WO2004024481A1

WO2004024481A1 - Vent assembly with movable grill unit for automobiles

Info

Publication number: WO2004024481A1
Application number: PCT/KR2003/001824
Authority: WO
Inventors: Sung-Ho Cho
Original assignee: Sung-Ho Cho
Priority date: 2002-09-10
Filing date: 2003-09-05
Publication date: 2004-03-25
Also published as: AU2003258879A1; KR100445697B1; KR20040023031A

Abstract

The object of this invention is to provide a vent assembly with a movable grill unit for automobiles. This vent assembly includes a grill unit (1) and a housing (2) installed in the dashboard. In the vent assembly of this invention, the grill unit (1) moves in a vertical direction relative to the housing (2) by a drive means (3). The grill unit has guide grooves (15) along both side surfaces thereof, and has a rack gear (14) at a bottom thereof to engage with a drive gear (31) of the drive means (3). The housing has guide rails (20) along both sidewalls thereof at positions adjacent to an open front of the housing so that the guide grooves of the grill unit slide along the guide rails of the housing.

Description

NENT ASSEMBLY WITH MOVABLE GRILL UNIT FOR AUTOMOBILES

Technical Field

The present invention relates, in general, to vent assemblies used for discharging hot and cold air into the passenger compartment of an automobile for accomplishing an air conditioning effect for the passenger compartment and, more particularly, to a vent assembly for automobiles, which has a movable grill unit designed to move horizontally or vertically relative to a housing by a motor operation within a predetermined range capable of preventing an undesired complete removal of the grill unit from the housing, thus allowing a front of a venting channel to be selectively opened or closed, therefore allowing the interior of the housing to which the grill unit is mounted, to be easily cleaned, so the vent assembly blows fresh, clean and scented air into the passenger compartment.

Background Art

As well known to those skilled in the art, most automobiles are typically provided with air conditioning apparatuses, such as heaters or air conditioners, for discharging impure air from the passenger compartment to the atmosphere and feeding fresh hot or cool air into the compartment. Such fresh air fed from such an air conditioning apparatus is blown into the passenger compartment through the grill unit of a vent assembly installed in a dashboard. The grill unit of a conventional vent assembly, acting as the final path guiding the fresh hot or cool air into the passenger compartment, includes a plurality of grating bars which have a blade shape and are movably set in a grill frame fixedly installed in the venting channel of a dashboard. Therefore, when it is desired to change the air blowing direction of the grillwork, the grating bars are manually tilted upward, downward, leftward or rightward at a limited angle within the fixed grill frame. In such a conventional vent assembly for automobiles, the air blowing direction of the grillwork is limitedly controlled by manually tilting the blade- shaped grating bars in the fixed grill frame to a desired direction within a limited angular range. It is thus almost impossible to clean the interior of the venting channel in back of the grill frame or the housing, and so a great quantity of dust is deposited in the venting channel as time goes by after the production of an automobile. Such deposited dust is blown into the passenger compartment along with fresh hot or cool air during an operation of an air conditioning apparatus, such as a heater or an air conditioner, thus being bad for passengers' health, particularly, for passengers' respiratory organs, and causing several diseases in said organs. Furthermore, the conventional vent assembly does not allow an installation of an air filter at a position around it, and so most passengers, including a driver while driving an automobile, inevitably breathe dust-laden air blown from the grillwork. In addition to the above-mentioned problems of difficulty in cleaning the interior of the venting channel or installing an air filter, another problem of the conventional vent assembly caused by an absence of any means for holding air quality enhancing agents, such as aromatics, germicides, and/or deodorizers, in the assembly. Such agents are thus laid on the top wall of the dashboard or the rear shelf provided in back of the rear seats inside the passenger compartment, or attached to the front of the grillwork such that air laden with components of the agents circulates in the passenger compartment. However, such installation of the agents makes the interior of the passenger compartment messy, as well as interfering with the safe driving of a driver. In an effort to overcome the problems experienced in the conventional vent assembly with the fixed grill frame, there was proposed and has been used an interior vent nozzle for air conditioning apparatuses of automobiles in Japanese Utility Model Laid-open Publication No. Sho. 61-137,012. This vent nozzle, which corresponds to a grill frame with a grillwork and is referred to as "grill frame" herein below, is removably installed in a housing fixedly set in the dashboard of an automobile such that the grill frame with the grillwork is completely removed from the housing by pulling the grill frame from the housing when desired. That is, this grill frame has a detachable structure, which allows a user to install or remove the grill frame with the grillwork in or from the housing provided in the dashboard. However, due to such a detachable structure, this grill frame is not stably installed in the housing, and so it is undesirably moved in the housing to generate noises upsetting passengers around the grill frame when the automobile runs at speed with substantial vibrations. In addition, when the grill frame is repeatedly removed and installed from or in the housing, the assembling parts of both the grill frame and the housing may be damaged or broken, thus sometimes forcing the user to change the damaged or broken grill frame and/or housing with new ones. This grill frame is thus inconvenient to the user, and forces the user to pay excessive money for purchasing the new grill frame and/or housing. Another problem of the above grill frame resides in that it may be damaged or lost when it is completely removed from the housing and kept in the removed state for a period of time.

Disclosure of the Invention

Accordingly, the present invention has been made keeping in mind the above problems occurring in the prior art, and an object of the present invention is to provide a vent assembly for automobiles, which has a grill unit designed to move horizontally or vertically by an operation of a reversible motor within a predetermined range to prevent an undesired complete removal of the grill unit from the housing, thus allowing a front of a venting channel to be selectively opened or closed, therefore allowing the interior of the housing to which the grill unit is mounted, to be easily cleaned, so the vent assembly blows fresh, clean and scented air into the passenger compartment.

In order to accomplish the above object, the present invention provides a vent assembly for automobiles, which is installed at a front of a venting channel defined in a dashboard, and includes a grill unit which is designed to be movable in a horizontal or vertical direction relative to a housing within a predetermined range by an operation of a drive means.

Brief Description of the Drawings

The above and other objects, features and other advantages of the present invention will be more clearly understood from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a vent assembly for automobiles, according to a first embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a vent assembly for automobiles, according to a second embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of a vent assembly for automobiles, according to a third embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a vent assembly for automobiles, according to a fourth embodiment of the present invention; and

FIG. 5 is a perspective view, showing a vent assembly of this invention, which is installed in a dashboard of an automobile at a desired position.

Best Mode for Carrying Out the Invention

Reference should now be made to the drawings, in which the same reference numerals are used throughout the different drawings to designate the same or similar components.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a vent assembly for automobiles, according to a first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a vent assembly for automobiles, according to a second embodiment of the present invention. As shown in the drawings, the vent assembly for automobiles according to the first and second embodiments of this invention includes a grill unit 1, a housing 2, and a drive means 3.

In the embodiments, the grill unit 1 has a grillwork 11 at an opening thereof so that the grillwork 11 is tilted to a predetermined angle, and is mounted to an open front of the housing 2 to be movable in a vertical direction. To make the grill unit 1 be movable in the vertical direction, a rack gear 14 is mounted to a bottom of the grill unit 1 to engage with a drive gear 31 of a motor 33 which constitutes the drive means 3. Thus, the grill unit 1 moves in the vertical direction relative to the housing 2 by a drive power of the motor 3.

Further, two guide grooves 15 are provided along both side surfaces of the grill unit 1 to slide along two guide rails 20 which are provided along both sidewalls of the housing 2 at positions adjacent to an open front of the housing 2.

The housing 2 is installed at a front of a venting channel defined in a dashboard B so that the grill unit 1 moves upward and downward relative to the housing 2. The two guide rails 20 are provided along inner surfaces of the both sidewalls adjacent to the front of the housing 2 to be opposite to each other, so that the guide grooves 15 of the grill unit 1 slide along the guide rails 20.

The drive means 3 includes the reversible motor 33, and the drive gear

31 mounted to an end of a drive shaft of the motor 33. The drive gear 31 engages with the rack gear 14 which is vertically mounted to the bottom of the grill unit 1 so that the drive power of the motor 33 is transmitted to the grill unit

1, thus allowing the grill unit 1 to move vertically.

As shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, in vent assemblies A according to third and fourth embodiments of the present invention, a rack gear 14 is mounted to a left side of the grill unit 1. The rack gear 14 engages with the drive gear 31 of the drive motor 33 constituting the drive means 3 so that the grill unit 1 is movable relative to the housing 2 in a horizontal direction, thus allowing the housing 2 to be selectively opened.

According to the third and fourth embodiments of this invention, two guide grooves 15-1 are provided along upper and lower surfaces of the grill unit 1. Further, two guide rails 20-1 are provided along upper and lower walls of the housing 2 at positions adjacent to the open front of the housing 2 so that the two guide grooves 15-1 are slidably seated on the corresponding guide rails 20-1.

As shown in FIGS. 2 and 4, a container 29 may be installed at a rear section of a space 22 which is defined inside the housing 2, so as to contain an aromatic or a deodorizer therein. Alternatively, the aromatic or deodorizer may be directly and removably put in the rear section of the space 22 of the housing 2, without installing the container 29 in the space 22. In such a case, fresh and scented air is discharged into the passenger compartment through the grill unit 1 after flowing through the venting channel. Further, as shown in FIG. 2, a seating slot 13 may be formed on an upper surface of the grill unit 1 so as to removably seat an air filter 5 in the seating slot 13. In such a case, the air filter 5 removes dust from air passing through the grill unit 1, thereby cleaning the air before the air is discharged into the interior of the passenger compartment. The vent assembly thus maintains a fresh, clean and pleasant interior atmosphere of the passenger compartment.

The operation of the vent assembly A with the movable grill unit for automobiles, according to the present invention will be described in the following.

In the vent assembly A of this invention, the housing 2 is installed at the front of the venting channel defined in the dashboard B. Next, the grill unit 1 is mounted to the front of the housing 2 so that the guide grooves 15 which are provided along both side surfaces or upper and lower surfaces of the grill unit 1, slide along the corresponding guide rails 20 which are provided along the both sidewalls or upper and lower walls of the housing 2 adjacent to the open front of the housing 2. When the air conditioning apparatus is operated in such a state, hot or cool air is blown into the passenger compartment through the grill unit 1.

Meanwhile, when it is desired to move the grill unit 1 relative to the housing 2 so as to completely open the housing 2, an actuating switch (not shown) connected to the motor 33 of the drive means 3 is manipulated to drive the motor 33. At this time, the drive power of the motor 33 is transmitted to the rack gear 14 which is mounted to a position of the grill unit 1, via the drive gear

31 which is mounted to the end of the drive shaft of the motor 33 and has the form of a pinion gear, thus moving the rack gear 14 in the vertical or horizontal direction. Thus, the guide grooves 15 of the grill unit 1 slide along the guide rails 20 which are provided along the inner surfaces of the housing 2 adjacent to the front of the housing 2, so that the housing 2 is opened.

As such, when the grill unit 1 moves relative to the housing 2 within a predetermined range, the front of the housing 2 is opened, thus allowing the venting channel inside the housing 2 to be easily cleaned. Further, it is possible to put the aromatic or deodorizer in the container 29 which may be installed in the rear section of the space 22 of the housing 2. It is also possible to replace the aromatic or deodorizer with new ones.

Thereafter, when it is desired to move the grill unit 1 relative to the housing 2 so that the grill unit 1 restores an original position thereof to close the front of the housing 2, the switch is manipulated to drive the motor 33 of the drive means 3 in the reverse direction. At this time, as described above, the drive power is transmitted to the rack gear 14 via the drive gear 31, so that the grill unit 1 restores the original position thereof, thus closing the front of the housing 2. In the vent assembly of this invention, two or more grill units 1 may be installed in the housing 2 such that the grill units 1 are independently movable relative to the housing 2.

Although the preferred embodiments of the present invention have been disclosed for illustrative purposes, those skilled in the art will appreciate that various modifications, additions and substitutions are possible, without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention as disclosed in the accompanying claims.

Industrial Applicability As described above, the present invention provides a vent assembly with a movable grill unit for automobiles. The grill unit is designed to be movable relative to a housing installed in the dashboard. In the vent assembly, the grill unit moves relative to the housing in a horizontal or vertical direction by a rack gear within a predetermined range capable of preventing an undesired complete removal of the grill unit from the housing. In this case, the rack gear is mounted to a predetermined position of the grill unit to engage with a drive gear of a drive means. The grill unit is movable relative to the housing so that the housing is selectively opened, thus allowing an interior of the housing to be easily cleaned. This vent assembly also may have a container at a rear section of the housing to contain a desired material, such as an aromatic or a deodorizer, in the container, with an air filter removably seated in a seating slot which is formed at the upper surface of the grill unit. The vent assembly thus blows fresh, clean and scented air into the passenger compartment, and maintains a fresh and pleasant interior atmosphere of the passenger compartment of an automobile.

Claims

1. A vent assembly for automobiles installed at a front of a venting channel of a dashboard, the vent assembly comprising: a grill unit having guide grooves along both side surfaces thereof, and having a rack gear at a bottom thereof to engage with a drive gear of drive means; and a housing having guide rails along both sidewalls thereof at positions adjacent to an open front of the housing so that the guide grooves of the grill unit slide along the guide rails to allow the grill unit to move in a vertical direction relative to the housing by the drive means.

2. The vent assembly according to claim 1, wherein a container is removably installed at a rear section of a space inside the housing, and a seating slot is formed on an upper surface of the grill unit so as to removably seat an air filter in the grill unit.