This invention relates to a subdivided fixed amount distributing apparatus for aerosol containers allowing only use of a fixed amount of aerosol contents such as medical products, hair care products, and cosmetic products in which a use amount for one cycle, such as e.g., one day, several days, or one week, is restricted.
Some aerosol contents contained in an aerosol container, such as medical products, hair care products, and cosmetic products may be used directly for human bodies. If such aerosol contents are used exceedingly in an amount more than a prescribed use amount, however, such use may cause harmful effects on human beings, or may result in wasteful use. As disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No.2001-232249, a subdivided amount distributing apparatus for aerosol containers has been developed in which the apparatus capable of spraying a prescribed fixed amount usable in a certain period multiple times is connected to a stem of an aerosol container and disposed at an exterior of the aerosol container.
This subdivided amount distributing apparatus for aerosol containers is formed with a fixed amount chamber and a fixed amount injection valve, respectively, in the apparatus, and the aerosol contents of a fixed amount are introduced from the aerosol container main body into the fixed amount chamber and stored therein. The interior of the fixed amount chamber is normally pressurized with a piston, and the aerosol contents contained in the fixed amount chamber are injected multiple times in a subdivided manner through the fixed amount injection valve. Fixed amount injection during a prescribed period is allowed by injection of a fixed amount one or more times, thereby bringing advantages realizing distribution of aerosol contents suitable for medical products, hair products, and cosmetic products, which are otherwise not favorable when used in an amount of a prescribed amount or more or used in a wasteful manner.
Problems to be Solved by the Invention
The prior publicly known invention includes the subdivided amount distributing apparatus is disposed at an exterior of the aerosol container. With such a subdivided fixed amount distributing apparatus connected to the exterior of the aerosol container, however, the prescribed amounts in proportion to one day or one week are stored in the fixed amount chamber in the prescribed period in a state that the aerosol contents are pressurized, so that the volume of the aerosol contents may be expanded due to changes of the outer temperature in some occasions, and so that the distributing apparatus disposed at the exterior of the aerosol container may be damaged. Because the contents are injected while the fixed amount chamber is pressurized by the piston, injection is made continuously upon gasification of liquid gas remaining at a space between the piston and the fixed amount chamber even after the injection of the liquid portion of the aerosol contents is completed, thereby having a defect to inject only gasified gas. In addition, the fixed amount chamber and the fixed amount injection valve, both, are required to be built in the distributing apparatus, thereby rendering assembly of the apparatus complicated and manufacturing costs high.
This invention, to solve the above problems, does not require to have a large fixed amount chamber able to inject the contents plural times at an exterior of the aerosol container, because the aerosol contents of a fixed amount contained in the aerosol container main body are injected after filled in the fixed amount chamber provided in the aerosol container, so that the distributing apparatus is prevented from receiving damages due to changes of the external temperature, thereby allowing the aerosol container to be used stably for a long period of time by safe use of the aerosol container, and thereby reducing the manufacturing costs.
Means to be Solved by the Invention
This invention has a feature in which a subdivided fixed amount distributing apparatus for aerosol container includes: an outer sleeve secured to a top of the aerosol container and formed with a penetration opening at a center thereof; a nozzle body disposed in the penetration opening of the outer sleeve and formed with a nozzle communicating with a stem; a pushing body penetrated by the nozzle of the nozzle body at a center thereof and urged in an upper direction by a coil spring wound around the nozzle body, the pushing body pushing the stem according to pushing down operation to open a fixed amount injection valve disposed in the aerosol container thereby allowing injection of entire amounts of aerosol contents within the fixed amount injection valve, the pushing body being pivotally movable with respect to the nozzle body and the outer sleeve; and an upper sleeve attaching the pushing body slidably in an up and down direction at a center opening thereof, the upper sleeve being secured to the outer sleeve at a lower end thereof, wherein plural lower receiving blades whose top end forms a portion tapered at one corner are arranged annularly at an outer periphery of the penetration opening of the outer sleeve via lower insertion intervals extending in an up and down direction, wherein a flat portion having the same level as the lower receiving blades is formed at an end of the lower receiving blades in this arrangement direction, wherein a fitting piece is formed in projecting from a lower surface of the pushing body for allowing the pushing body to be pushed to the stem by pushing the pushing body to the lower receiving blades from an upper surface of the blades along the portion tapered at one corner as to be moved and inserted into the lower insertion interval, wherein plural upper receiving blades for moving the pushing body in the same direction as the moving direction of the pushing body by hitting a top of the fitting piece according to the pushing body's lifting up due to release of pushing operation to the pushing body are arranged annularly at an inner surface of the upper sleeve in having a lower surface tapered at one corner via upper insertion intervals, and wherein the fixed amount injection of the aerosol contents is disabled by pushing operation plural times to the pushing body and by disabling movement of the pushing body into the lower insertion interval upon rendering the fitting piece hit the flat portion after the pushing body is moved according to the pushing operation.
The pushing body may be formed with a pushing projection at an upper surface thereof to be in pressurized contact with a user. The pushing projection of the pushing body may be formed in coupling with the fitting piece. The pushing body may be formed with the pushing projection and the fitting piece, which are formed separately.
This invention simplifies the mechanism by injecting the whole amount each time to the exterior with the fixed amount injection valve contained in the aerosol container main body and prevents the distributing apparatus from receiving damages due to influences of external temperature. This invention, with the simple safe mechanism, has an advantage to render the aerosol container usable safely for a long time and to render the manufacturing costs inexpensive by limiting number of times in series of injections for fixed amount at one cycle and by preventing the aerosol contents from being used in an amount more than the prescribed amount, where medical products, hair care products, cosmetic products, etc. which are not suitable for use of a prescribed amount or more, are used as aerosol contents.
As description of reference numbers: 1 aerosol container, 2 fixed amount injection valve, 7 stem, 11 nozzle, 12 nozzle body, 13 penetration opening, 14 outer sleeve, 15 pushing body; 20 coil spring, 22 fitting piece, 23 pushing projection, 24 upper sleeve, 25 center opening, 30 upper end surface, 31 lower receiving blade, 32 lower insertion interval, 33 flat portion, 35 lower end surface, 36 upper receiving blade, 37 upper insertion interval.
Referring to
The fixed amount injection valve 2 is formed with the fixed amount chamber 5 and a content introduction chamber 6 via an annular partition gasket 4 in a housing 3. The partition gasket 4 comes close contact to the outer periphery of the stem 7 as shown in
The content introduction chamber 6 is normally in communication with an interior of the aerosol container 1 through an introduction route 10 provided between the outer periphery of the housing 3 and an outer sleeve 8 of the housing 3. It is to be noted that in this embodiment the fixed amount injection valve 2 thus formed is used but the structure is not limited as far as a fixed amount valve 2 used in other embodiments can inject the aerosol contents of a prescribed amount to the exterior by pushing operation of the stem 7.
As shown in
The nozzle 11 is inserted from an insertion opening 16 formed at a center of a substrate 21 of the pushing body 15, thereby arranging the pushing body 15 as to face to the penetration opening 13 of the outer sleeve 14. A coil spring 20 is provided, as wound, between a shoulder portion 17 of the nozzle body 12 and an engagement step 18 formed inside the pushing body 15 to urge the pushing body toward an external direction. The pushing body 15 is, as shown in
The pushing projections 23 of the pushing body 15 are inserted into a center opening 25 formed at an upper surface of an upper sleeve 24, and as shown in
As shown in
As shown in
With the outer sleeve 14 and the upper sleeve 24 thus structured, as shown in
With the structure thus described, to perform subdivided fixed amount distributing injection of the aerosol contents, the pushing body 15 is moved pivotally in advance before the pushing body 15 is started to be pushed, and the fitting piece 22 of the pushing body 15 is arranged as shown in
The aerosol container 1 is made up side down, and as shown in
With this pushing operation at the pushing body 15, as shown in
When the pushing operation is stopped at a time that the injection is completed, the pushing body 15 moves toward the upper sleeve 24 by urging force of the coil spring 20 as shown in
Thus, repeating pushing and stop of pushing of the pushing body 15, the fitting piece 22 moves sequentially between the upper insertion interval 37 and the lower insertion interval 32, and if the pushing body 15 is further pushed after the reciprocal movement is repeated ten times, the fitting piece 22 hits the flat portion 33 formed at the outer sleeve 14 as shown in
Where use of one cycle is completed as described above, no following use is made subsequently, and as shown in
As described above, by pushing the pushing body 15 continuously after the fitting piece 22 is placed between the lower receiving blade 31 and the upper flat portion 42 adjacent to the outer sleeve projection 34 at the beginning, the fixed amount injections of the aerosol contents can be made ten times in total. The injection amount of the aerosol contents usable in a prescribed period can be limited to a prescribed amount, so that risks that aerosol contents are otherwise used more than the prescribed amount usable in one cycle can be avoided. For example, where the head of human being is the injection target portion 29, the aerosol contents of the total injection amount portion of one cycle can reach the whole head of human being entirely by injections ten times with changing the injection direction at each injection.
To restart the next cycle, it is required to take a special procedure in which the pushing body 15 is moved pivotally in the reverse direction to the proceeding direction of the previous cycle, and risks of use of an excessive use amount can be avoided because the user compulsively recognizes that it is important to use the contents within the prescribed amount by this procedure.
In the above first embodiment, as shown in
With the structure thus constituted, because the engagement piece 48 is movable freely in a range of the formed length of the engagement opening 50, the pushing projection 23 can move pivotally independently from the substrate 21 in the prescribed range in this embodiment. If the pushing body 15 is pushed, as shown in
In a case where the pushing projection 23 performs massages to the injection target portion 29 during pushing injection operation, an occasion that the fitting piece 22 moves over the plural insertion intervals 32 may not happen as far as it is in the range of the formed length of the engagement opening 50 even where the pushing projection 23 moves to some extent. Because the substrate 21 is formed as separating form the pushing projection 23, unfavorable occasions such that the fitting piece 22 moves to the next fitting position according to pivotal movements of the pushing projection 23 can be avoided, even where the pushing projection 23 only is inadvertently moved pivotally in the range of the formed length of the engagement opening 50 in a state that injection is not performed. Therefore, the times of injections predetermined per one cycle use cannot be changed even where the pushing projection 23 moves pivotally to some extent, so that the whole injection amount of the aerosol contents to be injected at one cycle use can be maintained at a constant amount.
In this embodiment, in substantially the same way as in the first embodiment, the pushing operation of the pushing body 15 is disabled by repeating pushing and stop of pushing ten times continuously to render the fitting piece 22 reach the flat portion 33 as shown in
The engagement piece 48 formed at the pushing projection 23 hits an inner peripheral end surface 51 of the engagement opening 50 formed at the substrate 21, so that according to the pivotal movement of the pushing projection 23 the substrate 21 also pivotally moves in the same direction. With this pivotal movement, the fitting piece 22 rides over the outer sleeve projection 34 and ride over an inclined projection 52 along the tapered portion formed at a lower end of the center opening 25 of the upper sleeve 24, and as shown in
It is to be noted that to give stimulations to the head skin during use, four projections in the first embodiment, and six projections in the second embodiment as shown in
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2003-394337 | Nov 2003 | JP | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/JP04/16951 | 11/15/2004 | WO | 8/10/2006 |