Combustion – Correlation of fuel or power supply with component movements...
Reexamination Certificate
2002-05-06
2003-08-12
Yeung, James C. (Department: 3743)
Combustion
Correlation of fuel or power supply with component movements...
C431S255000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06604939
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE PRESENT INVENTION
1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a piezoelectric lighter, and more particularly to a piezoelectric lighter with a safety arrangement, wherein the pusher arm is normally disengaged with the gas lever which drives the gas releasable valve for releasing gas, so as to prevent the piezoelectric lighter from being ignited accidentally of by children.
2. Description of Related Arts
Piezoelectric lighters have been known and sold throughout the United States. The conventional push-down type piezoelectric lighter generally comprises a fuel tank, a gas valve communicating with the fuel tank for releasing gas therein, and a piezoelectric unit for generating piezoelectricity when it is compressed. In order to ignite the piezoelectric lighter, a pusher button must be pressed downwardly to compress the piezoelectric unit for producing a spark. At the same time, one end of a gas lever is depressed by the pusher button to pivotally lift up another end which is engaged with the gas valve for releasing gas. Therefore, the spark from the piezoelectric unit will ignite the emitting gas to ignite the piezoelectric lighter.
For safety reasons, both the government and the consumers in United States demand a safety device employed in every lighter to prevent unwanted ignition accidentally or by a child. One of the most common ways to incorporate the piezoelectric lighter with the safety device is to lock up the pusher button in a vertically movable manner, so as to prevent the pusher button from being pressed downwardly to ignite the piezoelectric lighter. However, the operation of such safety device is unreliable.
Since the downward movement of the pusher button is locked up at the locking position, once the pusher button is depressed downwardly, the piezoelectric lighter will be ignited. In other words, the child may easily to figure out how to unlock the piezoelectric lighter.
In order to stop the child from the usage of the piezoelectric lighter, a complicated safety device must be used. 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 piezoelectric 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 piezoelectric lighter with a safety arrangement, wherein the pusher arm of the safety arrangement is normally disengaged with the gas lever which drives the gas releasable valve for releasing gas, so as to prevent the piezoelectric lighter from being ignited accidentally of by children.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a piezoelectric lighter with a safety arrangement, wherein in order to ignite the piezoelectric lighter, the user must move the pusher arm to the gas lever and then depress the ignition button. In other words, no gas is released when only depressing the ignition button, so as to prevent the piezoelectric lighter from being ignited accidentally or by children.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a piezoelectric lighter with a safety arrangement, wherein the piezoelectric lighter not only normally retains a safety condition but also automatically return to the safety condition after each ignition operation so as to prevent any unintentional ignition of the piezoelectric lighter.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a piezoelectric lighter with a safety arrangement, which does not require to alter the original structure design of the piezoelectric lighter, so as to minimize the manufacturing cost of incorporating the safety arrangement with every conventional piezoelectric lighter having an ignition button and a gas lever.
Accordingly, in order to accomplish the above objects, the present invention provide a piezoelectric lighter, comprising:
a casing having a liquefied gas storage;
a gas emitting nozzle disposed in the casing and communicating with the liquefied gas storage via a gas releasable valve;
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 storage;
a piezoelectric unit, which is disposed in the casing for generating piezoelectricity, comprising a movable operating part extended upwardly and an ignition tip extended to a position close to the gas emitting nozzle; and
a safety arrangement, comprising:
an ignition button, having an actuating cavity, slidably mounted on the casing in a vertically movable manner wherein the ignition button is attached to a top end of the piezoelectric unit and arranged in such a manner that when the ignition button is pushed downwardly, the movable operating part of the piezoelectric unit is depressed;
an actuating member comprising a pusher arm extended into the actuating cavity and adapted to move from a safety position to an ignition position; and
a resilient element disposed between the pusher arm and the ignition button for applying an urging pressure against the pusher arm so as to normally retain the pusher arm in the 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 the ignition position, the pusher arm is moved to a position that when the ignition button 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 piezoelectric lighter.
In order to ignite the piezoelectric 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 button 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 piezoelectric lighter.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5997282 (1999-12-01), Man
patent: 6086358 (2000-07-01), Potskhishvili
patent: 6135763 (2000-10-01), Man
Chan Raymond Y.
David and Raymond Patent Group
Yeung James C.
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