EP1201860A1

EP1201860A1 - Modular device for the movement of doors

Info

Publication number: EP1201860A1
Application number: EP01122330A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Giovanni Terno
Original assignee: Terno Scorrevoli SNC di Terno Giovanni e Francesco
Current assignee: Terno Scorrevoli SNC di Terno Giovanni e Francesco
Priority date: 2000-09-28
Filing date: 2001-09-19
Publication date: 2002-05-02
Also published as: CH697253B1; AT8774U1; IT250488Y1; ITMI20000547V0; ES1056468U; ITMI20000547U1; ES1056468Y

Abstract

A modular device (10) for the movement of doors, especially for vertically sliding doors (18) of furniture (16) comprises: at least a container-body (12) of any shape and size, located in a sliding seat obtained in at least a lateral upright (14) of a piece of furniture (16) and including at least counterweight elements (46) so calibrated as to counterbalance the weight of said door exactly; a pulley return means (38) and a cable (36) wound on said pulley (38) and having an end connected to said door (18).

Description

The present invention relates to a modular device for the movement of doors.
More particularly; the present invention relates to a modular device of the counterweight type, especially suitable for the vertical movement of mobile doors.
As is known, in the furniture sector many solutions exist that allow to close or screen the internal space where various objects are arranged. Traditionally, the closing of said internal spaces is obtained by means of doors hinged in correspondence of a side of said internal space.
A system is also known according to which the opening and screening of the internal space are obtained by raising respectively lowering the related door or closing panel.
In modern furniture systems it frequently happens that a furniture is simultaneously provided with traditionally opening doors, i.e. doors hinged to the uprights, and vertically - and sometimes also horizontally - sliding doors.
The essential condition to be able to effect the sliding lowering of the door is that one must have at his disposal, under the internal space, a room sufficient to cause the complete sliding of said door, up to the level of the place or base of the related internal space.
A typical solution of this type is the one that has in the furniture a screened upper space and a lower space that have at least the same widths and heights.
Vertically sliding doors must obviously remain in a stable position following their movement that determines the opening or closing of the internal space. For this purpose, in the lateral uprights of the furniture having such doors a mobile counterweight is traditionally installed that is connected to said doors by means of a pulley transmission or the like. Said counterweight is conventionally housed in a lateral seat, in correspondence of one or both vertical uprights that circumscribe the internal space. The uprights, generally made from metal, are provided with guides that circumscribe the sliding seat of the counterweight.
To obtain the systematic balancing of the system, that changes according to the type of material which the door is made from, the counterweight has substantially the same weight incidence of said door, which therefore can stabilize at any height along the related lateral sliding guides.
As the materials that constitute the doors are very different, this known solution involves a severe drawback.
In fact, the doors may be from wood, glass, plastics or other materials depending on the type of furniture they are intended for, and their weight, the surface extension being the same, varies therefore markedly as function of the material employed. The counterweight must therefore be exactly sized each time for the purposes of the balancing of the system.
The possible replacement of a door with a door from a different material causes problems whose solution is complex. In fact, the original counterweight must be withdrawn from the upright and replaced with an element adequate for the new counterbalancing function. The counterweight withdrawal and replacement operations are not easy at all, as the counterweight is generally definitively fastened to the supporting cable; unavoidably, said operations are so complex as to require the intervention of specialized personnel, or the manufacturer of the furniture.
A further drawback of the traditional solution of counterweight doors lies in that, in the production stage, the furniture is arranged in a substantially final manner according to the type of sliding doors applied. A glass door, for instance, involves the installation in the upright of the furniture of a given counterweight, strictly related to the weight of said door.
The same solution is carried out also for other possible doors of furniture realized from different materials such as wood or plastics that have therefore a different weight to be counterbalanced.
In these cases not only the assembly is critical, meaning that one must utilize a specific counterweight calibrated according to the type of door assembled; there exists, in fact, also the further and preliminary obligation of keeping at one's disposal many counterweights, to be utilized alternatively depending on the type of door that the customer wishes to apply to the furniture.
As a consequence, the production and storing costs are high and affect markedly the total cost of the furniture.
Besides, it must be taken into account that, as mentioned above, the assembly of the furniture from the point of view of the type of sliding doors must be performed directly by the producer who has at his disposal different types of counterweights; vice-versa, it would be preferable for this assembly to be performed also or only by the retailer who has a direct relation with the purchaser.
Object of the present invention is to obviate the above drawbacks.
More particularly, object of this invention is to realize a modular device for the movement of doors, especially for the calibrated raising and lowering of furniture doors by means of counterweights, such as to allow to obtain in an easy and rapid manner the balancing of said doors, independently on the material they are made from and therefore on their weight.
A further object of the invention is to realize a device as defined above such as to allow to vary, if need be, according to the requirements of the user, the arrangement of the doors from different materials in a piece of furniture, without involving laborious and complicated interventions for the suitable calibration of the related counterweights.
A further object of the invention is to realize a modular device for the movement of doors such as to allow the retailer, and possibly the final user, to modify the arrangement of said doors, obtained from different materials along the piece of furniture, without needing an intervention by the producer.
A further object of the invention is to provide users with a modular device for the vertical movement of doors suitable to ensure a high level of resistance and reliability in the time, and also such as to be easily and economically realized.
According to the present invention, these and still other objects that will be evident thanks to the following description are achieved by a modular device for the movement of doors particularly suitable for doors sliding vertically along lateral guides obtained in at least a lateral upright of the furniture, which device comprises a counterweight, having a weight substantially equal to that of the door, housed in a lateral sliding side of the furniture; a pulley return means, and a cable wound on said return means and having an end fastened to said counterweight and the opposite end tied to the door, wherein said counterweight comprises at least a container-body wherein counterweight elements are housed that are so calibrated on the whole as to counterbalance exactly the weight of said door.
The counterweight elements may be from any material, have a shape complementary to that of the cavity of the container and an equal or different height or longitudinal development.
The constructive and functional characteristics of the modular device for the movement of doors of the present invention will be better understood thanks to the following description, wherein reference is made to the attached drawings that show a preferred, non limiting, embodiment, and wherein:
Figure 1 shows schematically an exploded perspective view of an embodiment of the modular device of the present invention;
Figure 2 shows schematically the plan view of a part of a piece of furniture, with a vertically sliding door, provided with the device of Figure 1;
Figure 3 shows schematically the perspective schematic view of a piece of furniture with a vertically sliding door;
Figure 4 shows schematically an exploded perspective view of a second embodiment of the modular device of the present invention.
With reference to the above figures, the modular device for the movement of doors of the present invention, indicated as a whole by 10 in Figure 1, is particularly suitable to be realized for the vertical movement of furniture doors and comprises basically a container-body 12, obtained from metal, plastics or other suitable materials, which is housed in the inside of at least one of the lateral uprights of the furniture, said body 12 having an elongated shape and a section complementary to that of a sliding seat obtained in said uprights 14.
Said uprights 14 circumscribe the opposite sides of furniture 16, forming along the internal front a guide for the movement in the vertical direction of a door 18.
The seat of each of the container-bodies 12 is preferably obtained from a metal section 20 for instance from extruded aluminum or plastic material that forms at least partly the lateral uprights 14 of furniture 16.
The container-body 12, which in the preferred embodiment has a substantially cylindrical configuration, is closed on the opposite heads, by lower 22 and upper 14 stoppers, fastened to said body by means of conventional screws or like fastening means. For this purpose, said body 12 is advantageously provided with two or more integral external beads 26, wherein threaded holes 28 are obtained for the fastening screws of. said stoppers 22, 24, correspondingly holed. The upper stopper 24 is provided in the middle with a threaded hole 30, preferably circumscribed perimetrically by an integral collar 32, suitable to house a correspondingly threaded bushing 34.
Bushing 34, for instance of the self-blocking type for metal cables, protrudes from the upper front of stopper 24 and is connected to a cable 36, obtained from metal or other suitable materials. Cable 36 is wound on a pulley known per se, located and tied in uprights 14 in lateral or off-center position with respect to the seats wherein bodies 12 slide. The opposite free end 36'of cable 36 is tied to door 18, in particular to a shaped plate-like support 40, that on the one side engages stiffly with a side of said door and, extending towards the outside, abuts in the guide for the vertical movement of sections 14. Preferably, said support 40 is provided with one or more rollers or ball bearings 42, which abut in said movement guide, indicated by 44 in Figure 2. Rollers or ball bearings 42 facilitate the raising and the lowering of door 18 and at the same time act as centering and constant alignment elements of supports 40 in the respective seats 44.
Each of the container-bodies 12 abutting in the respective sliding guides of uprights 14 can house one or more counterweight elements 46, obtained from any suitable material. Said counterweight elements 46 have a shape complementary to that of the cavity defined by the container bodies 12, to fit exactly therein.
Depending on the material which door 14 is made from, and therefore depending on the weight of the same, counterweight elements 46 are located and equitably distributed in the container-bodies 12, in such a number as to achieve an exact balancing. According to the material used and the related particular weight, elements 46 may have a markedly different vertical or longitudinal development, to the point that said counterweight elements 12 may have a discoid shape, occupying, as a consequence, a limited space in the height direction of the container-bodies 12. Especially in this last hypothesis, the solution schematized in Figure 4, wherein the container-bodies 12 are provided on the front with a longitudinally extended slit 48, is particularly advantageous.
Said slit has a larger width with respect to the height or the thickness of the counterweight elements 46, so that the same can be removed from or added to container 12. Slit 48 is obviously so sized as to allow, by means of tweezers or like tools, the turnover of elements 46, i.e. their insertion in vertical position and the subsequent horizontal turnover. The same intervention is possible in case of removal of the container-body 12 of one or more of elements 46.
This solution allows to calibrate directly the overall counterweight, without removing and subsequently position again the upper stopper 24 of the container-bodies 12.
As can be inferred from the above, the advantages which the invention achieves are evident.
The modular device for moving doors of the present invention allows to counterweigh in a rapid and calibrated manner said doors, according to their different weight due to the use of different materials. The container-bodies 12, in fact, can be opened by means of the removal of the upper stopper 24 to add thereto or remove therefrom counterweight elements 46. Such operations may be advantageously carried out care of the retailer or the installer or the user of the furniture, so that said furniture needs not being directly assembled by the manufacturer or modified by the same for the replacement of doors, as required by the final user. Besides, this solution has the related advantage of not obliging to realize a multiplicity of specific counterweights for each door.
The possibility is advantageous of adding to or removing from the container-bodies 12 counterweight elements 46, without opening and then closing said bodies, as the latter have, in the embodiment of Figure 4, the access longitudinal slit 48.
Even though the invention has been described above with reference to specific embodiments reported only by way of non limiting example, it is obvious that those skilled in the art may introduce changes and modifications in the light of the above description. So, for instance, the container-bodies 12 and the counterweight elements 46 located therein may have a different conformation and/or development with respect to what has been described and illustrated by way of example, and be differently placed or oriented in uprights 14 of furniture 16.
It is therefore understood that the present invention intends to comprise all the modifications and changes that fall within the spirit and the protection scope of the following claims.

Claims

A modular device (10) for the movement of doors, particularly suitable for the vertical movement of doors (18) of furniture (16) along lateral guides obtained in at least one of uprights (14), comprising: a counterweight having a weight substantially equal to that of doors (18), housed and sliding in a lateral seat of the furniture; a pulley return means (38) and a cable (36) wound on said return means (38) and having an end fastened to said counterweight, and the opposite end tied to door (18), characterized in said counterweight comprises at least a container-body (12) wherein counterweight elements (46) are located, so calibrated as to exactly counterbalance the weight of said door.
The modular device according to claim 1, characterized in that said seat wherein body (12) slides in a sliding seat obtained in uprights (14) and has a section complementary to that of said sliding seat.
The modular device according to claim 2, characterized in that the sliding seat of the container-body (12) is made up by a metal or plastic section (20) that forms, at least partly, the lateral upright (14) of furniture (16).
The modular device according to any of the preceding claims, characterized in that the container-body (12) has a substantially cylindrical shape, and is closed on the opposite heads by lower (22) and upper (24) stoppers.
The modular device according to claim 4, characterized in that the container-body (12) is provided with two or more integral external beads (26), provided with means (28) for the fastening of stoppers (22, 24).
The modular device according to any of the preceding claims, characterized in that the upper stopper (24) is provided in the middle with a threaded hole (30) to which a complementary threaded bushing (34) is fastened that protrudes over said stopper and is connected to cable (36).
The modular device according to any of the preceding claims, characterized in that the counterweight elements (46) have a configuration complementary to that of the internal profile of bodies (12). and a height and thickness either equal to or different from each other.
The modular device according to any of the preceding claims, characterized in that the container-bodies (12) have a longitudinally extended slit (48) whose width is greater than the height and thickness of the counterweight elements (46).
The modular device according to any of the preceding claims, characterized in that the free lower end (36') of cable (36) is tied to a plate-like shaped support (40) connected on the one side to a side of door (18) and abutting, on the opposite side, in a movement guide (44) obtained in sections (14).
The device according to claim 9, characterized in that the plate-like shaped support (40) is provided with at least a roller or ball bearing (42) located in said guide (44).