Miscellaneous hardware (e.g. – bushing – carpet fastener – caster – Hinge – Including adjustment for changing relative orientation of...
Reexamination Certificate
2002-03-01
2004-03-02
Knight, Anthony (Department: 3677)
Miscellaneous hardware (e.g., bushing, carpet fastener, caster,
Hinge
Including adjustment for changing relative orientation of...
C016S382000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06698062
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention involves a hinge with a height adjustment screw, in particular for the cabinet/furniture hinge, according to the principal concept of Patent claim
1
.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
A mounting plate of this type is made known by DE 19920 137 A1. The invention at hand makes full reference to this document because all features and characteristics shown and indicated there are present here also.
In this document DE 19920 137 A1 a cabinet/furniture hinge with a hinge cup is shown that fastens to a hinge arm or a hinge, so that the hinge arm is adjustable by an adjusting plate that can be connected to the cabinet by a fastened baseplate, and a catch connection is provided to lock and secure the connection. The adjusting plate is designed in one piece with a partially springy catch component that, on the one side, can be engaged (hanged in) by means of hooked-shaped shanks on the baseplate, and, on the other side, has shanks that, by pressure on the adjusting plate, forces the sliding movement of the adjusting plate relative to the baseplate to engage in the corresponding catch nose (s) of the baseplate, so that the springy part of the adjusting plate protects the connection against further shifting or sliding.
In document DE 19920 137 A1 the baseplate is designed in two pieces, with the lower part that can be fastened to cabinet body and an upper part that can be twisted into the lower part by means of a clamping screw; whereby, the adjusting plate and the upper part are connected together at at least three engagement points by pressure on the adjusting plate due to a shifting or sliding movement of the adjusting plate relative to the baseplate, and secures the connection by means of a spring element on the adjusting plate against further shifting or movement. The height adjustment of the cabinet door takes place via the loosening of the clamping screw between the upper part and the lower part of the baseplate, sliding or shifting the upper part on the lower part and then securing the clamping screw.
The two-piece mounting plate described above has the disadvantage that when the clamping screw is loosened, the hinge connection between the upper part and the lower part of the baseplate is also loosened so that the cabinet door together with the entire hinge, except for the lower part of the baseplate on the cabinet's body, moves downward with gravitational force because of the cabinet door's own weight. Thus, a sensitive and exact adjustment of the hinge in a vertical height direction is not possible, because the height adjustment method is not guided and results by means of a supported shifting or sliding of the baseplate's upper part on the baseplate's upper part.
A multiplicity of different adjusting possibilities already exists for cabinet/furniture hinges.
So, adjustments are possible for the hinge arm's position relative to the mounting plate in the direction of the cabinet reveal, that is, a side adjustment of the cabinet door. This adjustment is achieved by the so-called side adjusting screw, that is stored in a thread of the hinge arm and is held with its head in a recess in the mounting plate. Depending upon the turn of the screw, the screw lifts the hinge arm more or less from the mounting plate, resulting in a side or lateral adjustment of the cabinet door.
Another adjustment possibility is the depth adjustment of the hinge arm, that is the adjustment of the distance of the cabinet door to the front side of the cabinet, which is made known by the document DE 29811 793 U1. Generally depth adjustment is achieved by a clamping screw by which the hinge arm is fastened on the mounting plate. The clamping screw projects through a slotted hole in the hinge arm; the depth adjustment takes place by sliding along the slotted hole and the depth-adjusting path is determined by the length of the slotted hole.
The known adjustment devices have, however, substantial disadvantages.
With reference to the lateral adjustments of the door, the hinge arm swings around an imaginary axis by turning the side adjustment screw, with the adjusting movement resulting along a circular arc. Thus, not only is the lateral position of the door adjusted, but, inadvertently, the depth position of the door is adjusted, so that the door's distance from the cabinet's front edge is changed.
The problem exists with the depth adjustment that the depth adjustment screw must be loosened in order to make sliding or shifting along the slotted hole possible. This means a delicate or sensitive adjustment is not possible with this method.
A hinge with a balance function with side adjustments is described in DE 29914 473 U1. At least one swing lever is provided that rotates when the side adjustment screw is swiveled and the hinge arm is supported directly or indirectly on it, so that the hinge arm, when the reveal adjustment screw is turned by at least one swing lever, is guided parallel to the baseplate. The design presented, however, appears to be very complex and costly in the production.
From the current state of technology, no suitable height or vertical adjustment of hinges, as well as cabinet doors to the cabinet body, is known.
The task of the present invention is based on a mounting plate for a cabinet/furniture hinge, which avoids the disadvantages given above and to develop a guided, easy and smooth running height adjustment of the hinge, as well as an adjustment of the cabinet door to the cabinet body.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This task is solved by the technical precepts of Patent claim
1
.
The invention is based on the fact that the baseplate is designed in two parts, with an upper part and a lower part, and a height adjusting screw that is provided to secure and vertically adjust the upper part on the lower part, and has at least one eccentric or cam disk with an angle-dependent modifier of the radius, whose eccentric or cam disk works together with at least one corresponding sliding cam of the upper part.
To achieve a side or lateral adjustment, the height adjusting screw has at least one eccentric or cam disk, with which the height adjusting screw's turning activates a transverse shifting of the baseplate's upper part to the fixed lower part of the baseplate.
The advantage here is that no automatic adjusting of the hinge is possible since the cam disks of the invention-related clamping height adjusting screw, which clamps both components of the baseplate's upper and lower parts together, are self-locking. This height adjustment is simple and easy to activate, even with heavy cabinet door.
The height adjusting screw engages, in each case, a corresponding bore hole of the baseplate's upper and lower part, and lies with its lower eccentric or cam disks on the upper surface of the upper part of the baseplate; the screw foot prevents it from unintentionally falling out, which was preferably attached by means of a riveting process. Before the assembly the height adjusting screw is provided with a bolt on the screw head's opposite side, which has a smaller diameter than the bore holes of the upper and lower parts of the baseplate. After inserting this bolt on the height adjusting screw in both congruent bore holes of the upper and lower parts of the baseplate, the bolts are then riveted from below, thus, forming a type of rivet head.
In other embodiments of the invention, the height adjusting screw can also have a thread on its bolt-side end and be secured under the lower part of the baseplate with a, for example, self-locking nut.
There are also embodiments with securing rings, split pins or cotters, or with a lower spreading of the bolt-sided end of the height adjusting screw to secure to the underside of the baseplate's lower part.
The eccentric or cam disk works together with a gliding cam on the upper part of the baseplate on which the sliding cam is preferably located within the recess, in which the eccentric or cam disk, and also the head of the height adjusting screw, can be located for protection and
Egger Remo
Mueller Wolfgang
Grass GmbH
Harrington John M.
Jackson André L.
Kilpatrick & Stockton LLP
Knight Anthony
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