GB2112632A - Soap dispenser - Google Patents

Abstract

In a soap dispenser, a bar of soap (13) is urged into contact with cutting means (4, 5) under the action of biasing means (2, 3). The cutting means comprises a plate (4) provided with a plurality of apertures, the edges of which act as blades. The plate (4) is rotated by means of a crank handle (7) which acts on a rotary table (6) to which the plate (4) is secured. Plate (4) is spaced apart from table (6) by spacers so that soap flakes cut by plate (4) enter the intervening space (19) from where they fall from the dispenser under the action of gravity. The components, excepting the crank handle (7), are housed in a casing (1). <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Soap dispenser This invention relates to a soap dispenser such as that installed in a wash room, where a user may, by himself, operate it so as to obtain soap for washing her or his hands, body, or any articles desired.

Because, at present, in all common households, offices, hotels, and other public places including these of the profit-seeking business sector, the soaps are usually supplied in the wash rooms in a form of whole piece to some users for common contact use by their hands, such soaps often become a ready medium of communicating disease germs; or the soaps are misplaced at random by the users after they use them and this causes difficulties to the follow-up users to find where the soaps are or even these soaps are originally offered in a whole-pece form but would soon become softened under careless water soaking or dissolved in a bad shape; or their outer surfaces are so fouled and sticked with some dirty foreign matters that would scare off other users to use them.Although all these seem to belong to minor things, they still leave other people, especially to the potential users, with a bad impression of no efficient management, uncleanness and disorderliness particularly on the part of the business proprietors which will carry a great disadvantages impact on the area health and sanitation maintenance status as well as on the business attractions.

According to the present invention there is provided a soap dispenser comprising cutting means for cutting flakes from a bar of soap and biasing means for urging the soap into contact with the cutting means, the cut flakes being dispensed under the action of gravity.

The main objective of this invention is to mitigate the said defects by providing a soap dispenser to be installed at a position close to the wash tray in a wash room and such that a user may operate it with one hand only, the small soap flakes which are sprinkled down from the under side of the dispenser fall into the other hand of the user. This prevents a whole piece of soap from directly contacting any user's hands without any worry of communicating disease germs.

This invention seeks to remove dirtiness and disorderliness, thus making no more any stained soaps or wrongly placed soaps visible again in the wash rooms and instead nicelooking outer appearance and neatness and cleanliness of this invention fully apparent there to let all the users feel a sort of high class and comfortable enviroment which, in turn, promotes a very good impression on such places on the part of the users to be quite pleased to make use of this invention to enjoy the pleasures of bathing. An additional objective of this invention is to save the consumption rate of soaps with no more worry about the soaps to be softened by water soaking or dissolution.

Another feature of this invention is to change the traditional use of soap from direct contact with the object to be cleaned to indirect contact thus cutting off the required soap to direct contact the object to be cleaned by means of this invention to serve the cleaning purpose.

An embodiment of the present invention will now be described by way of example only and with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which; Figure 1 shows a perspective view of the external configuration of the soap dispenser, Figure 2 is a sectional view illustrating the internal arrangement of the dispenser, and Figure 3 is a partially exploded and partially cut away view of the dispenser.

This dispenser is designed to accomodate most common sizes of soaps selling in the market. So users can easily buy their favorite soaps in common stores without the trouble to use specially made soaps.

The attached drawings belong to one part of the practical examples concerning this invention as by means of hand-operated method. The synoptic view of the configuration of the practical example under this invention as shown in Fig. 1 indicates case body 1, on the front of which, a hand crank handle 7 is installed for operating this device to cut the soap placed therein by hand cranking. On it's side, a catch 11 is visible to indicate the remainder level of the soap.

Please refer to Figs. 2 and 3. The practical examples of this invention consist of case body 1, pressure spring 2, clamping plate 3, blade 4, blade holder 5, rotary table 6, hand crank handle 7, anchor plate 8 and their various allied elements.

Case body 1: On the one side of this case body 1, two tongue grooves 9 are provided to insert the tongue of the anchor plate 8 in order to secure the case body 1; and on the other side of this case body 1, a sliding groove 10 is provided on the outside of which graduations in units of length are provided to let the catch 11 of the clamping plate 3 inside of the sliding groove to indicate the soap remainder level in the case and also limits to the clamping plate 3 in it's final positioning in order to prevent the clamping plate 3 from being damaged by blade 4. In the case 1, other parts of this practical example are installed.

Pressure spring 2: This pressure spring 2 is of suitable strength and is installed between the catch plate 1 2 in the inner side of the rear end of the case body 1 and the catch plate 1 2 on the back of the clamping plate 3 in order to move the clamping plate 3 to force the soap 14 closely contacting the blade 4.

Clamping plate 3: This clamping plate 3 is located between the front end of the pressure spring 2 and soap 13, and, by means of the pressure of the pressure spring 2, it makes the soap 1 3 constantly and tightly contacting the blade 4. At the same time, it's catch 11 in the sliding groove 10, indicates the remainer level of the soap 13.

Blade 4: This blade 4 is made of stainless steel and has some holes provided on it, whereas the rim of the holes is also the blade edge, and this blade is secured to the rotary table 6. When the blade holder 5 of the rotary table 6 rotates, it drives the blade to cut the soap 13.

Blade holder 5: This blade holder 5 is to secure the blade 4 and also to enhance the strength of the blade 4. The blade holder 5 and blade 4 are secured to the table 6 by means of screws 14 which engage spaces provided on the table 6. The spaces provide a gap 1 9 between blade 4/blade holder 5 and table 6.

Rotary table 6: In the center of this rotary table 6, a square tongue hole 1 5 is provided to engage the square plate 1 7 on the rear end of the driving bolt 16. The driving bolt 16 protrudes through the front end of the case body 1 and is screwed up to and secured with the hand crank handle 7.

Hand crank handle 7: This hand crank handle belongs to the operational part of this practical example, whereas cranks drive the blade 4 cutting the soap 1 3.

Anchor plate 8: This anchor plate 8 is secure at the desired position in relation to this practical example and thus, in this practical example, the anchor plate 8 can be inserted into the tongue groove 9.

If a rectangular shaped bar of soap is used, the soap is preferably positioned as shown in Fig. 2 with a narrow edge in contact with the blade 4 since this reduces friction between the soap 1 3 and the blade 4 and thereby reduces the effort required to turn handle 7.

Spring 2 should be sufficiently strong to prevent blade 4 slipping on the soap 1 3 rather than cutting the soap.

The application of this practical example: At first, select a proper position nearby the wash tray to firmly secure the anchor plate 8 and then insert it into the tongue groove 9 of the case body 1. Sandwich the soap between the clamping plate 3 and blade 4 then cover the soap up with the cover 1 8. During usages, the user only needs to crank the crank handle 7, and the small soap flakes cut off by the sharp edges of the holes on blade and falling down through the gap 1 9 between the blade and the blade support base then drop out from the under side of the case body 1 and fall into another hand of the user for applications. These sort of small soap flakes can be easily dissolved in water to become soapsuds and bubbles, thus beig much more convenient in usage than the conventional method of rubbing the entire piece of soap by hand.

Summarizing the above, this invention is simple in structure and easy in application, thereby not only getting rid of disease communication but also making all the users feel very enjoyable in using such soap flakes thus supplies; and furthermore, the neatness and cleanliness elegant taste to outer appearance of the environment that this device brings forth add beauty to the wash rooms and this device also saves the consumption rate of soaps, all of which possess practicability and creativity, thus signifying this device as a unique innovation with a significant industrial value.

Claims (5)

1. A soap dispenser comprising cutting means for cutting flakes from a bar of soap and biasing means for urging the soap into contact with the cutting means, the cut flakes being dispensed under the action of gravity.

2. A soap dispenser as claimed in claim 1, wherein the cutting means comprises a plate having a plurality of apertures therein the edges of which perform the cutting of the soap flakes.

3. A soap dispenser as claimed in claim 2, wherein the plate is rotated by means of a crank handle in order to cut the soap flakes.

4. A soap dispenser as claimed in claim 3, wherein the plate is secured via a plurality of spacers to a rotary table which is driven by the crank handle, the spacers providing a space from which the soap flakes are dispensed.

5. A soap dispenser substantially a hereinbefore described with reference to and as illustrated in the accompanying drawings.