Flexible or portable closure – partition – or panel – Plural strip – slat – or panel type – With mounting or supporting means
Reexamination Certificate
1999-06-25
2001-10-23
Johnson, Blair M. (Department: 3634)
Flexible or portable closure, partition, or panel
Plural strip, slat, or panel type
With mounting or supporting means
C160S036000, C160S201000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06305456
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The subject matter of the present invention is a hand or motorized operating device specially adapted for reversible window blinds of the type whose slats are guided inside labyrinth tracks and have the particularity that they can alternatively show both sides of the blind in the same direction.
Along this same development line, the improvements introduced in the slats are mainly aimed at obtaining slats for reversible blinds which are specially silent and wear resistant.
Description of the Prior Art
A blind of this type is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,722,476 of the same owner, being the blind in this case made up of elongated and hollow slats, which have connected, at both ends, two caps with wheels which slide along the inside of the corresponding side labyrinth configuration tracks, or several cylindrical projections substituting the wheels.
U.S. Ser. No. 08/871,619 of the same owner relates to a new design of the box where the blind subject matter of the preceding invention lodges, which has at the side headers two profiles which allow a sliding assembling of the side plates which the labyrinth track guides have. This type of reversible blind construction, with sliding assembling, does not allow the easy use of conventional operating devices since, in the first place, the same effort must be used in both directions, in the second place, the blind must be braked also in both directions, and in the third place the ends of the travel must detect the physical position of the blind, not being appropriate the ends of the travels incorporated to the motor.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The operating device subject matter of the present invention solves the mentioned problems and perfectly adapts to the special structure of reversible blinds with sliding assemblage allowing to transform a hand operated device into a motorized one in an easy, quick and economic way, even after the initial installation of the blind.
The operating device subject matter of the invention uses the side plates which the labyrinth track guides use as a base, in such a way that this plates, once the different elements which constitute the hand or motorized operating device are assembled onto the same, they can in turn be assembled in a sliding manner onto the box foreseen during the carrying out of the construction.
The hand operating device is made up of a handle with conventional directional change of 90° from which starts a rod transmission which transmits a rotating motion in both directions to the reducing device for hand operation. The latter is made up of a straight gear train with four parallel and coplanar axis gear, having the last one of them an integral bevel pinion which acts of the corresponding bevel wheel, connected itself to a coaxial transmission pinion and to a coaxial driving pinion. Between the first straight pinion and the transmission rod there is inserted a bi-directional brake in such a way that, being it possible to operate the blind in both directions by means of the handle, the weight of the blind cannot make the handle turn in either of the two directions.
The motorized operating device is made up of a conventional alternating current asynchronous motor, whose final pinion goes into a reducing device of the planetary type, with two cascade stages, whose outgoing pinion meshes into a gear coaxial to the axis which joins the two side plates, being itself integral to a transmission pinion.
Concerning the slats, an improvement consists in the side flange delimiting the intermediate slat channel being now straight instead of arched on its external side, which makes the aspect of the two sides of the blinds to be the same.
The inside of the mentioned side flange which delimits the intermediate slat channel maintains its curve concave shape to receive the hook of the adjoining intermediate slat which has been modified as to exactly adjust to the curvature of the cranked inwards flange which delimits together with side flange the intermediate slat channel in such a way that the hook and the inward cranked flange adjust their curvature when two adjoining slats form a 120° angle corresponding to the insertion of the blind in the side spiral tracks which constitute the labyrinth where the blind sits.
The third and last improvement introduced in the slats consists in the inward cranked flange, which facing the side flange mentioned before delimits the intermediate slat channel, has been increased in length, since now instead of ending at the middle plane of the slat, it occupies approximately 80% of its width, so that it drives the adjoining hook in an off-centered way, which causes less wear and noise because the slats are always leaning on the two sides of the tracks which receives them, thanks to the overturning couple to which they are subjected.
REFERENCES:
patent: 1697646 (1929-01-01), Halvorsen
patent: 3516469 (1970-06-01), McDonald
patent: 4343340 (1982-08-01), Paule
patent: 4795206 (1989-01-01), Adams
patent: 4889381 (1989-12-01), Tamblyn et al.
patent: 4966219 (1990-10-01), Sonolet
patent: 5322108 (1994-06-01), Hoffman
patent: 5343922 (1994-09-01), Rankl et al.
patent: 5722476 (1998-03-01), Lujan-sanchez et al.
patent: 6176291 (2001-01-01), Sanchez et al.
Ceraper S.L.
Johnson Blair M.
Ladas & Parry
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