NL193401C - Mobile workbench. - Google Patents

Description

i 1 193401

Mobile workbench

The invention relates to a mobile workbench, provided with a worktop with bottom cabinet and two pairs of hinged support legs with running wheels which can be locked in their support position and which are mounted in their support position near the two opposite end walls of the bottom cabinet.

This is known from German Offenlegungsschrift 3,117,512, in view of the embodiment according to Figures 6-8. Both pairs of legs are folded up around hinge shafts located at the level of the bottom of the base cabinet. All legs are here two-arm, so that the pairs of legs can optionally be placed in a driving position with the rollers pointing downwards or in a stable position with the rollers pointing upwards. With all legs in the driving position, the workbench can be moved like a tea trolley. Moreover, the pairs of legs can be placed in a horizontal position, in which position the leg arms carrying the rollers project freely outside the respective end wall of the base cabinet. This offers the possibility to move the workbench in the manner of a wheelbarrow, for which one pair of legs is placed in the (vertical) driving position and the other pair of legs is brought into the horizontal position in order to serve as wheelbarrow arms.

To let the workbench into the loading space of a van, the workbench is brought into the aforementioned wheelbarrow position and placed with the ends of the "wheelbarrow arms" on the rear end of the loading platform. Then the workbench, with the vertical pair of legs, is movable on the ground. supported, driven inward, until the vertical pair of legs collides with the rear of the loading platform.

The second pair of legs is then also brought into the horizontal position and the workbench is then further pushed in, with the rollers rolling over the loading floor at the ends of the two horizontally placed pairs of legs.

In order to load the workbench into a van, this known workbench must therefore be lifted at one end - that is to say on the freely protruding arms of a pair of legs placed in the horizontal position - and then - standing to the side of the horizontally placed pair of legs, to be placed on the loading floor of the van. Such a loading method is inconvenient and hardly feasible for heavy workbenches for a single person.

The invention now aims to improve the above-described workbench in such a way that it remains easy to transport on the ground, even in a heavy version, and on the other hand can be easily loaded into the loading space of a truck of the van type by a person.

According to the invention, this object is achieved in that the hinge axis of the pair of supporting legs located near the one end wall of the base cabinet is located a short distance below the worktop and in that a projecting guide nose with run-up surface is arranged at the bottom of the cabinet, near that end wall.

The workbench thus improved can be easily driven, with both pairs of legs, in the manner of a "tea car" towards the cargo space of the van, at which point the nose nose hits the rear wall of the cargo floor of the van and then runs against that trailing edge, whereby the guide nose takes over the load-bearing function of the front pair of legs, which pair of legs then comes off the ground. After unlocking, the front pair of legs is then automatically folded backwards in an oblique 40 as the workbench moves further forward on the rollers of the rear pair of legs. The workbench according to the invention therefore does not need to be lifted with manual force.

It is to be noted that U.S. Pat. No. 4,993,088 discloses a work table without base cabinet and with two adjustable length pairs of support leg pairs provided at the underside of the work table top, which are adjustable at their free ends and which are also designed to accommodate 45 folded pairs of legs to be loaded into the cargo space of a van. For this purpose, the work table, with its table top end protruding relative to the front outrigger pair, is placed on the tailgate of the loading space folded out to the plane of the loading floor of the truck. After this, the front pair of legs is folded backwards and received in the space between two rows of carrier rollers arranged on the underside of the table top near the longitudinal edges, which 50 then engage with the loading floor when the table top is slid further over the rear flap. guide rails.

There is no question of automatic folding of the front outrigger pair when loading. Nor is this the case with regard to the folding out of this pair of support legs during unloading. In the final stage of unloading, the folded-up front outrigger pair engages protrusions 55 with corresponding projections on the tailgate to prevent over-extension when the front outriggers are still folded.

A practical embodiment of the method according to the invention is characterized in that the 193401 2 guide nose comprises two pivotally mounted levers mounted on one of the two opposite longitudinal side walls, of which one arm protrudes beyond the bottom and the other one has the ramp surface. The arm is designed as a locking hook and cooperates with a locking recess in the nearby support leg, the hinge angle of the two-arm lever being limited by a stop.

The first phase of the run-up movement of the guide nose is accompanied by a rotational movement of the two two-arm levers, through which rotational movement the arms of those levers acting as a locking hook are released from the locking recesses of the front leg pair. The front pair of legs is thus automatically unlocked and this pair of legs is then folded up.

Preferably, an auxiliary roller is mounted on the bottom of the cabinet near each two-arm lever.

10 After the (first) run-up phase of the guide nose, this auxiliary roller will be able to take over the supporting function of the guide nose and the base of the workbench will be supported by rolling this work roller on the sheet metal floor of the van when the workbench is moved inwards.

It should be noted that in Figs. 1-5 of the above-mentioned German Offenlegungs-script a workbench embodiment is shown, wherein at one end of the bottom case a pair of auxiliary rollers 15 are mounted on wheel supports protruding from the bottom case. The legs of the pair of legs located at the respective lower casing end can pivot about the axes of the auxiliary rollers. Loading this workbench into the loading space of a van takes place from a situation in which the considered pair of legs is folded up from the normally obliquely outwardly extending working position and the respective lower end of the frame rests with the auxiliary rollers on the ground. The workbench must therefore be lifted 20 before loading.

A further feature of the workbench according to the invention consists in that the legs of the one pair of legs in the folded-up position each abut against a stop projecting from the respective longitudinal side wall of the base cabinet, which stops are positioned such that the running wheels are in the stop position of the legs just protrude under the base cabinet. The rollers of the folded-up pair of legs which have come to lie more backwards by folding up can then serve to support the rear part of the base cabinet when the workbench is moved further inwards.

Further features and advantages of the workbench according to the invention are further elucidated below on the basis of an exemplary embodiment shown in the drawing.

Figure 1 is a schematic perspective view of a transportable workbench according to the invention located in a preparatory loading position relative to a loading opening of a truck; Figure 2 is a schematic side view of the transportable workbench in the position of Figure 1; Figure 3 is a schematic side view like that of Figure 2, at a time when the workbench base box 35 has come to rest with its right end on the loading floor of the truck, and Figure 4 shows the transportable workbench in the fully loaded position.

The transportable workbench shown in the drawing mainly consists of a worktop 1, a lower cabinet 2, which is arranged for storing tools, parts and the like, and four supporting legs 3 and 4, respectively, equipped with idlers, of the two opposite longitudinal sides Support legs 3 and 4 disposed near the four corners of the base cabinet body 2, the support legs 3 in the drawing on the right form a first pair and the two other legs 4, the running wheels of which are designed as castors, form a second pair.

The underside of the base cabinet 2 is at the loading floor height of an average van 45 above the ground. The horizontal pivot axis 5 of the first pair of supporting legs 3 is located a short distance below the worktop 1, on which a vice (not shown in the drawing) can be arranged.

The bottom box 2 is provided at its end in the drawing on the right-hand side with two guide noses 6, each arranged on a longitudinal side at the level of the bottom of the box, the run-on surface 6a of which is intended to cooperate with the rear boundary edge 8 of the loading floor 7 of the truck of the order type shown in figure 1 with the rear open.

in the illustrated exemplary embodiment, one arm of two two-arm locking levers is equipped with the guide nose 6 and the other arm with a hook 10 for normally locking the legs 3 - in the operating position of the workbench - in their vertical projecting position. The two-arm locking levers can pivot 55 about a axis 9 at a limited angle. The locking hook interacts with a locking recess 11 (figure 3) in the supporting leg located on the respective bottom cabinet side 3. A spring device (not shown in the drawing) normally keeps the locking hook in active engagement with the locking

Claims (5)

1. Workbench, provided with a worktop with base cabinet and two pairs of hinged support legs mounted in the supporting position, lockable with locking wheels with running wheels, mounted in their support position, characterized in that the hinge axis is located near the one end wall of the base cabinet pair of outriggers is located a short distance below the worktop and that a protruding nose with run-up surface is fitted at the bottom of the cabinet, near that end wall. Workbench according to claim 1, characterized in that the guide nose has two pivotally mounted two-arm levers each mounted on one of the two opposite longitudinal side walls, of which one arm protrudes beyond the underside and the other arm is designed as a locking hook and interacts with a locking recess in the adjacent support leg, the hinge angle of the two-arm lever being limited by a stop. Workbench according to claim 2, characterized in that an auxiliary roller is mounted at the bottom of the cabinet near each two-arm lever. 3 193401 • recess 11. In the example shown, the hinge shaft 9 simultaneously forms the axis of a number of auxiliary rollers 22, which protrude just below the box 2 at the front (right-hand side). The legs 4 of the second support leg pair are pivotally mounted about a pivot axis 12 located some distance above the bottom of the case 2. They are locked in their vertical projection 5 by the locking levers 13 pivotally mounted about an upper axis 14 and the hook end of which is spring-engaged in engagement with a corresponding locking recess 15 (figure 4) near the top end of the respective supporting legs. The locking levers 13 protrude from the bottom cabinet 2 on the left-hand side and can therefore also serve as a push handle when the workbench is moved over the ground. The locking levers can optionally be connected by a rod, which can serve as a push rod. In the unlocked position, the supporting legs 4 are moreover displaceable relative to the pivot shaft 12. In the schematic drawing this is indicated by the guide slot 16, drawn in dashed lines. Figures 1 and 2 show the workbench in its operating position, at the moment when it has come into contact with the guide noses 6 driving in the direction of the arrow. the rear edge 8 of the bottom 7 of the loading space, in which the workbench is to be picked up and transported. The guide noses 6 are still in their locked position. A moment later, however, the guiding noses 6 will run up against the rear with the ramp surface 6a. The force exerted on the guide noses 6 will result in a rotational movement of the locking levers about the shaft 9, which rotational movement is limited by the stop indicated by 17 and is sufficient to disengage the locking hook 10 from the locking recess 11. Figure 3 shows the moment when the lower box 2 with its right-hand end has come to rest on the loading floor 7 via the auxiliary rollers and the unlocked support legs 3 have already been pivoted slightly backwards due to their contact with the rear bumper of the truck. The locking hook 10 has thereby come out of the locking recess 11 and can therefore move back to its starting position according to Figure 2 under the influence of the spring acting on it. When pushing further according to the arrow direction in figure 3, the workbench rolls in with the base cabinet 2 over the loading floor and the support legs 3 are gradually folded up further, while the support legs 4 initially still serve as the rear support point of the workbench rolling into the loading space. At a certain moment, the folding support legs 3 butt against the stops 18 protruding from the side of the support box 2. This takes place at the moment when the support legs 3 move over the loading bottom edge 8 with their castors. From that moment, when the workbench is already more than half in the loading space, the running wheels of the folded up legs 3 function as rear support rollers and the rear support legs 4 are relieved. From that moment on, the rear support legs 4 35 can be unlocked by lifting the locking levers 13, so that they can also fold backwards when they come into contact with the rear bumper of the vehicle. The legs 4 can herein be pushed forward manually over the pivot shaft 12, whereby the stops 18 can optionally serve as support for the folded-up and pushed-in legs 4 (see figure 4). In order to adapt to different loading floor heights, the running wheels can be mounted at height on the free support leg ends, if desired. Workbench according to claims 1 to 3, characterized in that the legs of the one pair of legs in folded-up 193401 4 position each abut against a stop projecting from the respective longitudinal side wall of the base cabinet, which stops are arranged such that the running wheels are in the stop position of the legs just below the base cabinet. 5. Workbench according to claims 1-4, characterized in that the pivotable legs of the other pair of legs at the top end are pivotable on the upper end by means of locking levers projecting just below the worktop at their top end, projecting just below the worktop. in their extended position and are also slidably mounted with respect to their pivot axis, the stops for the folded legs of the first pair of legs also forming a support for the folded and retracted legs of the second pair of legs. Hereby 2 sheets drawing