US1873897A - Controlling device for alternative fluid supply - Google Patents

Description

Aug, 23, 1932, F LAWRENCE 1,873,897

CONTROLLING DEVICE FOR ALTERNATIVE FLUID SUPPLY Filed June 6, 1931 ,Ziwveza i'azzizizzZawa'ewae gwagyfi Patented Aug. 23, 1932 UNITED STATES PATENT oFFicE -c FRANKLIN LAwnnNcE, or PORTLAND, MAI E, AssIe on r PORTLAND strovn FOUNDRY 00., or PORTLAND, MAINE, A CORPORATION or MAINE CONTROLLING DEVICE FOR ALTERNATIVE FL'UID SUPPLY Application filed June 6, 1931. Serial No. 542,626.

This invention relates to improvements in controlling devices for alternative fluid pplyl i More particularly it is herein illustrated as it may be applied in a domestic cooking range, wherein there often are two burners for different uses with a single chamber, as

7 an oven, one for broiling and one for baking, in which case it is important, as a measure of safety, that if gas is entering the chamber through either burned it shall not be possible to open the other burner.

Hitherto, devices for this general purpose 7 have embodied more or less complicated mechanisms involving the mounting and operating of one or more elements intermediate of the respective gas cocks, so as to provide a shiftable lock or the like that would necessarily engage one OF the other of them, and

would look the one so engaged. Such mechanisms are by nature ill adapted for present day artistic and sanitary designs, as they embody unsightly parts which it is diflioult to conceal from view, and which collect dirt.

The present invention provides a way to simplify the control of such plural burner gas ovens and to eliminate all operating elements intermediate of the cocks, by providing a direct co-action of cocks such that each cock, when open, locks the other cock' closed. It is a part of the problem that the invention should be both infallible in action and inoffensive in design.

These ends are attained by use of interacting cock-handles.

The invention accomplishes the said objects and results by arranging the cocks in a suitable relation to each other, which may be at any convenient location,for example, at the front'of the range, fed by a manifold hidden behind an apron,each cock controlling one of the said burners. The particular two gas cocks which are to be controlled by the device of the invention are set relatively close together. They may be designed so that the movement to open either is a rotary motion toward the other, or may be designed so that both are rotatable in the same direction to open. The cock-handles may be of lever-arm type, preferably with each lever handle offset a little from the axis on which it turns; or they may be buttons with interlocking shapes. In either case, when both are closed, either can be opened without afi'ecting theother, but when either is thus turned to an open position it obstructs the rotating of the other. Therefore one cock must be closed before the other can be opened.

It is intended that the patent shall cover, by suitable expression in the appended claims, whatever features'of patentable novelty exist in the invention disclosed. 1

In the accompanying drawing:

Figure 1 is a front elevation of a portion of av gas range equipped with my invention;

Figure 2 is a side elevation looking from the right in Figure 1, with portions broken away for clearness;

Figure 3 is an enlarged front elevation showing one design of coacting cock-control handles, both turnedto off position of the cooks; showing in dotted lines the fully opened position of the left handle; and, in dotted lines, intermediate positions of both of the handles.

Figure is a side elevation looking from the right in Figure 3; i

Figure 5 is an elevation showing a preferred form of the invention, which embodies coacting buttons, the right hand cock being shown open and the other cook thereby locked; and

Figure 6 is a side elevation looking from the right in Figure 5.

Referring to the drawing, the gas range of Figures 1 and 2 has the usual or any suitable series of open burners at the top 10 and has a combination oven-broiler compartment 12, of known type, associated with which are the two burners 14, 16 for whose control the invention is especially designed. The broiler burner 14 is at an upper location in compartment 12 and has its discharge perforations on the under side, to direct its flame downward'for broiling food supported on a removable shelf 13, which may be positioned close underneath; The oven burner 16 is arranged'underneath the oven floor 18; and openings around the floor 18 provide for needed circulation. Both of these burners may be of usual or suitable shape, and each has a short stem with air regulator 20, to receive the gas supply; the broiler burner from pipe 22, and the oven burner from pipe 24.

The range burners a re suppliedfrom any suitable gas supplymanifold' 26 (Figures 36) which is concealed in Figures 1 and 2 behind anapron- 2.8. ,The gasneockscon--- trolling the burners stand above the mai fold, and have stems sticking through the apron 28 and; carrying suitable; handles;

which are made fast on the stems 35, as by screws 37. In Figure 1 the i-locat-ionsiof operating stems for cocks controlling the open burners 10' are indicated by the apron openings seen at 30, besidetwhich are the cooks 32; .3' i,, mo:re particularlydesci ibed below; and in Figures 3-6 the position of the apron 281's i'ndica-tedin dot and dash: lines. i i

The invention relates more particularly to safety control of the oven. burners by 00- action o' tthe cockswhich are: set sothat their handles 36', 38 interfere i'te'ithercock is open. In the form of the invention illustrated in Figures 3 and 4; the-interior of each of the cocks 82, 34L may be of fastyle' already known wherein the'valve is rotatable through 90, from a fully closed position to a wideopen "position; and wherein the first or 423 degrees of: rotary-travel of the valve, when turned in direction to open'lit, is lap of the valve, so that the swinging 'of'a cock handle does not beginthe-a tualopening of its re spective valve-until that handle and valve have been rotated through approximately ircin the'fully closed position of the "cock.

The handles of 'thecocks,which may be of any suitable type, "are associated together in an operative arrangement whereby each, when swung to an open .pos1t1on ,'coj11st1- tutes a positive obstructionin the orbit of opening travel of the other. In Figures- 3 and 4: thecock handles are of depending lever arm type, indicated respectively at 36,- 38. Each lever arm is oii-set a little from a strictly radial position, and. the valves are constructed reversely, with respect to each other, so that each one opens by rotation of its valve in: direction opposite to that in Which the other moves to open cock 32 counterclockwise, and cock 34' clockwise, the orbits. of the two handles intersecting.

VVith' these, cocks, set at a suitable space apart, and both of them beingclosed, either handle 36,38 maybe moved through its orbit from its closed position a to its open position without affecting the other handle; and,

when thus open, as is the handle 36 at 0, it will stand in the way of an opening move ment of the other handle. But when a handle 'has moved far enough through its orbit for its valvev to be open, regardless of Whether the cock is only partially open as.

at b, or is fully open, its handle obstructs and prevents every movement of the other handle which would be sufficient to open the valve of that other handle. One handle thus acts as a check to the other, with the result that at no one time can gas befllet to pass throug'lra cock if gas is then passing through the other cock.

, Another -;iliustration of the invention showing a typeof cock which some may prefer, is seen in Figures 1, 2, 5 and 6, where the cock operating l1andles 36, 38 are in the form of turn buttons. These buttons, is of'full-fashioned style, may have circular bodies as indicated by dot and dash linesv in Figure .5, in which case: they will beset so 1 that the rotary orbit of one intersects the rotary orbit of the other. And in each body a shallow recess, where the two orbitsare mutually secant', as at, provides for thei orbit/of thefothe'r body, and this permits rotation of that other body wh'en'th-e recess isinprop-er location, to wit, when thefirst cock is in closed position. Thus, with both buttons in any closed positions,"the recesses will" stand, each in the orbit oftheothe-rcock handle, adjacent to each other; and either button may be rotated through its orbit without encountering theother. But rota;

tion of either one to a partially open posi=- tion, or to the fully open position-in whi'ch button 38 is illustrated=,causes the other to be-positivel'y locked'against opening; a

With the circular buttons, the; valves-pf cocks 32, 34inay be identical'in form, so that each opens in the same directiong orthey may be reversely constructed to{ open in opposite directions. In either case,-.the buttons above described will coact to prevent botl'r cocks'being open at any onetime.

' The shapeof buttons sliown in fulllines in Figure 5 is,.how'ever,' preferred fromthe standpoint of economy and attractiveness. These buttons function the same as the circular ones except thatjthe' cocks in this case pmustopen in opposite directions, cook 32 any suitable material: and shape, it is convenient, economical and sanitaryto'makethe button type of porcelain, and to'inoldthe pon- '52".

celain with a middle ridge extending; across the-axis of the valve, as seen 1H.Fl=gl111:.5,.b

which ridge the button will ordinarily be graspedby ones fingers,while-the broader and underlying baseportion of! the' button the'cock handles may be made: of

serves as a guard between the fingers and the range.

I claim:

1. A two-pipe flow-control device comprising the combination, with two pipes, of a pair of cocks, one for each pipe, having a pair of eo-acting elements, one turning with each cock, with intersecting orbits; each said element, when its own cock is open, being, by its form and location relative to the other element, an obstruction in the orbit of said other elerlriient to prevent the opening of said other coc v 2. A two-pipe flow-control device comprising the combination, with two pipes, of a pair of cocks, one for each pipe, wherein the handle of each cock, when open, by its form and location constitutes an obstruction in the opening path of the other handle.

3. In a gas range having two burners arranged so that gas from each can reach a single compartment, the combination therewith of a supply cock for each burner, said cocks being organized close together with their several paths, when opening, passing through a common region whereby either, when in said region, positively prevents the opening movement of the other cock.

4. In a gas range having two burners arranged so that gas from each can reach a single compartment, the combination therewith of a supply cock for each burner, said cocks severally opening by rotation in opposite directions andbeing organized close together with their several paths when opening passing through a common region whereby each, when in said region, positively prevenlgs the opening movement of the other coc 5. A safety control device for two burners, comprising separate cocks, one for supplying each burner, arranged close together and having control buttons; said buttons having non-round bases with intersecting orbits and being positioned so that a non-round portion of one, when that one is in closed position, permits the other to move through its own orbit; but when the former is open a portion of its base, standing in the orbit of said other, prevents the opening of said other.

6. A two-pipe flow-control device comprising the combination, with two pipes, of a pair of cocks, one for each pipe; and a pair of buttons, one for each cock; said buttons mutually having circular portions of base, each toward the other when its own cock is open, and each having a recessed portion toward the other when its own cock is closed; said base portion of each button moving into said recessed portion of the other button when its own cock is being opened and said others cock is closed.

7. A two-pipe flow-control device comprising the combination, with two pipes, of a pair of cocks, one for each pipe; and a pair of buttons, one for each cock; said cocks being designed to open each by rotation in the same direction, and said buttons having circular peripheries whose orbits are secant; each said periphery having a recess which in one position, permits the circular periphcry of the other to pass it. I

8. A two-pipe flow-control device comprising the combination, with two pipes, of a pair of cocks, one for each'pipe; and a pair of coacting handles, one for each cock; each said handle being of the lever arm type, and each lever arm being offset from the axis of its cock in direction away from the other handle when both are in the closed positions of their cocks; and both handles being so located, each in relation to the other, that when both are in said off positions each is free to move to open its cock and, where thus moved, obstructs the path of the other handle'; whereby at any one time only one cock can be open.

Signed at Portland, Maine, this fourth day of June. 1931. I

FRANKLIN LAWRENCE.

Images