GB2200425A

GB2200425A - Back-pack cleaning apparatus

Info

Publication number: GB2200425A
Application number: GB08800198A
Authority: GB
Inventors: John Taylor
Original assignee: ROTABRUSH INT Ltd
Current assignee: ROTABRUSH INT Ltd
Priority date: 1987-01-17
Filing date: 1988-01-06
Publication date: 1988-08-03
Anticipated expiration: 2008-01-06
Also published as: GB8800198D0; GB2204104A; GB8805798D0; GB2200425B

Abstract

Cleaning apparatus comprises a hand-held motor-driven brush 11 rotating, in use, to spread cleaning fluid on a surface eg a pipe to be cleaned by the brush 11, and incorporating means formed as a back-pack to supply the fluid to the brush head. The brush 11 may be a cylindrical brush whose bristles emerge radially from the longitudinal axis about which the cylinder, defined by the bristle-ends, rotates in use. A motor 15 and optionally the pump 16 form the back-pack unit, with the drive 23 from the motor 15 to the brush 11, and optionally the fluid line 22 from the pump 16 to the brush 11, running from this unit to the brush handle 12 and being sufficiently flexible to allow the user of the apparatus to move the brush 11 about the surface to be cleaned. The brush head may include two cylindrical bushes which project along a common rotational axis from the brush head. <IMAGE>

Description

CLEANING APPARATUS Field of the Invention The invention relates to cleaning apparatus.

The invention is specifically applicable to cleaning apparatus comprising a hand-held motor-driven brush rotating, in use, to spread cleaning fluid on a surface to be cleaned by the brush, and incorporating means to supply the fluid to the brush head.

Cleaning apparatus of the kind defined in the preceding paragraph will be referred to as cleaning apparatus of the kind in question.

Review of Art known to the Applicants Cleaning apparatus of the kind in question is already known and is embodied in apparatus currently manufactured by Rotabrush International Limited, of Amersham, Buckinghamshire under the trade mark ROTABRUSH.

Such apparatus has had considerable commercial success in the United Kingdom and elsewhere for several years. The brush used in all such apparatus manufactured to date has been a conventionally-bristled brush whose bristles emerge from the brush head to extend generally parallel with the axis about which the brush rotates in use.

Summary of the Invention In one broad aspect, according to the invention, cleaning apparatus of the kind in question is characterised by the feature that the brush is a cylindrical brush whose bristles emerge generally from the longitudinal axis about which the cylinder, defined by the bristle-ends, rotates in use.

Cylindrical brushes are known generically already, but to the best of the applicant's knowledge and belief it has never previously been proposed to incorporate them into apparatus of the kind in question. The successful ROTABRUSH apparatus previously referred to have always used conventionally-bristled brushes. The man skilled in the field of cleaning apparatus of the kind in question may well find it within his skill to incorporate a cylindrical brush into such an apparatus without inventive thought. The invention resides in the idea of selecting such a brush, from amongst known alternatives such as cylindrical sponge-style rollers, and replacing the conventional brush with it in the face of the proven and continuing success of the conventionally-bristled ROTABRUSH apparatus.

A major advantage of an apparatus embodying the invention in this broad aspect is the ease with which it can clean the top, bottom and back regions of the surface of a horizontally-running cylindrical pipe. The conventionallybristled apparatus may only be able to clean satisfactorily the front, and a minor portion of the top and the bottom, regions of such a pipe, especially where the pipe is a good way off the ground on which the user of the apparatus stands.

In another broad aspect, according to the invention, cleaning apparatus of the kind in question is characterised by the features, that the motor and optionally the pump form a back-pack unit, and that the drive from the motor to the brush, and optionally the fluid line from the pump to the brush, runs from this unit to the brush handle and is sufficiently flexible to allow the user of the apparatus to move the brush about the surface to be cleaned.

The successful ROTABRUSH apparatus have always been embodied in ground-standing units. The units may be wheeled, to assist transport and stowage. The drive to the brush head, and the fluid supply line, of such units may be designed to stow on the unit when the unit is not in use. Back-pack units for window cleaning apparatus have been known since at least the date of publication of UK patent specification number 2 017 488. But despite the fact that this specification was published just before the first ROTABRUSH apparatus was marketed, and has been available to the public throughout the succeeding years of ROTABRUSH success, the teachings of the two have never been combined.

A. major advantage of an apparatus embodying this broad aspect of the invention is that it enables an operator to work high off the ground, from a ladder or scaffold or powered access platform, from locations to which the known ROTABRUSH apparatus could not be transported (or could be transported only with difficulty).

Apparatus embodying this broad aspect of the invention may be characterised by the feature that the brush is a cylindrical brush whose bristles emerge generally from the longitudinal axis about which -the cylinder, defined by the bristle-ends, rotates in use.

In any apparatus embodying the invention, the brush handle may with advantage comprise a construction, already known generically, of an elongate arm having the brush head mounted at or towards one end of the arm and with the other end region of the arm being held, in use, by the user of the apparatus.

An apparatus incorporating the feature just outlined may with advantage have its handle constructed in a manner, again known generically, in which a plurality of arms co-operate one with another to form a handle of selectively variable reach.

Both the features just referred to are known from the ROTA BRUSH apparatus but are each especially advantageous when incorporated into apparatus embodying the invention.

Brief Description of the Drawings The accompanying drawings show, by way of example only, one apparatus embodying the invention. In these drawings: Figure 1 shows the apparatus diagrammatically in side elevation; Figure 2 shows the fluid reservoir of the apparatus in plan; and Figure 3, drawn to an enlarged scale, shows part of the brush head in section, with Figure 4 showing diagrammatically another brush head.

Description of the Preferred Embodiment The apparatus shown comprises a rotary brush 11 mounted at one end of an elongate tubular arm 12 and driven, in use and in a manner which will be explained, about its axis of rotation 13 to spread cleaning fluid ( not shown) on a surface (not shown) to be cleaned by the brush.

The brush 11 is a cylindrical brush whose bristles 14 (Figure 3) emerge generally from the longitudinal axis 13 of rotation of the brush. The bristles are all substantially the same protruding length so that the envelope of the bristle-ends defines the cylindrical surface of the brush. The size, stiffness and material of the bristles, and other constructional features of the brush, need not be dwelt on but will be arrived at by the intended skilled addressee of this specification without inventive thought.

The brush 11 is a motor-driven brush. The motor 15 is mounted, together with a pump 16, on one major face of a fluid reservoir in the form of a canister 17.

That one major face 18 of the canister 17 is substantially flat. The other major face 19 of the canister is profiled, as Figures 1 and 2 show between them, so that it fits comfortably into the small of the back of a normally proportioned man. Straps 21, secured one to each opposite side of the face 19 of the canister, enable the man to wear the canister - and with it the motor 15 and the pump 16 - as a backpack unit.

The motor 15 is a small petrol-fuelled internal combustion engine and incorporates its own petrol tank. The pump 16 is of known kind and is driven by the motor 15. The pump, on demand, draws cleaning fluid from the canister 17 and delivers it through a supply line 22 to the head of the brush 11.

The drive line by which the motor 15 rotates the brush 11 is in two co-operating stages. A first stage 23 comprises a flexible cable linking the motor output shaft to one end of the handle 12. The second stage 24 figure 3) is a rigid drive shaft which rotates in the tubular handle 12 and which drives the brush head 25 through angled bevel gears as shown in Figure 3.

The fluid supply line 22, again referring to Figure 3, enters the rotary brush head 25 via a coupling of known kind. This coupling 26 allows the brush head 25 to rotate relative to the essentially non-rotary supply line 22 whilst fluid passes from the line to the head in a substantially fluid-tight manner and hence, via perforations 27 in the brush head, to the bristles 14.

The fluid supply line 22 and the drive cable 23 are each sufficiently flexible to allow a user of the apparatus, holding the handle 12, to move the brush 11 about the surface to be cleaned. A throttle for the motor 15, and a valve to cause cleaning fluid to flow on demand from the pump 16, are mounted on the handle 12 and are linked, by appropriately flexible lines, to the motor and the pump respectively. Neither of these dser-operated controls is shown in the drawings and their details form no essential feature of the invention embodied in the apparatus illustrated.

In use, and in a manner already known from the ROTABRUSH apparatus previously referred to, fluid entering the brush head 25 along the axis of rotation 13 of the brush 11 is spread by centrifugal force to the bristle-ends of the rotating brush and hence to the surface to be cleaned by the brush. It is not necessary for the fluid to be supplied at high pressure by the pump 16. Nor is it essential or even desirable for the fluid to be supplied constantly as the brush rotates.

The brush head shown in Figure 4 is driven in a manner similar to that illustrated in Figures 1 and 3, by bevel gears which in this instance drive through a right-angle. Two ident ical cylindrical brushes each referenced 11 project along a common rotational axis from the brush head. Arms 26 support the projecting brushes 11 each of which rotates in the same direction about its common axis 13.

As Figure 4 shows, the brush bristles are splayed so that a substantially continuous bristled envelope contacts the surface to be cleaned. The fact that the bristles have to push their way past the top end of the handle 12 in this construction is of less importance than the need to present a continuous bristle envelope to the surface to be cleaned.

Throughout this specification, the term "brush" is intended to be functionally definitive in scope. It embodies any implement having a surface-brushing action imparted by a plurality of bristle-equivalent members projecting from the axis about which the "brush" rotates. Thus for example, a plurality of paddle-like members could project from the axis of the brush head, each having a scraping action on the surface to be cleaned as they rotate;

Claims

CLAIMS 1. Cleaning apparatus of the kind in question, characterised by the features that the motor forms part of a back-pack unit, and that the drive from the motor to the brush runs from this unit to the brush handle and is sufficiently flexible to allow the user of the apparatus to move the brush about the surface to be cleaned.
2. Apparatus according to Claim 1, in which the pump also forms part of the back-pack unit, and the fluid line from the pump to the brush is sufficiently flexible to allow the user of the apparatus to move the brush about the surface to be cleaned.
3. Apparatus according to Claim 1 or Claim 2, and characterised by the feature that the brush is a cylindrical brush whose bristles emerge generally from the longitudinal axis about which the cylinder, defined by the hristle-ends, rotates in use.
4. Apparatus substantially as herein described and illustrated with reference to Figures 1, 2 and 3 of the accompanying drawings.
5. Apparatus according to Claim 4 and modified substantially as described in Figure 4 of the accompanying drawings.