The present invention relates to pet bedding solutions and, more particularly, to a novel system for leveraging cool liquid held in a portable cooler to charge a heat exchange subsystem incorporated in a pet bed.
Outdoor activities commonly involve all members of a family, even the family pet. A trip to the beach, the park, the lake, or just the backyard could require all kinds of preparations to ensure that all involved have an enjoyable experience. All involved in the outdoor festivities need to stay hydrated and, so, a cooler filled with drinks and ice is all but ubiquitous for many outdoor activities. And, the comfort of the family pet needs to be accommodated, so it's not unusual for a pet bed to be brought along with all the other supplies.
During outdoor activities, the family pet often finds itself suffering in silence—panting away in an effort to regulate body temperature. A cooler full of melted ice water next to a comfortable pet bed, however, presents an opportunity to provide the family pet with some thermal relief. Therefore, there is a need in the art for a system and method that leverages the cool water so often held in a cooler to circulate through a heat exchanger incorporated in a pet bed. More specifically, there is a need in the art for a system that tethers to a cooler, such as an Igloo® or Yeti® cooler, a heat exchanger subsystem integrated into a pet bed such that thermal energy generated by a pet lounging on the pet bed may be efficiently dissipated.
Exemplary embodiments of a system for cooling a pet bed are disclosed. Certain embodiments include a portable ice chest comprising a false bottom surface that defines an upper volume and a lower volume within the portable ice chest. The false bottom surface may comprise a plurality of holes (or pathways) for allowing water to drain from the upper volume which is configured to store ice to the lower volume which is configured to serve as a reservoir for the water. A pump located within the lower volume of the portable ice chest is configured to circulate water from the lower volume of the portable ice chest, through a heat exchanger subsystem that is external to the portable ice chest, and back to the lower volume. The heat exchanger subsystem may be contained within a pet bed component of the system.
Certain embodiments may include a controller configured to manage a power supply to the pump based on signals received from a water level switch, water level sensor, temperature sensor, or the like. In this way, the controller may vary a frequency of the power supply to the pump such that a speed of the pump is varied. Or, depending on embodiment, the controller may switch the power supply to the pump from an energized state to a non-energized state (i.e., “turn” the pump “on” and/or “off”). The heat exchanger subsystem may comprise a flexible, thermally conductive tubing in fluid communication with the pump as well as a thermally conductive surface in mechanical communication with the flexible, thermally conductive tubing. In this way, the heat exchanger subsystem may provide for efficient thermal energy transfer from a pet lounging on the pet bed to the water circulating through the subsystem.
Various embodiments, aspects and features of the present invention encompass a system and method for cooling a pet bed. As will be better understood from the attached figures and the following description, a portable ice chest or cooler my be configured or retrofitted such that cold water contained within the cooler is circulated through a pet bed and returned to the cooler reservoir. In this way, a heat exchanger subsystem incorporated in the pet bed may be charged with the cold water, thereby providing a cool bedding surface for a pet.
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Advantageously, a pump 119 located within the reservoir 107, such as a sump pump, may be positioned and configured to circulate the cold water out of the reservoir 107, through a heat exchanger subsystem comprised of tubing or the like in a pet bed 110, and back to the reservoir 107. More specifically, the pump 119 may be powered from a power source 113. The power source may be controlled by a controller 111 such that the pump 119 may be modulated to vary a flow rate of the water, as would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art, and/or cycle between on and off states. The controller 111 may be configured to receive one or more sensor inputs, such as from a water level switch 117 and/or a temperature sensor 115, for determining a pumping speed. The controller 111, and envisioned exemplary control schemes implemented by the controller 111, will be described in more detail below relative to the
The power source 113 may be an alternating current (“AC”) power source such as the type that may be accessed by a two-prong or three-prong “plug” into a standard power outlet. It is envisioned, however, that preferred embodiments of the solution may leverage a battery powered, direct current (“DC”) power source 113. In some preferred embodiments, the power source 113 may comprise a rechargeable battery pack and a solar panel component for continuous recharging the battery pack. Other preferred embodiments may simply leverage a rechargeable battery pack as the power source 113.
One or more isolation valves 121 may be included in certain embodiments of the solution for isolating output and return lines 123, 125. In operation, the pump 119, powered by the power source 113 according to a control scheme implemented by the controller 111, may supply cold water from the reservoir 107 to the pet bed 110 via an output line 125. The output line 125 may serpentine through an interior volume of the pet bed 110 and, upon exiting the pet bed 110, effectively become the return line 123 that returns the water to the reservoir 107. It is envisioned that one or more portions of the lines 123, 125 may be comprised of a flexible, thermally conductive tubing made of, for example, a thermally conductive fluoropolymer (e.g., a fluorinated ethylene propylene or a PerFluoroAlkoxy copolymer). In some embodiments, the portions of the tubing 123, 125 within the confines of the pet bed 110 structure may be comprised of thermally conductive tubing while portions of the tubing outside the pet bed 110 may be comprised of thermally insulating tubing.
Also, it is envisioned that the pet bed 110 may incorporate a thermally conductive surface 127 in mechanical connection to the lines 123, 125 such that thermal energy generated by a pet lounging in the pet bed 110 is efficiently distributed and transferred to the water circulating through the lines 123, 125. It is envisioned that the thermally conductive surface 127 may include a thin flexible metal sheet and/or a thermally conductive fabric that incorporates conductive fillers and/or conductive threads. Reference in this description to the heat exchanger subsystem envisions one or more of the tubes 123, 125 and the thermally conductive surface 127.
In this description, the term “module” is intended to refer generally to a computer-related entity, either hardware, firmware, a combination of hardware and software, software, or software in execution, unless specifically limited to a certain computer-related entity in the claims. For example, a module may be, but is not limited to being, a process running on a processor, a processor, an object, an executable, a thread of execution, a program, and/or a computer. In addition, a module may execute from various computer readable media having various data structures stored thereon, such as memory 215.
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Advantageously, the level switch 117 may provide the cooling module 225 with a signal indicative of a water level in the reservoir 107 and, based on that signal, the cooling module 225 may determine if there is sufficient amounts of water in the reservoir 107 to pump through the heat exchanger subsystem. Similarly, the temperature sensor 115 may provide the cooling module 225 with a signal indicative of a temperature associated with water in the return line 123 and, based on that temperature signal, the cooling module 225 may determine whether to increase or decrease or discontinue pumping of water through the heat exchange subsystem. A user interface “UI” 220 may provide a user of the system 100 with the ability to adjust one or more parameters used by the controller 111 to execute a control scheme in accordance with that which has been described above.
A system and method for cooling a pet bed according to the solution has been described using detailed descriptions of embodiments thereof that are provided by way of example and are not intended to limit the scope of the disclosure. The described embodiments comprise different features, not all of which are required in all embodiments of a system and method for cooling a pet bed according to the solution. Some embodiments of the solution utilize only some of the features or possible combinations of the features. Variations of embodiments of the solution that are described and embodiments of the solution comprising different combinations of features noted in the described embodiments will occur to persons of the art.
It will be appreciated by persons skilled in the art that a system and method for cooling a pet bed according to the solution is not limited by what has been particularly shown and described herein above. Rather, the scope of a system and method for cooling a pet bed according to the solution is defined by the claims that follow.