GB2171457A - Cleaning fume exhausting fans - Google Patents

Abstract

The fan 4, which is driven by an electric motor 3 and mounted in a housing 2, is cleaned by supplying water through a pipe 9 provided with a nozzle 9a. The pipe is connected to a water supply tap and detergent may be added to the water. The nozzle sprays water into the rotating fan and the soiled water is collected in a vessel 8. An activated carbon filter for removing oil droplets from the fan exhaust is also provided in the housing. <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION A fume exhausting device The present invention relates to a fume exhausting device, and particularly to a fume exhausting device having a sprinkle apparatus for washing the exhausting fan, the outer casing of the motor and the inner wall of the housing of the fume exhausting device, which is supplied with washing liquid by the pressure head of a water tap or head drop of a reservoir.

A known fume exhausting device for use in the kitchen usually consists of a housing, an exhausting fan, and a filter plate disposed at the inlet of the housing. As the fumes produced in the kitchen are full of oil droplets and carbon particles, and the filter plate can remove only a portion of the droplets and carbon particles contained in the fumes, when the fumes are exhausted from the outlet of the housing, some oil droplets or carbon particles will remain on the exhausting fan, the outer casing of the motor, and the inner wall of the housing. The oil droplets or carbon particles deposited on the inner wall of the housing, the outer casing of the motor, and the fan blades will not only soil them but will also force the electric motor to work harder, which may eventually cause the breakdown of the motor, as well as waste energy during operation.

Taiwan Utility Patent. No. 51129. discloses a fume exhausting device having a concave portion for receiving the motor therein so that the motor is concealed to prevent it from being soiled by the oil droplets or the carbon particles. However, the soiling problems of the fan blades and the inner wall of the housing still remain unsolved.

Taiwan Utility Patent. No. 61742. discloses a fume exhausting device having a sprinkling apparatus for sprinkling washing liquid onto the exhausting fan and the inner wall of the housing. The sprinkling apparatus of the patent No. 61742 mainly consists of a vessel for storing washing liquid, which is disposed on the housing of the fume exhausting device, a spout pipe having a nozzle, and a pump.

However, this kind of device also has some drawbacks, for example, 1) as the vessel for storing washing liquid is disposed on the housing of the exhausting device and the fume exhausting device is usually mounted on the wall at a predetermined height, and is therefore inconveniently placed for adding the washing liquid to the vessel, 2) it is necessary to use a pump to raise the water pressure to spnnkle the washing liquid out, and 3) said exhausting device does not provide a collecting vessel for collecting the washing liquid which has been used.

In addition, the fume exhausting devices referred to do not have a means for cooling the electric motor, which is also a problem.

It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a fume exhausting device having a sprinkling apparatus which is supplied with washing liquid by the pressure head of a water tap or the head drop of a reservoir.

It is therefore another object of the present invention to provide a fume exhausting device further including a chamber which encloses the motor of the exhausting fan therein, is filled with washing liquid for cooling said motor, and act as a reservoir for the sprinkling means of the fume exhausting device.

It is further an object of the present invention to provide a fume exhausting device having a collecting means for collecting the washing liqid which has been used.

It is further an object of the present invention to provide a fume exhausting device having a housing which can be easily detached.

In order to attain these objects, the fume exhausting device of the present invention comprises: a housing having an inlet to permit the fumes in and an outlet for discharging the fumes; an electric motor which is mounted on the housing and is enclosed; an exhausting fan for exhausting the fumes, which is disposed above the inlet and is driven by the motor; a sprinkling means mounted own the housing adapted to sprinkle washing liquid, which is supplied by the pressure head of the water tap or the drop head of a reservoir, on the exhausting fan and inner wall of the housing.

In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, the housing further comprises a chamber which encloses the motor therein and holds washing liquid from the water tap or the reservoir for cooling the motor and providing washing liquid for the sprinkling means.

The details of the present invention are described in connection with the accompanying drawings wherein:. Fig. 1 is a sectional view of the inner housing of the fume exhausting device of the present invention, which shows that the inner housing 2 consists of an upper portion and a lower portion and they are in a separate state; Fig. 1 a is a sectional view of the filter device 5 mounted on the outlet of the inner housing of the fume exhausting device of Fig 1; Fig. 2 is an exploded view of the fixing means for fixing the upper portion 21 and the lower portion 22; Fig. 3 is a sectional view of one preferred embodiment of the present invention; Fig. 4 is a perspective view of the nozzle of the spout pipe 9; Fig. 5 is a perspective view of the inner housing of the Fig.3; Fig. 6 is another sectional view of the embodiment of the Fig.3;; Fig. 7 is a perspective view of the collecting vessel for collecting the washing liquid that has been used; Fig. 8 is a schematic view showing how the washing liquid is introduced into the spout pipe 9 of the fume exhausting device; Fig. 9 is a schematic view showing how the washing liquid is introduced into the chamber 25 of the inner housing 2 and then sprinkled from the orifices 27 formed on the inner wall; Fig. 10 is a sectional view of a further embodiment of the present invention; Fig. 11 is a sectional view of a controlling device for controlling opening and closing of the spout pipe; Fig. 12 is a sectional view of still another preferred embodiment of the present invention; Fig 13 is a schematic view showing how the orifices 58a are closed with the closing plate 58.

As shown in the Fig.1, an exhausting fan 4 for exhausting fumes is fixed on a shaft 3a of the electric motor 3 which is mounted on the upper portion 21 of the inner housing 2. The motor 2 is enclosed by an envelope 3b, so that it will not be soiled by the fumes. The outlet 2a formed in the upper portion 21 is connected with a duct 5. The duct 5 has a filtering layer 6 (as shown in the Fig. 1a) of activated carbon powder to remove the oil droplets or carbon particles contained in the fumes therefrom. The lower portion 22 of the inner housing 2 is detachably mounted on the upper portion 21 by a mechanism shown in Fig.2. As shown in Fig. 2, the plate 31 fixed on the edge of the upper portion 21 can be slidably inserted into the groove 35 of the block 32 which is fixed on the lower portion 22, and the plate 31 is fixed on block 32 by a bolt 36.

Referring to Fig. 3, the outer housing 7 is mounted around inner housing 2 and has a front chamber 7a and a rear chamber 7b. A collecting vessel 8 for collecting the washing liquid which has been used is disposed in the rear chamber 7b. A spout pipe 9 having a nozzle 9a pointed to the exhausting fan 4 is fixed on the bottom of the outer housing 7 by a U-shaped clamp 75.

Referring to Fig.4, on the annular groove 95 of the nozzle 9a, a plurality of small holes 96 are formed from which washing liquid is spouted out. One end 93 of the spout pipe 9 is protruded from the outer housing 7 for con necting to a conduct to be supplied with washing liquid from a water tap or a reservoir.

The spout pipe 9 is made of tin plate.

Referring to Fig. 5 and Fig. 6, inner housing 2 includes two portions 25, and 20, where 25 is a chamber while 20 is the body portion for receiving electric motor 3 and exhausting fan 4. The top surface of the chamber 25 has a hole 26 where a pipe 26a is inserted. On the partition wall 23, a plurality of smalil holes 27 are formed. At the bottom surface of the housing body 20, a hole 28 is formed to dis charge washing liquid to the collecting vessel 8 through a pipe 29.

The collecting vessel 8 is a parallelepipedal chamber. At the bottom 8a, a conduit 82 is mounted, one end 82a of the conduit 82 protrudes into the inside of the collecting vessel 8 while the other end 82b, which extends from the vessel 8, is blocked up by a plug 83. Therefore, by such a mechanism, when one wishes to wash the exhausting fan 4 and the inner wall of the inner housing 2, by connecting a pipe 100 coming from the water tap with the end 93 of the spout pipe 9 and replacing the plug 83 with a drain pipe 101, and then starting the exhausting fan 4 and introducing the washing liquid into the pipe 100, the washing action can be easily accomplished. The washing process will be described in detail in the next paragraph.

The water introduced into the spout pipe 9 will be sprinkled on the exhausting fan 4 from orifices 9a due to the pressure head of the water tap. Further, as the exhausting fan 4 is rotated at a very high speed (maybe 1620 RPM), a portion of the water will also sprinkle to the inner wall of the inner housing 2. The water which has been used to wash the fan and the inner wall will flow into the collecting vessel 8 through hole 28 and be collected by the collecting vessel 8. When the level of said water is over the height of the end 82a, said water will be drained from the drain pipe 101.

In addition, a container 110 filled with detergent is arranged at the inlet of the water tap to provide detergent to the washing water.

Also, the collecting vessel 8 can be used as a collector for collecting the oil which is present in the fumes.

It is preferred that the washing water is introduced from the pipe 26 simultaneously and is spouted to the fan blade 4 and the inner wall of the inner housing through holes 27 as shown in the Fig. 9. Preferably, at least one of holes 27 is formed at the bottom of the chamber 25 so that when the washing is finished, the washing water will not remain in the chamber to increase the weight of the fume exhausting device.

Fig. 10 is another preferred embodiment of the present invention, and as shown in the Fig. 10, the fume exhausting device provides a chamber 123 which encloses the motor 3 and is supplied with washing water through the pipe 100. The washing water contained in the chamber 123 is used to cool the motor 3 and is introduced into the spout pipe 126 which has a nozzle 127 pointed to the ex hausting fan 4. The washing water which has been used is discharged from the pipe 101 directly.

Now refer to Fig. 11, which shows that the sprinkling of the water from the nozzle 9a can be controlled by a simple device. As shown in the Fig.1 1, a controlling rod 9b which has a rotation head 9b' is mounted on the nozzle 9a. On the rotation head 9b', a plurality of small holes 9b" corresponding to the holes 9a' of the nozzle are formed. Therefore, when the rotation head 9b' is rotated to such a position that the small holes 9b" is coincide with the small holes 9a', the washing water can be spouted from the small holes 9a' of the nozzle 9a, and if the rotation head 9b' is rotated from that position, the small holes 9a' will be closed.

A further preferred embodiment of the present invention is shown in the Fig. 12. This embodiment does not have a spout pipe to sprinkle washing water coming from the chamber 124, but on the side wall 55 of the chamber 124, a plurality of orifices 58a are formed. The washing water contained in the chamber 124 is spouted out from those orifices 58a, while the exhausting fan 4 is rotated at a high speed so that an air flow is produced to make the droplets of washing water sprinkle in the inner housing 2. The orifices 58a are closed by a closing plate 57 which is connected with an operating rod 59.

As shown in the Fig. 13, on the side wall of the chamber 124, a wedge-shaped slot 56 is formed for slidably receiving the wedgeshaped closing plate 57 which also has a plurality of orifices 58 corresponding to the orifices 55 so that when the closing plate 57 is moved into a position so that the orifices 58a coincide with the orifices 58a, the washing water will spout from the orifices 55, and when the closing plate 57 is moved from that position, the orifices 57 are closed.

While the present invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to the preferred embodiments, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications can be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of this invention as it is defined in the appended claims.

Claims (6)

1. A fume exhausting device comprising: a housing having an inlet for permiting fumes to come in and an outlet for discharging said fumes; a electric motor which is mounted on said housing and is enclosed; an exhausting fan for exhausting said fume, which is disposed above said inlet and is driven by said motor; a sprinkling means mounted on said housing adapted to sprinkle washing liquid which is supplied by the pressure head of the water tap or the drop head of a reservoir to said exhausting fan or said housing.

2. A fume exhausting device as claimed in claim 1, further comprising a chamber which encloses said enclosed motor therein and holds washing liquid coming from said water tap or reservoir for cooling said enclosed motor and providing washing liquid to said sprinkling means.

3. A fume exhausting device as claimed in claim 2, wherein said sprinking means is a plurality of orifices formed on said chamber.

4. A fume exhausting device as claimed in claim 1, further comprising a filter device mounted on said outlet of said housing to filter said fumes therefrom.

5. A fume exhausting device as claimed in claim 1, wherein said sprinkling means is a spout pipe having a nozzle pointed to said fan.

6. A fume exhausting device substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the accompanying drawings.