Agitating – Operator supported
Reexamination Certificate
2000-05-04
2001-09-25
Soohoo, Tony G. (Department: 1723)
Agitating
Operator supported
Reexamination Certificate
active
06293691
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND
This invention relates to a processing device for stirring or reducing foods, particularly a handheld blender, according to the prior-art portion of claim
1
.
Processing devices are known from WO 96/10944 (PCT/EP95/03932) or EP-A1 0 724 857, for example. Such processing devices or handheld blenders are used in great diversity, particularly during the daily preparation of foods, in order to reduce and blend food materials, for example. Such handheld blenders typically have a motor housing adjoining an elongated housing part whose end becomes a shield open at its bottom end and also referred to as the housing bell. Inside the motor housing is a drive motor which drives a tool shaft extending through the elongated housing part and usually having a cutter blade fitted to its end in the area of the shield. The shield is designed big enough to completely encompass the cutter blade and to project a defined distance beyond the end of the shaft or cutter blade as seen looking in the direction of the tool shaft's axis. One of the functions performed by the shield is to protect the user of the device from the rotating cutter blade. Another is to act as a splash guard, particularly when processing low-viscosity foods.
Such processing devices or handheld blenders can be adapted to different requirements by selection of the speed at which the shaft and hence the cutter blade rotates. Problems may arise when wishing to reduce solid foods such as carrots. In this case the carrots must first be cut into short enough pieces to be able to enter the inside of the bell in order to reach the bite of the cutter blade when the handheld blender or its housing bell is immersed in the pre-cut carrots. If these carrot pieces are too big or the container holding the carrots is too small to allow relative movement of the carrot pieces at all or only with difficulty, it can happen that the edge of the shield comes to rest on such large pieces, preventing it from advancing any further. Consequently, the cutter blade fails to reach the carrot pieces in order to reduce them. This problem can usually be remedied by raising the handheld blender and immersing it again into the food pieces to be reduced until it engages the pieces.
From DE-B-12 24 007 there is known a processing device having a processing tool designed to be pushed in and out of the bell compartment accommodating the processing tool in order to be better able to clean the bell compartment and the processing tool.
Similarly, from EP 0 078 050 there is known a processing device such as a handheld blender on which the processing tool can be moved out of the bell against the force of a spring only when the bell is immersed in liquid foods. Moving the processing tool out of the bell should enable the foods to be homogeneously and completely mixed and reduced at high speed. As soon as the bell is removed from the foods, the processing tool retracts into the interior of the bell compartment with an axial sliding movement caused by the spring force. Injuries are thus prevented because the processing tool is now protected by the bell.
From DE-A-19504638 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,299,924, processing devices of the type initially referred to are known providing for relative displacement of the bell edge and the work performing element. The embodiments of the adjusting devices are mechanically complex and therefore expensive.
It is an object of the present invention to improve upon a processing device, particularly a handheld blender, in such a way that the processing tool, in particular a cutter blade, is not only sufficiently protected in an initial position by the shield but also well suited to better reduce large pieces of solid foods.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This object is accomplished with a processing device for stirring or reducing foods, particularly a handheld blender, with a motor driven tool shaft extending in a housing part of the housing of the processing device and having a work performing element secured to the shaft's output end, the housing part becoming a protective shield in the area of the output end of the tool shaft, the shield encompassing the work performing element in a radial direction at least in part and terminating in an opening edge at its lower open end, an elastic intermediate member arranged between the shield and the housing part being provided for enabling a relative axial displacement of the work performing element and the opening edge of the protective shield so that in use of the processing device different food materials can be better processed. The elastic intermediate member undergoes an elastic deformation as the housing part is displaced from the lower position to the upper position and vice versa. An essential point is that the opening edge can be moved in axial direction in its relative position to the work performing element, which can be effected by applying manual pressure to the processing device. The shield is held in an initial position so that it cover the work performing element adequately, acting as a guard in relation to the work performing element. If low-viscosity foods are processed, the shield remains in this extended position in every phase of the device's use and acts as a splash guard. If the device is to be used, however, for reducing pieces of solid foods such as carrots, potatoes, apples or onion, the device is immersed in the container holding the pieces of food and settles with the bottom edge of the shield on the pieces of food to be reduced. If, in one embodiment, the resistance to advancing the shield into the pieces of food then increases, the result will be a relative axial displacement of the work performing element and the opening edge of the shield so that the work performing element is moved further toward the opening edge and may project slightly beyond the opening edge. The work performing element thus penetrates such pieces of food on which the opening edge of the shield rests and which otherwise would prevent any further advancing of the shield with the work performing element retracted therein. Not only is it therefore materially easier to reduce pieces of solid foods, the processing device is also guaranteed to be safer to operate because it engages in the pieces of food, practically without resistance, on account of the relative axial displacement of the work performing element and the opening edge of the shield.
With the processing device constructed in this way it is also possible to reduce foods of a size corresponding to or exceeding the diameter of the shield, which with a fixed shield would not be possible. When the large pieces of food are progressively reduced in size by the processing device, during which process the shield is displaced in conformity with the resistance arising when penetrating the food, this displacement no longer occurs as the reduction of the food progresses, and the shield adopts its function as a splash guard and protection from the work performing element.
The means for the axial displacement are made of an elastic intermediate member. This intermediate member is arranged between the shield and the housing part. If the shield encounters resistance when engaging in the food to be reduced, the intermediate member will deform elastically, enabling the housing part to slide from a lower position to an upper position and vice versa. In this arrangement the edge of the bell remains adhered to the bottom of the processing container. When deformation of the bell takes place, the space enclosed by the bell becomes smaller, so that foods of relatively firm consistency are literally squashed and forced out through the slits in the side of the bell. This considerably improves the reducing operation. At the same time the bell does not need to be continually lifted off the bottom, which is made more difficult by the effect of suction which occurs when the cutter blade is in action. Spattering of food due to the sudden lifting and partial removal of the bell from the food is likewise prevented. While the free end of the bell can remain i
Carreras Francesc
Hernandez Alejandro
Penaranda Mariano
Rebordosa Antonio
Braun GmbH
Fish & Richardson P.C.
Soohoo Tony G.
LandOfFree
Processing device for stirring or reducing foods,... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Processing device for stirring or reducing foods,..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Processing device for stirring or reducing foods,... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2479618