Baths – closets – sinks – and spittoons – Flush closet – Tank only
Reexamination Certificate
2000-11-20
2001-11-27
Phillips, Charles E. (Department: 3751)
Baths, closets, sinks, and spittoons
Flush closet
Tank only
C004S367000, C251S029000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06321395
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to toilet flushing. It finds particular, although not exclusive, application in tank-type flushers.
2. Background Information
Toilet flushers come in a wide arrange of designs. (We use the term toilet here in its broad sense, which encompasses what are variously referred to as toilets, water closets, urinals, etc.) Many designs are of the gravity type, which uses the pressure that results from the weight of water stored in a tank to flush the bowl and provide the siphoning action by which the bowl's contents are drawn from it. Any flusher of this type employs a main flush valve, which controls the release of water from the tank through the tank outlet that leads to the bowl. For the flusher to act effectively, that flush valve must remain open long enough to let the required amount of water flow from it into the bowl.
If A popular way of achieving the proper flush-valve-opening duration is to employ a pivoting flush valve on which a timer cup is disposed. The valve is pivoted to unseat it, and water in the full flush tank fills the timer cup. This so weights the cup that it keeps the valve pivoted to the open position. An orifice in the timer cup allows water to leak from it when the tank level has fallen below that of the timer cup. After a length of time great enough to allow most of the liquid to drain from the timer cup, the flush valve then pivots back into its closed position.
Another popular approach, typically used in automatic toilets, is to use a timer circuit to time activation of a solenoid that controls the flush valve's operation. An advantage of many such installations is that they use line pressure to operate the flush valve and can therefore be arranged so that the flush valve seals more effectively than the typical manual flusher's.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
We have devised an approach to flush-duration control that does not require electrical timing circuitry and yet lends its self to more-effective flush-valve operation than most manually operated flush valves customarily afford. This approach employs a valve-operating mechanism of the type in which water-line pressure is admitted into a control chamber whose resultant pressure can be relieved through a control-chamber pressure-relief outlet. The flush valve seals very effectively because pressure in a control chamber holds the flush valve seated when the line pressure prevails in it. When that pressure is relieved, the valve-operating mechanism opens the flush valve.
According to the invention, that pressure is relieved by a pressure-relief valve disposed at a remote location and interposed in a pressure-relief conduit that extends from the control chamber's pressure-relief outlet to the remote location. When the remote valve is closed, it prevents flow through the pressure-relief conduit and thereby prevents pressure relief in the control chamber. It is operable by manual depression from the closed state to an open state, in which it permits such flow and therefore relieves pressure within the control chamber. The flush valve is kept open for a relatively fixed duration because the remote valve is of a type that mechanically imposes a time delay between the user's releasing the valve's operation and the remote valve's closing.
In one embodiment, for instance, the remote valve is similar to time-delay valves often used in public-washroom faucets. The remote valve's valve member is exposed to the pressure in the flow path that the valve controls, and that pressure exerts a force that tends to keep the valve member unseated. A countervailing force results from the pressure that prevails in a seating-pressure chamber, and the effective area over which that pressure is exerted on the valve member is such that, if the pressure within the seating-pressure chamber equals the flow-path pressure, the resultant force exceeds the force resulting from exposure to the flow path, and the valve is held in its close state. A bleed path from the remote valve's inlet leads to the seating-pressure chamber.
The seating-pressure chamber's volume is greater when the valve is seated than when it is not, and the liquid needed to fill the additional volume when the valve moves from its unseated to its seated positions flows through the bleed path. But the flow resistance presented by the feed path delays the remote-valve member's seating-and thereby the flush valve's closing-for a time long enough that the requisite liquid can flow from the tank through the flush valve. This delay will always exceed two seconds, but the particular delay depends on factors such as tank size and valve configuration.
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Guler Fatih
Parsons Natan E.
Arichell Technologies Inc.
Cesari and McKenna LLP
Phillips Charles E.
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