Supports: cabinet structure – With movable components – Horizontally movable
Reexamination Certificate
2002-06-05
2004-01-06
Chan, Korie (Department: 3632)
Supports: cabinet structure
With movable components
Horizontally movable
C312S334440, C312S349000, C312S319100
Reexamination Certificate
active
06672692
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is related to an automatically restoring device for slide rail assembly, and more particularly to an automatically restoring device for slide rail assembly composed of slide rails with U-shaped cross-section. The automatically restoring device is able to automatically restore the slide rail assembly to its home position and lock the slide rail assembly in its true position.
Office desks, iron cabinets, file cabinets, tool cabinets, part boxes are generally equipped with drawers. In order to easily draw out or push in the drawer, generally a pair of movable rails with U-shaped cross-section are laid on two sides of the drawer. Correspondingly, a pair of fixed rails with U-shaped cross-section are fixed on the frame body for the drawer to smoothly horizontally slide therealong.
However, practically, some problems often take place as follows:
First, in the case that the drawer is pushed too hard, the drawer will hit the end and then rebound out by a certain distance. Second, in the case that the drawer is pushed in by too little force, the drawer will stop without reaching the end. Accordingly, the drawer cannot be fully closed and will partially protrude from the cabinet body. Third, in the case of inclined ground or earthquake or collision by external force, the drawer will slip out. All the above problems are troublesome and should be solved.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,302,016 discloses an automatically restoring device for slide rail assembly having non-U-shaped cross-section and disposed on bottom face of a drawer. The automatically restoring device includes a base seat with L-shaped slide channel, a hook seat and a spring. The base seat is fixedly disposed on a fixed rail. The hook seat is provided with a projecting post in a direction of normal line. The projecting post is received in the L-shaped slide channel. The hook seat is reciprocally movably locked on the base seat. An engaging mouth extends from one side of the hook seat for engaging with an engaging body disposed on the movable rail. The other side of the hook seat is connected with one end of the spring. The other end of the spring is connected with the base seat. When the engaging body of the movable rail collides and engage with the engaging mouth, the hook seat is deflected and the projecting post slides out of the bending section of the L-shaped slide channel. The spring resiliently pulls the movable rail to its true position.
The above structure has some shortcomings as follows:
1. The bending section of the L-shaped slide channel is not easy to engage with the projecting post of the hook seat in the direction of normal line. Therefore, the automatically restoring device may lose its function.
2. The pulling direction of the spring is different from the central axis of the movable rail so that when driving the movable rail, the transmission efficiency is poor.
The above automatically restoring device is also applicable to the slide rail assembly disposed on lateral side of the drawer and having U-shaped cross-section. In the case that the automatically restoring device is applied to the slide rail assembly composed of three overlapping slide rails with U-shaped cross-section, the base seat is generally attached to the bottom face of one slide rail (such as fixed rail). Accordingly, the base seat will occupy a part of the interior space of the fixed rail. As a result, the length of the movable rail which is not directly fixed on the drawer must be shortened. This minifies the loading ability of the slide rail assembly.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore a primary object of the present invention to provide an automatically restoring device for slide rail assembly, which has better transmission effect and is able to automatically restore the movable rail to its home position.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide the above automatically restoring device, which has better freeness of assembly and the loading ability of the slide rail assembly will not be affected.
According to the above objects, the automatically restoring device for slide rail assembly of the present invention includes a fixed unit, a horizontally slidable receptacle and an automatically restoring section. The fixed unit includes a pair of fixed rails. The horizontally slidable receptacle includes a pair of movable rails. The automatically restoring section is disposed at one end of the fixed rail. One end of each movable rail is formed with a push section. The automatically restoring section includes two slide way bodies, a deflection body and a resilient body.
The present invention can be best understood through the following description and accompanying drawings wherein:
REFERENCES:
patent: 5207781 (1993-05-01), Rock
patent: 5302016 (1994-04-01), Lautenschlager et al.
patent: 5356207 (1994-10-01), Rock et al.
patent: 5364179 (1994-11-01), Brustle et al.
patent: 5580138 (1996-12-01), Grabher
patent: 6340078 (2002-01-01), Scheible
Chan Korie
Troxell Law Office PLLC
Weinhold Ingrid
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