Brushing – scrubbing – and general cleaning – Machines – With air blast or suction
Patent
1993-12-07
1996-03-05
Moore, Chris K.
Brushing, scrubbing, and general cleaning
Machines
With air blast or suction
15 51, 15 99, 15320, A47L 530
Patent
active
054956382
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention concerns a sweeping unit, in particular as a supplementary equipment for a scrubbing suction-action machine, with at least one driven sweeping device provided on a guide, while the guide consists of several elements.
Such a sweeping unit, known from DD 269 549, has a transversely running brush belt which is guided about rollers having horizontal axes on both sides of a centrally situated suction orifice. The two brush belts can be pivoted in a horizontal plane into an open to the front V-shaped position, so that the sweeping unit could travel through narrow positions. The guide elements of the two brush belts, as far as belt guidance is concerned, are not displaceable, so that an automatic deflection when encountering an obstacle is not possible. Rather, the V-position of both brush belts has to be set accordingly before entering into an obstacle, to prevent the outer ends of the brush belts bumping into the limits forming the obstacles.
The known sweeping unit is not envisaged to be used as a supplementary device for a scrubbing suction-action machine.
In contrast to this, the object of this present invention is to produce a sweeping unit which makes inside and outside mechanical sweeping with variable working width feasible, so that an automatic adjustment of its contour can be carried out and which can also be used in conjunction with any scrubbing suction-action machine.
The cleaning of very dirty floors and such which have increased demands on such machines as far as cleanliness is concerned, should also be economical. The cleaning of such floors is carried out currently in such a manner that first the dirt lying loosely on the floor is swept away, usually by hand, and afterwards the dirt stuck to the floor is cleaned by means of a scrubbing suction-action machine. In numerous applications, e.g. when cleaning floors of supermarkets or departmental stores, the sweeping preceding the scrubbing is unavoidable. Hard dirt, e.g. glass splinters, would otherwise be picked up by the rotating scrubbing brushes which would lead to the damaging of the floor, or damage to the soft rubber stripper rail of the scrubbing unit. Furthermore, paper in particular, e.g. thrown away cash register slips would adhere to the floor which had been wetted by the scrubbing process. Thus the two working processes (sweeping and scrubbing) which are frequently required when cleaning floors and which have to be carried out in succession, will consequently result in high costs.
A particular objective of this invention is also to use the sweeping unit in conjunction with a scrubbing suction-action machine having a variable working width, which is the subject matter of the German patent P 41 03 087. The working width of the sweeping unit should also be variable similar to the working width of the scrubbing suction-action machine.
According to the invention this objective is achieved by a generic sweeping unit wherein one group of elements which form a guide is fixed on the sweeping unit, another group of elements are displaceabe for the purpose of altering the sweeping width of the sweeping unit. The term "guide" elements of the sweeping device means the totality of individual elements, which serve the purpose of guidance and width adjustment of the sweeping device; in particular reversing rollers, pressure rollers, guide rollers, sliding surfaces, guide rails and the like may be considered as guide elements. The sweeping device may comprise hand driven or motorized brooms of designs known in the field of cleaning machines, e.g. plate brooms rotating about vertical axes or roller brooms rotating about horizontal axes or bristle-studded endless sweeping belts.
If endless sweeping belts are used, it is useful if at least two endless sweeping belts (1) are provided which rotate in an upright configuration about the guide elements.
The displacement of the guide within the sweeping unit may take place by various means; those guide elements, for example, which can be displaced, may be made pivotable, so that they would include
REFERENCES:
patent: 1689497 (1928-10-01), Morgal
patent: 2073145 (1937-03-01), Flint
patent: 2524928 (1950-10-01), Platz
LandOfFree
Sweeping unit does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Sweeping unit, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Sweeping unit will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-1405252