Patent Application
20080257910
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a water dispenser, and in particular to a supporting device for a water dispenser that is capable of supporting a water bag of packaged water.
2. Description of Prior Art
Since the quality of supplied running water is different from place to place, the running water has to be boiled first if a user is not sure whether he can drink the water directly or not. In order to dispense with this kind of boiling apparatus and boiling procedure, many offices or schools use bottled water or packaged water supplied by manufactures and also use an associated water dispenser having a heating device, thereby providing a good quality of water for people.
In the case of a common bottled water dispenser, since the container of bottled water is a solid container, after the container of bottled water is disposed upside down into the water dispenser, the drinking water in this container can pour into the water dispenser completely along the profile of the sold container without remaining any drinking water in the container. Therefore, such kind of water dispenser is simpler in design than the common water dispenser, which reduces the cost for the provider of drinking water. However, since the container of bottled water is designed to cooperate with the water dispenser, the container can be recycled and reused for the sake of cost. As a result, in addition to the expense of delivering the drinking water, the total delivery cost has to include the expense of recycling the empty bottles.
Therefore, in consideration of the delivery cost, some places use packaged water to replace the bottled water, thereby saving the expense of recycling and delivering. Furthermore, the material of the packaged water can be recycled in terms of environmental protection. Therefore, for the manufactures, not only the cost can be saved, but also a win-win effect in the environmental protection can be achieved.
Nevertheless, since the inlet conduit provided on the water dispenser is elongate so as to get into the water bag of the packaged water deeply, thereby allowing the drinking water within the water bag to flow into the water dispenser very fast. However, after the drinking water within the water bag is gradually reduced, the water level within the water bag is also gradually reduced until below the position of the inlet conduit. As a result, the remaining drinking water often cannot enter the water dispenser via the inlet conduit. Therefore, the water resource is not completely used and thus is wasted along with the recycling of the water bags. In view of this problem, it is necessary to improve the existing water dispenser to avoid the wastage of precious water resources.
In view of the above drawbacks, the present invention is to provide a supporting device for a packaged water dispenser that has a raising effect. Via the action of raising a water bag of packaged water generated by a plurality of elastic elements provided in the supporting device, the drinking water within the water bag can be concentrated and enter the water dispenser, thereby using the water resource within the water bag well.
In order to achieve the above objects, the present invention provides a supporting device for a packaged water dispenser. The supporting device includes a supporting base and a supporting tray. The bottom of the supporting base is provided with a through hole for allowing an inlet conduit protruding from the top of the water dispenser to penetrate therein. The periphery of the supporting base is provided with a plurality of positioning pillars. Each positioning pillar is provided with an elastic element. The supporting tray is accommodated in the supporting base. The bottom of the supporting tray is recessed and provided with a penetrating hole to correspond to the position of the through hole. The penetrating hole allows the inlet conduit to penetrate therein. The periphery of the supporting tray is provided with a plurality of accommodating troughs for accommodating each positioning pillar and elastic element, so that the elastic elements can support the supporting tray. Via this arrangement, the supporting tray raises the water bag of packaged water, so that the drinking water within the water bag can be concentrated and enter the water dispenser, thereby utilizing the water resource well.
The technical contents of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.
With reference to
Although the present invention has been described with reference to the foregoing preferred embodiment, it will be understood that the invention is not limited to the details thereof. Various equivalent variations and modifications may still occur to those skilled in this art in view of the teachings of the present invention. Thus, all such variations and equivalent modifications are also embraced within the scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims.
