herein may be applied to other embodiments without departing from the scope of the disclosure. Thus, the present disclosure is not intended to be limited to the embodiments shown herein but is to be accorded the widest scope possible consistent with the principles and novel features as defined by the following claims.
