Combustion – Correlation of fuel or power supply with component movements...
Reexamination Certificate
2002-05-06
2003-11-11
Basichas, Alfred (Department: 3743)
Combustion
Correlation of fuel or power supply with component movements...
C431S255000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06644958
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE PRESENT INVENTION
1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a barbecue lighter, and more particularly to a barbecue lighter with a safety arrangement, the depression of the ignition trigger of the barbecue lighter normally cannot drive the depressible end of the gas lever downwardly for releasing gas. Therefore, no emitted gas is released and ignited so as to prevent the barbecue lighter from being ignited accidentally or by children.
2. Description of Related Arts
A barbecue lighter is commonly used at home such as pilot light for stoves or outdoor activities such as fireplaces or camping since the barbecue lighter can provide a father ignition distance comparing with an ordinary lighter.
A conventional barbecue lighter comprises a casing having a liquefied gas storage, a gas emitting nozzle extended from the liquefied gas storage for controlling a flow of gas, and an elongated nozzle tube extended from the casing for encircling the gas emitting nozzle. Due to the ignition operation of the barbecue lighter, the barbecue lighter usually incorporates with a piezoelectric unit in such a manner that when the trigger button is depressed downwardly to compress the piezoelectric unit and to release the gas from the liquefied gas at the same time, the sparks produced by the piezoelectric unit will ignite the emitted gas from the gas emitting nozzle.
For safety reasons, both the government and the consumers in United States demand a safety device employed in every lighter, including the barbecue lighter, to prevent unwanted ignition accidentally or by a child. One of the most common ways to incorporate the barbecue lighter with the safety device is to lock up the trigger button in a downwardly movable manner, so as to prevent the trigger button from being pressed downwardly to ignite the barbecue lighter. However, the operation of such safety device is unreliable.
Since the downward movement of the trigger button is locked up in the locking position, once the trigger button can be depressed downwardly, the barbecue lighter will be ignited. In other words, the child may easily to figure out how to unlock the barbecue lighter.
In order to stop the child from the usage of the barbecue lighter, a complicated safety device must be used, such as requiring a double-action operation to ignite the barbecue lighter. However, this adverse result affects the ease of operating the safety device and leads to different operational results depending on the users. Moreover, such safety device will highly increase the manufacturing cost of the barbecue lighter. Therefore, such safety device can be considered disadvantageous in practical use.
SUMMARY OF THE PRESENT INVENTION
A main object of the present invention is to provide a barbecue lighter with a safety arrangement, wherein the depression of the ignition trigger of the barbecue lighter normally cannot drive the depressible end of the gas lever downwardly for releasing gas. Therefore, no emitted gas is released and ignited so as to prevent the barbecue lighter from being ignited accidentally or by children.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a barbecue lighter with a safety arrangement, wherein in order to ignite the barbecue lighter, the user must require to move a pusher arm of the safety arrangement to a position that the bottom portion of the pusher arm is positioned right above the depressible end of the gas lever and then depress the ignition trigger. Therefore, no gas is released when only depressing the ignition trigger, so as to prevent the barbecue lighter from being ignited accidentally or by children.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a barbecue lighter with a safety arrangement, wherein the ignition of the barbecue lighter of the present invention requires a simple single-action operation by an adult's finger instead of the conventional double-action operation.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a barbecue lighter with a safety arrangement, wherein the safety arrangement does not require to alter the original structural design of the barbecue lighter, so as to minimize the manufacturing cost of incorporating the safety arrangement with every conventional barbecue lighter having an ignition trigger.
Accordingly, in order to accomplish the above objects, the present invention provides a barbecue lighter, comprising:
a casing having a liquefied gas cavity and a trigger cavity provided therein;
a gas emitting nozzle extended from and communicated with the liquefied gas cavity via a gas releasable valve;
an elongated nozzle tube mounting on a ceiling of the casing for encircling the gas emitting nozzle;
a gas lever, which is pivotally supported in the casing, having a lifting end engaged with the gas releasable valve and a depressible end arranged in such a manner that when the depressible end of the gas lever is depressed, the lifting end of the gas lever lifts up the gas releasable valve for releasing gas from the liquefied gas cavity;
a piezoelectric unit, which is disposed in the trigger cavity of the casing, having an ignition tip extended adjacent to the gas emitting nozzle;
an ignition trigger, which is disposed in the trigger cavity of the casing in a vertically movable manner, being attached on a top portion of the piezoelectric unit; and
a safety arrangement, which comprises an actuating member comprising a pusher arm disposed in the trigger cavity in a movable manner, and a resilient element disposed between the pusher arm and the ignition trigger for applying an urging pressure against the pusher arm so as to normally retain the pusher arm in a safety position, wherein in the safety position, the pusher arm is positioned away from the depressible end of the gas lever with a predetermined distance, and in an ignition position, the pusher arm is moved to a position that when the ignition trigger is depressed downwardly, the pusher arm is driven downwardly to depress the depressible end of the gas lever for releasing gas, so as to ignite the barbecue lighter.
To ignite the barbecue lighter, the pusher arm is required to operate to the ignition position by moving the pusher arm toward the depressible end of the gas lever, so that the ignition trigger is slid downwardly to drive the pusher arm downward so as to depress depressible end of the gas lever for releasing gas. At the same time, the piezoelectric unit is depressed to generate sparks to ignite the gas emitted from the gas emitting nozzle of the barbecue lighter.
REFERENCES:
patent: 6010328 (2000-01-01), Sung
patent: 6086358 (2000-07-01), Potskhishvili et al.
patent: 6129544 (2000-10-01), Chen
patent: 6200130 (2001-03-01), Man
patent: 6217313 (2001-04-01), Luo
patent: 6428309 (2002-08-01), Doiron
patent: 2002/0177091 (2002-11-01), Chen
Basichas Alfred
Chan Raymond Y.
David and Raymond Patent Group
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