1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a steam generator, which is preferably used as a skin care apparatus such as facial steamer.
2. Disclosure of the Prior Art
In the past, a steam generator has been widely used as a humidifier for controlling indoor moisture levels, skin care apparatus such as facial steamer for moisturizing skin, facilitating cell metabolism and opening up pores to remove dead skin cells and clean skin surface, and a steam inhaler for providing warm moist air to nose and throat and relieving or minimizing symptoms of hay fever and a cold.
In this kind of apparatus, since water is heated to boiling to obtain steam, safety is the most important subject. For example, Japanese Patent Early publication [kokai] No. 2001-190632 discloses a steam beauty machine with the purpose of improving the safety. This beauty machine 1M is, as shown in
Besides the improvement of safety, it is desired to improve usability of the steam generator, ease of maintenance such as a removal of water scale, and resistance to water leakage in the case that the steam generator is accidentally tilted or toppled over.
Therefore, a primary object of the present invention is to provide a steam generator with improved usability and safety.
That is, the steam generator of the present invention comprises:
According to the present invention, when the cover is opened, the overflow port is automatically opened by the interlocking means. Therefore, even when an excessive amount of the liquid is supplied into the liquid tank, it is possible to stably maintain an adequate liquid level in the liquid tank. In addition, since the overflow port is closed by the interlocking means in response to the closing motion of the cover, it is possible to smoothly finish the operation of supplying the liquid into the liquid tank, and improve the usability of the steam generator.
In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the cover is a hinge cover, and the interlocking means comprises a rib formed on the hinge cover and a seesaw member having its one end coupled to the rib and its other end coupled to the shutter. In this case, it is preferred that the rib is coupled to the one end of the seesaw member through a first movable member, and has a flat end portion, which contacts a top of the first movable member such that the hinge cover takes a standing posture in its full open state. In addition, it is preferred that the shutter is a flow plug made of an elastic material and provided at one end of a second movable member, and an opposite end of the second movable member is coupled to the other end of the seesaw member. By use of the hinge cover, there is no worry about missing the cover. In addition, since the standing posture of the hinge cover is stably maintained, the liquid can be further easily supplied into the liquid tank without being interfered by the hinge cover.
In addition, it is preferred that the rib is coupled to the one end of the seesaw member through a first movable member, and the shutter is coupled to the other end of the seesaw member through a second movable member, and the seesaw member is configured such that a moving distance of the second movable member is greater than the moving distance of the first movable member. In particular, it is preferred that the seesaw member is configured in a wave-like shape at its one end coupled to the first movable member. In this case, it is possible to facilitate downsizing of the steam generator, while maintaining reliability of the shutter motion.
In another preferred embodiment of the present invention, the steam generator comprises a seal member made of an elastic material and attached to the cover, a button member exposed to a surface of the housing to be operable by a user, a spring member for applying a spring bias to the button member, and a hook for engaging a groove formed in the cover. In this case, the seal member is elastically deformed to seal the liquid inlet in a waterproof manner by an engagement between the hook and the groove. On the other hand, when the engagement is released by an operation of the button member against the spring bias, the cover is removed from the liquid inlet in a pop-up manner by a resilient force of the seal member. In addition, it is preferred that the cover has an inclined surface formed adjacent to the groove, so that the hook contacts the inclined surface of the cover after the engagement between the hook and the groove is released, and pushes the cover in a direction of increasing an opening amount of the cover.
Another features of the present invention and advantages brought thereby will be more clearly understood from the following detail description referring to the attached drawings.
As a preferred embodiment of a steam generator of the present invention, a steam beauty machine is explained below in details, referring to the attached drawings.
That is, as shown in
According to this steam beauty machine 1, water provided from the water tank 3 is heated to boiling by the heater 4 to generate the steam in the steam chamber 40. Then the generated steam is fed to the steam channel 42, and exposed to the discharge generated by the discharge generating portion 5, so that fine steam particles are sprayed out from the steam outlet 11. The generation of steam can be controlled by operating an ON/OFF switch 18 provided at an upper front surface of the housing 10. The ON/OFF switch 18, the heater 4 and the discharge generating portion 5 are connected to a control circuit (not shown) built in the housing, and an electric power is supplied to the control circuit through a power cable 92.
The hinge cover 13 is pivotally supported about a hinge axis Z to the housing 10. The water inlet 2 and the water tank 3 are positioned so as not to be overlapped with each other in a horizontal projection view thereof. The overflow port 31 is formed in a side wall of the water tank 3. When an excessive amount of water is supplied into the water tank 3, it can be drained out of the water tank through the overflow port 31. The water drained from the water tank through the overflow port 31 is fed into a drain channel 6. The drain channel 6 has an overflow control room 61, in which the flow plug 62 is movably supported to open and close the drain channel 6, as shown in
The interlocking mechanism 7 is, as shown in
A substantially center portion of the seesaw member 72 is supported on a projection 12 as a fulcrum to provide a swinging motion or seesaw motion of the seesaw member. The rib 70 of the hinge cover 13 is pressed against the top flat surface of the movable pin 74. As shown in
To move the movable pin 74 without applying a large load to the rib 70 of the hinge cover 13, it is preferred to shorten the rib length and reduce the moving distance of the movable pin. On the other hand, to provide the opening and closing motion of the flow plug 62 with a high degree of reliability, it is preferred to increase the moving distance of the slide member 76. In brief, it is preferred that the moving distance of the second movable member (i.e., the slide member 76) is larger than the moving distance of the first movable member (i.e., the movable pin 74). To meet this condition, the seesaw member 72 of this embodiment is configured in a wave-like shape at its one end coupled to the movable pin 74. In this case, when the movable pin 74 is moved downward by a distance of 1.8 mm, the slide member 76 moves upward by a distance of 3.0 mm. In
In the opened state of the hinge cover 13, as shown in
As shown in
This button member 17 is attached to a base 54 fixed to the housing 10 through the coil spring 50. The coil spring 50 provides a spring bias to the button member 17 in an upward direction of recovering an initial position of the button member. In the initial position, the hook 52 is projected into the groove 14 to lock the hinge cover 13 in the closed state, as shown in
In the closed state of the hinge cover 13, the seal member 15 is elastically deformed to seal the water inlet 2 in a waterproof manner. When the engagement is released by pushing the button member 17, the hinge cover 13 is removed from the water inlet 2 in a pop-up manner by a resilient force of the seal member 15. In addition, the hinge cover 13 has an inclined surface 16 formed adjacent to the groove 14. As shown in
In the case of closing the hinge cover 13, when the hinge cover is pivotally moved toward the water inlet 2, the inclined surface 16 of the hinge cover contacts the hook 52 in the projected state, and then pushes the hook toward the rest state against the spring bias of the coil spring 50. When the hinge cover 13 is further moved toward the water inlet 2, the hook 52 is engaged into the groove 14 to lock the hinge cover.
Thus, according to the locking mechanism described above, since the closed state of the hinge cover 13 is locked by the engagement between the hook 52 and groove 14, safety is further improved. In addition, since the opening motion of the hinge cover 13 is facilitated by help of the resilient force of the sealing member 15 and the contact between the inclined surface 16 of the hinge cover and the hook 52, usability of the steam beauty machine is also improved.
To efficiently generate steam in the steam chamber 40, it is preferred to prevent that water rapidly flows from the water tank 3 into the steam chamber. In this embodiment, a communication channel 35 having a relatively long axial length and a narrow cross section is formed between the water tank 3 and the steam chamber 40. When the communication channel 35 is configured to have a circular cylindrical shape, a diameter of the communication channel is preferably determined to be sufficiently smaller than the axial length. For example, the diameter and the axial length of the communication channel 35 are 2.5 mm and 18.0 mm, respectively.
As shown in
The steam chamber 40 is provided by an elongate clearance extending in a height direction between an outer side surface of the water tank 3 and the heater 4. It is preferred that a plurality of bosses 34 are formed on the outer side surface of the water tank 3 in the steam chamber 40 such that they are spaced from each other in the height direction. The steam generated in the steam chamber 40 is fed to the steam channel 42 through an opening formed in an upper portion of the steam chamber 40, and then exposed to the discharge generated by the discharge generating portion 5.
In this embodiment, the discharge generating portion 5 is formed with a pair of electrodes disposed above the water tank 3 in the steam channel, and a voltage applying unit for applying a high voltage between the electrodes to generate the discharge. By exposing the steam to the discharge, it is possible to facilitate the generation of fine steam particles. The thus generated fine steam particles are sprayed out from the steam outlet 11. In the steam channel 42 between the steam chamber 40 and the discharge generating portion 5, a partition wall(s) may be formed in a required pattern to trap relatively large hot drops of water. The hot water drops trapped by the partition wall(s) or an inner surface of the steam channel 42 by condensation of steam are returned to the water tank 3 through a circulation channel (not shown).
In this embodiment, the steam channel 42 has a vertical portion extending from the discharge generating portion 5 to the steam outlet 11, and positioned so as to be overlapped with the water tank 3 in a horizontal projection view thereof. As shown in
In this embodiment, a steam nozzle 80 is connected to the steam outlet 11, and is coupled to a dome-like shell 83, which is movably supported to the housing 10. In addition, an upper part of the vertical portion of the steam channel 42 is provided by an accordion hose 48. Therefore, it is possible to safely change the steam spraying direction over a wide angular range, while protecting the steam channel 42 with the dome-like shell 83. In addition, since hot water drops formed by condensation of the steam are efficiently captured by a rugged inner surface of the accordion hose 48, it is possible to prevent that the hot water drops are accidentally jetted out from the steam nozzle 80, and further improve the safety of the steam beauty machine 1.
As described above, since the protection cover 9 for the steam nozzle 80 is configured in a concave shape, it can be used as the water supply vessel such as a water pot for supplying water into the water tank 3 through the water inlet 2. As shown in
As understood from the above preferred embodiment, according to the present invention, it is possible to provide the steam generator with improved safety and usability, which is preferably used as the steam beauty machine, by the introduction of the interlocking mechanism between the cover for the water inlet and the shutter for the overflow port.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2004-176168 | Jun 2004 | JP | national |