US20220265034A1

US20220265034A1 - Toothbrush

Info

Publication number: US20220265034A1
Application number: US17/246,627
Authority: US
Inventors: Xiaokun Liu
Original assignee: Ukiwi Shanghai Health Products Co Ltd
Current assignee: Ukiwi Shanghai Health Products Co Ltd
Priority date: 2021-02-20
Filing date: 2021-05-01
Publication date: 2022-08-25
Also published as: JP3233220U; CN214904510U; KR20220119306A

Abstract

A toothbrush is provided which comprises a brush head and a brush handle, and an insertion portion is disposed at a lower end of the brush head, an insertion hole mated with the insertion portion is disposed at an upper end of the brush handle, a first fitting ring is disposed on the insertion portion, and a second fitting ring for limiting in cooperation with the first fitting ring is disposed on an inner wall of the insertion hole; and a limiting mechanism for limiting the rotation of the brush head. Since the insertion portion and the insertion hole are mated and two fitting rings are adopted to cooperatively realize axial limitation in the present disclosure, there will be many advantages such as simple mold opening, ease of manufacturing and molding, no need of special core-pulling mechanism, simple structure, and low mold opening cost, ease of mold removal after product molding, high finished product rate, and low manufacturing cost compared with the prior art.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority to Chinese Patent Application No. 202120385718.2 with a filing date of Feb. 20, 2021. The content of the aforementioned applications, including any intervening amendments thereto, are incorporated herein by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure relates to the field of oral cleaning articles, and in particular to a toothbrush with a replaceable brush head.

BACKGROUND

Along with rapid development of science and medicine, significant progress of living level of people and continuous improvement of preventive health care awareness of people, the people pay more and more attention to oral cleaning and care. Toothbrush is one of important tools for oral cleaning.
The existing toothbrushes comprise simple integrated toothbrush, toothbrush with replaceable brush head and electric toothbrush. The integrated toothbrush is easy to use but needs to be entirely changed after a period of use, resulting in unnecessary wastes. The electric toothbrush features good cleaning effect and ease of replacement of brush head, but has the disadvantages of high costs, regular battery charging or replacement, and inconvenience of use. The toothbrush with a replaceable brush head may be used easily with only its brush head replaceable, thereby reducing wastes of change of its brush handle.
However, in the toothbrush with a replaceable brush head commercially available on market, a brush head and a brush handle are connected by mating an elastic buckle with a buckle hole, and the elastic buckle is usually in the form of inverse buckle. In this case, there will be such disadvantages as complex mold opening, many core-pulling mechanisms, complex structure and high costs. Further, when in use, one may need to pull out the brush head by pressing the buckle with finger in a case of replacing the brush head, thereby complicating the use.

SUMMARY

In order to solve the above technical problems, the present disclosure provides a toothbrush featuring in low manufacturing cost and ease of use.
In order to solve the above technical problems, the present disclosure adopts the following technical solution: a toothbrush comprises a brush head and a brush handle, an insertion portion is disposed at a lower end of the brush head, an insertion hole mated with the insertion portion is disposed at an upper end of the brush handle, a first fitting ring is disposed on the insertion portion, and a second fitting ring for limiting in cooperation with the first fitting ring is disposed on an inner wall of the insertion hole; and a limiting mechanism for limiting the rotation of the brush head.
Since the insertion portion and the insertion hole are mated and two fitting rings are adopted to cooperatively realize axial limitation in the present disclosure, there will be many advantages such as simple mold opening, ease of manufacturing and molding, no need of special core-pulling mechanism, simple structure, and low mold opening cost, ease of mold removal after product molding, high finished product rate, and low manufacturing cost compared with the prior art. The brush head usually moves up and down or left and right in mouth cavity in a case of in use and a large axial limiting force is not required between the brush head and the brush handle. As a result, the combination of the two fitting rings will suffice. In use, the insertion portion of the brush head may be directly inserted into the insertion hole until the two fitting rings are fitted together. In a case of replacement of the brush head, the brush head and the brush handle can be separated by forcibly pulling with one hand holding the brush head and the other hand holding the brush handle, and thus the use is very simple. With the disposal of the limiting mechanism, the brush head may be prevented from rotating relative to the brush handle in use process, thereby ensuring the use stability and reliability of the brush head.
Preferably, the limiting mechanism comprises a limiting block and a limiting groove cooperating with the limiting block to limit. When the limiting block is located on the brush head or the brush handle, the limiting groove is located on the brush handle or the brush head. Such limiting mechanism has the advantages of simple structure, fewer parts, ease of injection molding, and high finished product rate, which may further reduce the manufacturing costs on the precondition of ensuring the use stability and reliability.
Preferably, the limiting block is located at a transition position of the brush head and the insertion portion, and the limiting groove is located on an inner wall of the insertion hole. Further, the limiting groove has an opening at an upper end surface of the brush handle, thereby facilitating inserting the limiting block into the limiting groove. With such disposal, the limiting block may further achieve a reinforcing effect on the connection of the brush head and the insertion portion, so that the brush head and the insertion portion will not break easily. In this case, the use stability and reliability of the brush head will be improved further. Moreover, the limiting groove with an opening facilitates molding and mold stripping, improving the mold stripping finished product rate of the brush handle and further reducing the manufacturing costs.
Further, a hand protector is disposed between the brush head and the brush handle to block liquid flowing or dripping from the brush head. The disposal of the hand protector can effectively reduce the possibility that tooth-brushing liquid or foam contacts with hand. In this way, the case that children swallow liquid or foam on their hand when using the toothbrush is reduced and discomfort that the liquid or foam brings to hand will be reduced at the same time, so that the children will be less reluctant to use the toothbrush, helping to foster a good tooth-brushing habit for children.
Further, the toothbrush comprises a seat for holding the brush handle. In this way, the toothbrush may be placed in the seat separately without need to place it into a tooth-brushing cup. Thus, there will be basically no water stain or mildewing on the bottom of the brush handle and the brush handle will be kept clean. Further, the toothbrush can be effectively separated from a toothbrush of an adult. At the same time, with the fun of using the toothbrush, the children will love to brush teeth, thereby easily fostering a good habit of periodically brushing teeth for the children.
Preferably, an attraction mechanism attracting onto the seat is disposed at a lower end of the brush handle. With the disposal of the attraction mechanism, the toothbrush may be taken or placed with a small force, helping the children to use it and further helping the children to brush teeth periodically.
Preferably, the attraction mechanism is a magnetic attraction mechanism. When a magnet is embedded at the lower end surface of the brush handle, a magnet or a ferromagnetic body is disposed on the seat. When a ferromagnetic body is embedded at the lower end surface of the brush handle, a magnet is disposed on the seat. In this case, the magnetic attraction mechanism has simpler structure and the brush handle may also be attracted to other ferromagnetic bodies at the same time, giving better flexibility to use and achieving entire good-looking appearance.
In a preferred embodiment, the seat is formed by a cladding layer prepared with a flexible material and a core layer prepared with a magnet or ferromagnetic body. The cladding layer is covered on an outer surface of the core layer. With this disposal, the seat has a particular slip resistance and adhesiveness, and the cladding layer may further prevent external object from contacting with the core layer, thereby preventing the magnet or the ferromagnetic body from being corroded or scratched, and thus guaranteeing the use reliability and service life of the seat.
In a preferred embodiment, the insertion portion has a length of 1-6 cm. The insertion portion within the length is made with appropriate material, easily molded at a low cost, and has a high strength after connection, thereby achieving a good comprehensive performance.
In a preferred embodiment, the insertion portion has a length of 2-5 cm and the first fitting ring is located at a position of the insertion portion close to the brush head. With such a disposal, the supporting point of the insertion portion in use will be closer to the brush head. In this case, a torque of the brush handle to the insertion portion will be relatively larger, so that the use stability of the insertion portion after insertion will become better, facilitating the use of the toothbrush.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present disclosure will be further described in details in combination with the accompanying drawings and the preferred embodiments. Those skilled in the art may understand that these drawings are drawn only for the purpose of explaining the preferred embodiments and thus shall not be intended to limit the present disclosure. Further, unless otherwise stated, these drawings only conceptually illustrate the composition or construction of the described objects, may contain exaggerative illustrations and also are not necessarily drawn to scale.

FIG. 1 is a structural schematic diagram of a toothbrush according to Embodiment One of the present disclosure.

FIG. 2 is an enlarged view of a brush handle of a toothbrush according to Embodiment One of the present disclosure.

FIG. 3 is a side view of a brush head of a toothbrush according to Embodiment One of the present disclosure.

FIG. 4 is a structural schematic diagram of a toothbrush according to Embodiment Two of the present disclosure.

FIG. 5 is an exploded view of a toothbrush according to Embodiment Two of the present disclosure.

FIG. 6 is a structural schematic diagram of a toothbrush according to Embodiment Three of the present disclosure.

FIG. 7 is an enlarged view of a brush handle of a toothbrush according to Embodiment Three of the present disclosure.

FIG. 8 is a sectional enlarged view of a seat of a toothbrush according to Embodiment Three of the present disclosure.

FIG. 9 is a front view of a toothbrush according to Embodiment Three of the present disclosure.

Numerals of the drawings are described below: 1. brush head, 2. brush handle, 3. insertion portion, 4. insertion hole, 5. first fitting ring, 6. second fitting ring, 7. limiting block, 8. limiting groove, 9. hand protector, 10. seat, 11. magnet, 12. sunken hole, 13. cladding layer, and 14. core layer.

Embodiments

The present disclosure will be detailed below in combination with the accompanying drawings.
In order to make the object, the technical solutions, and the advantages of the present disclosure clearer, the present disclosure will be further described below in combination with the accompanying drawings and embodiments. It should be understood that the specific embodiments described herein are used to only explain the present disclosure rather than limit the present disclosure.
Those skilled in the art should understand that in the present disclosure, orientation or positional relationship indicated by the terms such as “longitudinal”, “transverse”, “upper”, “lower”, “front”, “rear”, “left”, “right”, “vertical”, “horizontal”, “top”, “bottom”, “inside”, and “outside” is used only for ease of descriptions and simplification of descriptions and does not indicate or imply that the indicated devices or elements must have a particular orientation, or be constructed or operated in a particular orientation. Therefore, such terms shall not be understood as limiting of the present disclosure.

Embodiment One

As shown in FIGS. 1, 2 and 3, a toothbrush comprises a brush head 1 and a brush handle 2. A cylindrical insertion portion 3 having a length of 1-6 cm (in this embodiment, the length is 3 cm, and the specific length will be set according to an outer diameter of the insertion portion 3 and specific user groups) is disposed at a lower end of the brush head 1 and an outer diameter of the insertion portion 3 is smaller than a diameter of a lower end surface of the brush head 1. In this way, the lower end surface of the brush head 1 will have a limiting function for a depth of the insertion portion 3 inserted into an insertion hole 4. The insertion hole 4 mated with the insertion portion 3 is disposed at an upper end surface of the brush handle 2. The insertion hole 4 is a blind hole, a wave-shaped anti-slip pattern is disposed on a peripheral surface of the brush handle 2, and anti-slip rings made of silica gel or rubber material are disposed at an interval on the peripheral surface of the brush handle 2. In this case, the slip resistance will be increased, and a hand gripping feel will also be improved, achieving good ergonomic effect. A first fitting ring 5 is disposed on the insertion portion 3, the first fitting ring 5 is a radial annular protrusion on a peripheral surface of the insertion portion 3, and an outer diameter of the first fitting ring 5 is also smaller than the diameter of the lower end surface. A second fitting ring 6 cooperating with the first fitting ring 5 to limit is disposed on an inner wall of the insertion hole 4. The first fitting ring 5 and the second fitting ring 6 perform upward limiting to the insertion portion 3 through cooperation, and thus axial limiting is performed for the insertion portion 3 together with the lower end surface of the brush head 1. The toothbrush further comprises a limiting mechanism for limiting the rotation of the brush head 1. The limiting mechanism comprises a limiting block 7 and a limiting groove 8 cooperating with the limiting block 7 for limiting. The limiting block 7 is located at a transition position of the brush head 1 and the insertion portion 3, and the limiting groove 8 is located on an inner wall of the insertion hole 4. Further, the limiting groove 8 has an opening at an upper end surface of the brush handle 2, thereby facilitating inserting the limiting block 7 into the limiting groove 8 and helping the molding of the limiting groove 8 and the core pulling at the time of mold stripping. Thus, the production costs are reduced.

Embodiment Two

As shown in FIGS. 4 and 5, a hand protector 9 is disposed between the brush head 1 and the brush handle 2 to block liquid flowing and/or dripping from the brush head 1. The hand protector 9 is in the shape of inversed bowl with its peripheral edge shaped like petals, so that more attention of the children will be attracted. Therefore, the children will love the toothbrush and love brushing teeth. A through hole, a diameter of which is smaller than diameters of the lower end surface of the brush head 1 and the upper end surface of the brush handle 2, is disposed at the middle of the hand protector 9. An annular protrusion, an axis of which is on the same straight line together with an axis of the brush handle 2, is disposed at the upper end surface of the brush handle 2 and inserted into the through hole. With this disposal, the hand protector 9 will not affect the disposal of the insertion portion 3, realizing good entirety. Further, the insertion portion 3 has a length of 4 cm.
Other structures are same as Embodiment One.

Embodiment Three

As shown in FIGS. 6, 7, 8 and 9, the toothbrush further comprises a seat 10 for holding the brush handle 2. An attraction mechanism attracted onto the seat 10 is disposed at a lower end of the brush handle 2. The attraction mechanism is a magnetic attraction mechanism. A sunken hole 12 in which a magnet 11 is embedded is disposed at the lower end surface of the brush handle 2, and the magnet 11 is a strong magnet. The seat 10 is formed by a cladding layer 13 prepared with a flexible material and a core layer 14 prepared with a ferromagnetic body, and the flexible material is rubber and the ferromagnetic body is an iron sheet. In this case, the brush handle 2 and the seat 10 will be attracted more tightly. The core layer 14 is usually located at the middle upper position of the cladding layer 13, so that the cladding layer 13 will be more closely attached to a target object when the seat 10 is placed on the target object, thereby increasing the stability of the seat 10. With the seat 10, the toothbrush can be placed separately without being placed into a tooth-brushing cup. Therefore, it is difficult for water stain or mildew to appear at the bottom of the brush handle 2 so as to keep the toothbrush clean. Further, the toothbrush can be effectively separated from the toothbrush of an adult and also has a degree of fun, which helps children to love brushing teeth and develop a good habit of periodically brushing teeth. The brush handle 2 may also be attracted to another object prepared with the ferromagnetic body, giving better flexibility to use, and increasing the fun to attract the children to use it.
The length of the insertion portion 3 is 5 cm. The first fitting ring 5 is located at a position of the insertion portion 3 close to the brush head 1. In this embodiment, a distance from the first fitting ring 5 to the lower end surface of the brush head 1 is ⅕ of the length of the insertion portion 3.
Other structures are same as Embodiment Two.

Embodiment Four

The sunken hole 12 in which a ferromagnetic body embedded is disposed at the lower end surface of the brush handle 2 while the seat 10 is formed by the cladding layer 13 prepared with a flexible material and the core layer 14 prepared with the magnet 11, and the ferromagnetic body is an iron sheet, the flexible material is silica gel, and the magnet 11 is a strong magnet. In this case, when the children brush their teeth using the toothbrush, an electronic watch on the hand of the children will not be affected by the strong magnet.
Other structures are same as Embodiment Three.
Above detailed descriptions are made to the present disclosure. The principle and the implementation of the present disclosure are explained with specific embodiments. The above descriptions of embodiments are only used to help understand the present disclosure and its core idea. It should be pointed out that those skilled in the art may make several improvements or modifications to the present disclosure without departing from the principle of the present disclosure, and these improvements and modifications shall all fall within the scope of protection of the claims of the present disclosure.

Claims

1. A toothbrush, comprising: a brush head (1) and a brush handle (2), wherein an insertion portion (3) is disposed at a lower end of the brush head (1), and an insertion hole (4) mated with the insertion portion (3) is disposed at an upper end of the brush handle (2);

a first fitting ring (5) is disposed on the insertion portion (3), and a second fitting ring (6) for limiting in cooperation with the first fitting ring (5) is disposed on an inner wall of the insertion hole (4); it further comprises a limiting mechanism for limiting the rotation of the brush head (1).

2. The toothbrush of claim 1, wherein the limiting mechanism comprises a limiting block (7) and a limiting groove (8) cooperating with the limiting block to limit; when the limiting block (7) is located on the brush head (1) or the brush handle (2), the limiting groove (8) is located on the brush handle (2) or the brush head (1).

3. The toothbrush of claim 2, wherein the limiting block (7) is located at a transition position of the brush head and the insertion portion (3), and the limiting groove (8) is located on an inner wall of the insertion hole (4); the limiting groove (8) has an opening at an upper end surface of the brush handle (2) to facilitate inserting the limiting block (7) into the limiting groove (8).

4. The toothbrush of claim 1, wherein a hand protector (9) is arranged between the brush head (1) and the brush handle (2) to block liquid flowing or dripping from the brush head (1).

5. The toothbrush of claim 1, wherein the toothbrush further comprises a seat (10) for holding the brush handle (2).

6. The toothbrush of claim 5, wherein an attraction mechanism attracting onto the seat (10) is disposed at a lower end of the brush handle (2).

7. The toothbrush of claim 5, wherein the attraction mechanism is a magnetic attraction mechanism; when a magnet (11) is embedded at the lower end surface of the brush handle (2), a magnet (11) or a ferromagnetic body is arranged on the seat (10), and when a ferromagnetic body is embedded at the lower end surface of the brush handle (2), a magnet (11) is arranged on the seat (10).

8. The toothbrush of claim 7, wherein the seat (10) is formed by a cladding layer (13) prepared with a flexible material and a core layer (14) prepared with a magnet (11) or ferromagnetic body, and the cladding layer (13) is covered on an outer surface of the core layer (14).

9. The toothbrush of claim 1, wherein the insertion portion (3) has a length of 1-6 cm.

10. The toothbrush of claim 9, wherein the insertion portion (3) has a length of 2-5 cm and the first fitting ring (5) is located at a position of the insertion portion (3) close to the brush head (1).

11. The toothbrush of claim 1, wherein a wave-shaped anti-slip pattern is arranged on a peripheral surface of the brush handle (2).

12. The toothbrush of claim 1, wherein anti-slip rings are arranged at an interval on the peripheral surface of the brush handle (2).