Combustion – Correlation of fuel or power supply with component movements...
Reexamination Certificate
2000-07-05
2001-04-24
Lazarus, Ira S. (Department: 3743)
Combustion
Correlation of fuel or power supply with component movements...
C431S277000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06220853
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE PRESENT INVENTION
1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to disposable lighter, and more particularly to a disposable childproof lighter wherein the driving caps are normally disengaged with the gear wheels which drive the striker wheel to ignite, so as to prevent the disposable lighter from being ignited accidentally or by children.
2. Description of Related Arts
Nowadays, both U.S. government and U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission demand a safety device in every cigarette lighter including the disposable lighter to prevent unwanted ignition accidentally or by a child. As it is known that the disposable lighter is common and relatively cheap, it is impossible to incorporate with expensive and complex safety device that highly increases the cost of the disposable lighter. In order to minimize the manufacturing cost of the disposable lighter employed with safety device, one of the most common disposable safety lighter is the driving wheel type disposable safety lighter. This type of disposable lighter comprises a pair of driving wheels for driving the striker wheel to rotate in order to generate sparks, wherein the driving wheels normally run idle when the driving wheels are physically disengaged with the striker wheel.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,547,370, owned by Hwang, discloses a wheel axle mounted between two upright supports at the top of a butane wheel, two driving wheels mounted around the wheel axle and disposed in contact with a spring-supported flint below and turned by the driving wheels through the wheel axle to strike the spring-supported flint in producing sparks. The wheel axle is made of polygonal cross section, having two round rods at two opposite ends loosely inserted into a respective axle hole on each upright support so as to ensure a better connection between the striker wheel and the wheel axle.
Another example is U.S. Pat. No. 5,997,281, owned by Lei discloses two side thumb-wheel each having a circular shallow indentation are respectively mounted on two sides of a friction thumb-wheel, wherein each circular shallow indentation has an inner diameter slightly larger that an outside diameter of the friction thumb-wheel such that the friction thumb-wheel can be inserted into the circular shallow indentation. In such arrangement, when a pressing force is applied on the two side thumb-wheels, the side thumb-wheels will engage with the friction thumb-wheel, which in turn bears against a flint to create a spark.
However, most of the driving wheel type disposable safety lighters, including the above two patents, still have the following drawbacks.
Since the dimension of the driving wheels (side thumb-wheels) are not produced precisely for minimizing the manufacturing cost of the disposable lighter, there is always a clearance between the driving wheel and the striker wheel. The clearance is supposed to provide a gap that the driving wheels can rotate loosely around the axle in such a manner the driving wheels are run idle around the axle. However, the clearance also provides a gap that the driving wheels can axially loose such that the driving wheels may not perfectly engage with the wheel axle of the striker wheel in order to provide an optimum mutual friction therebetween for ignition. Furthermore, in order to ignite the lighter, a downward force must applied on the driving wheels for engaging the striker wheel. In fact, the driving wheels are always engaged with the wheel axle of the striker wheel by gravity which acts as the downward force. In other words, the lighter, which claims as a safety lighter, may normally in a ready-to-ignite position.
SUMMARY OF THE PRESENT INVENTION
A main object of the present invention is to provide a disposable childproof lighter which prevents the lighter from being ignited accidentally or by children.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a disposable childproof lighter that the driving caps are rotatably held in a steady position so as to prevent any axially loose of the driving caps, for ensuring effective engagement of the driving cap to ignite the disposable childproof lighter.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a disposable childproof lighter wherein the driving caps are normally disengaged with the driven gear teeth, so as to prevent any unwanted ignition of the lighter.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a disposable childproof lighter, wherein in order to ignite the lighter, a user's thumb must apply a simple single operation on the driving caps, which includes a pressing down action and a rotating action at the same time. Therefore, children under five years old are unable to complete the igniting operation.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a disposable childproof lighter wherein the mechanism does not require to alter the original structural design of the disposable lighter, so as to minimize the manufacturing cost of incorporating the mechanism with every conventional disposable lighter.
Accordingly, in order to accomplish the above objects, the present invention provides a disposable childproof lighter, which comprises:
a supporting frame disposed on a gas reservoir having a valve which is actuated by a gas level pivotally mounted on the supporting frame for actuating the valve to release gas from the gas reservoir, wherein the supporting frame comprises a pair of supporting walls parallelly protruded upwardly at opposite sides of the gas level, each of the supporting walls having a supporting hole provided thereon, and
an ignition means, comprising:
a flint supported by a resilient element,
a striker wheel, which is rotatably mounted on the supporting frame, having a plurality of striking teeth evenly provided on an outer circumferential surface thereof, wherein the flint is supported by the resilient element to upwardly urging against a portion of the striking teeth,
a pair of driven gear elements for coaxially mounting the striker wheel between the two supporting walls of the supporting frame, each of the driven gear elements comprising a gear wheel having an outer circumferential surface and a support shank integrally and coaxially protruded from an inner side of the gear wheel, wherein the two support shanks, which are smaller than the two gear wheels in diameter, are coaxially mounted on two sides of the striker wheel to define two supporting gaps between the two sides of the striker wheel and the two gear wheels respectively, and the two gear wheels are respectively and rotatably mounted to the two supporting walls of the supporting frame in such a manner that the striker wheel is capable of being driven to rotate when driving the two gear wheels to rotate, and
a pair of driving caps, each having a circular driving cavity coaxially provided at an outer side thereof so as to define an inner side wall, each of the driving cavities having a diameter larger than that of the gear wheels of the driven gear elements, wherein a central support hole is coaxially provided at each of the inner side walls for rotatably mounting on the respective support shank of the respective driven gear element while the gear wheel of the respective driven gear element is rotatably received in the respective driving cavity, wherein the two inner side walls of the two driving caps are rotatably disposed in the two supporting gaps respectively so as to hold the two driving caps in a rotatable position between the striker wheel and the two driven gear elements respectively, wherein each of the driving cavities has an inner circumferential surface, wherein the two driving caps are arranged free to rotate normally with respect to the two driven gear elements unless a downward force is intentionally applied on the driving caps while rotating the driving caps to drive the driven gear elements and the striker wheel to rotate to strike against the flint to produce sparks.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5913674 (1999-06-01), Shimizu
patent: 6074198 (2000-06-01), Rogelet
patent: 6142768 (2000-11-01), Feng et al.
Chan Raymond Y.
Clarke Sara
David and Raymond Patent Group
Lazarus Ira S.
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