WO2015177633A2

WO2015177633A2 - Manual opening device for fresh coconuts

Info

Publication number: WO2015177633A2
Application number: PCT/IB2015/000952
Authority: WO
Inventors: Carlos CARLOS AMOROS LÓPEZ
Original assignee: Carlos Amoros López Carlos
Priority date: 2014-05-08
Filing date: 2015-05-07
Publication date: 2015-11-26
Also published as: ES1115606Y; WO2015177633A3; ES1115606U

Abstract

A manual opening device for fresh coconuts is described, through which a user can obtain a drill of the coconut hard shell and easily have access to the fluid content from the inside of the coconut. The device comprises a rigid metallic base capable of fixation by a nipple in a previously done drill in the coconut shell, being such base equipped with a pull-ring able to produce the breaking along a weakening line and creating with it an access hole to the inside of the coconut.

Description

"MANUAL OPENING DEVICE FOR FRESH COCONUTS

DESCRIPTION

Subject matter of the invention

This invention refers to a manual opening device for fresh coconuts, which offers essential innovative characteristics as well as important advantages compared to the known and used means for the same purposes as proposed by the up to date technology.

In detail, the invention suggests the design and the creation of a device of the type known as "easy open" for its use with the pieces of fresh coconuts, specifically developed to allow the consumer to do the opening of the coconut in an easy, comfortable and quick way, and risk- free for the user. The manual opening device for fresh coconuts includes a pull-ring fixed to the hard part of the coconut shell through a rigid base with a restraint nipple fixed to the coconut shell, such as a rivet or something similar, doing such fixing in a preferably circular area, whose perimeter contour has been previously weakened by the controlled application of a laser beam.

The field of application of the invention falls within the industrial sector of manufacturing and provision of easy-open tools for coconuts or other objects of comparable nature .

INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE (RULE 20.6) Background and Summary of the Invention

The coconut is a tropical fruit obtained from the coconut tree (Cocos Nucifera) , grown in many parts of the world even though, most significantly, in areas of Central America, the Caribbean and tropical Africa. Its shape is between ellipsoidal and spherical, and consists of an outer thick shell (exocarp) and another hard inner one, hairy and brown (endocarp) to which the pulp (endosperm) adheres which is white and aromatic. In the inner hole, a liquid is naturally found, named coconut water, which in many places is collected and packaged for its subsequent sale, with high acceptance and growing demand over time. In relation to one of the "extreme" areas, it shows three depression or dimples, also known as "eyes", closed by a layer which in one of them usually is much softer than in the other two, and therefore much easier to drill to enter the fruit.

The coconut may be placed on the market in different ways although its best market introduction is as fresh coconut, to extract the coconut water, and to obtain and accompany in the preparation of many food products, such as for example coconut milk, coconut butter, coconut oil, coconut rice, tuba, grated coconut, among others. The edible part (the pulp) is a nutritional source that includes carbohydrates; sugars; fibres; saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats; proteins, vitamins and minerals. However, even with what has been mentioned about being a fruit with a wide range of benefits, both practical and nutritional, the customer is rather reluctant to purchase the whole fresh product due to the difficulties related to its handling, specially in what refers to the cracking and breaking of the hard shell of the fruit to enter to the

INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE (RULE 20.6) inner fluid and to the edible pulp.

Therefore, the usual way to handle the fresh product consists in drilling the shell through, at least, the softest dimple, using for it an spiked or cutting instrument, such as, a knife with a sharp end, a cork screw spiral, the end of a hard stick, a crosstip screwdriver, a bit and a drill, etc. Then, after removing the inner fluid through the performed hole(s), it is important to hit the coconut with a blunt instrument, such as for example a hammer, along what could be considered the "equatorial line", producing a fracture which, with the subsequent hits, increases along the circumferential line until the coconut is divided into two half-bodies. Afterwards, each one can be detached from the hard shell and the pulp is divided into pieces, portions or fragments of different sizes .

Clearly, this succession of operations to properly take the most of the fresh coconut, makes most of the consumers consider it a burdensome operation and give up acquiring the product, in addition to being an operation wich is not risk free from the moment in which spiked or cutting instruments must be used to drill the shell, with which many users are not familiar.

In view of the above, this invention has set itself as main target the development and provision of a device that allows to favourably remedy the drawbacks of the state-of- the-art related to the handling of the fresh coconuts. This target has been fully achieved through the device which is going to be subject of description hereinafter, whose key characteristics are included in the characterising section of the claim 1 attached.

INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE (RULE 20.6) Basically, the device of this invention has been conceived as a device of the type known in the market as "easy-open" and comprises a base preferably circular, of a resistant material such as a light-weight metal and easily machinable, usually of relatively small diameter, with a pull-ring bonded to the base and prepared to work as gripping mean for the user. The base has a resistant mean of fixation to the coconut, as for example a nipple, a rivet or similar, fixed to a drilling performed in a default position of the coconut shell to open, after which a circumferential line is defined around the base, generally concentric to the last, which is partially drilled using a laser device to form a weakening line around the base, prone to breaking when the consumer exerts a manual pulling on the ring of the device. That way the opening of the coconut is easier without needing to use cutting instruments to drill any of the dimples or "eyes" which the coconut naturally incorporates in its shell, and therefore with no risk for the consumer.

Brief Description of the Drawings

These and other characteristics and advantages of the invention will be clearly exposed from the following detailed description of a preferred execution manner of the same, given it only by way of example and without limitation as reference to the accompanying drawings, in which :

The Figure 1, is an elevation view which represents schematically a fresh coconut equipped with a manual opening device of this invention, and

The Figure 2 is an schematic view of the same object as the one in Figure 1, but with the manual opening device

INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE (RULE 20.6) already used and therefore with an open access to the inner coconut .

Description of the Preferred Execution Manner

As mentioned before, the detailed description of the preferred manner of execution of the object of the invention, is going to be carried out as follows with the help of the attached drawings, through which the same numerical references are used to designate the same or similar parts. Therefore, paying attention firstly to Figure 1 of the drawings, an schematic representation of a coconut 1 can be seen, which it is supposed to be illustrative of a fresh coconut. It should be clarified that due to reasons of simplicity of the representation, coconut 1 appears in the representation as a completely spheric body, but it must be understood that this way of representation is independent of the real shape that a natural coconut may adopt.

In the representation appears the manual opening device attached to coconut 1, and therefore ready for the user to carry out the opening of the same without needing to use spiked or cutting instruments which can always represent some sort of danger for the consumer, most of all when it comes to inexperienced consumers or with decreased reflexes due to age or any other reason. Thus, the opening device comprises a base 2 which in general is made of a rigid material, shown with circular shape as example, for example of a lightweight metallic material as previously mentioned, and with a supportive pull-ring 3 to such base and ready so that the user may lift it if necessary and introduce a finger or an appropriate drive element during the opening operation. In the centre of the base there is a nipple fixed to coconut 1 (shown graphically through a

INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE (RULE 20.6) point located in the centre of the base) , through a lodge in a bore (for example, done through a previous die-cutting or drilling operation in the coconut shell) and supporting the shell. Around the base 1 a weakening line 2' has been defined, which surrounds the base 2, and which consists in a partial drill done with a laser device.

Thereby, when a consumer exerts enough pulling force on ring 3, the weakening line 2' allows that a circular portion of the hard shell enclosed by such weakening line may be detached from coconut 1, as shown in Figure 2, leaving the portion fixed to the base 2 and separated from the coconut. This gives a through hole 5 in the shell of coconut 1 which allows a consumer to introduce a little suction straw or remove the inner fluid simply by dumping the coconut for its collection in any container. The body of the coconut can be later fractioned in the usual manner, for example through hitting with a blunt instrument.

It is not considered necessary to lengthen the matter of this description so that an expert in the subject may understand its scope and the resulting advantages, as well as carrying out the practical realisation of its object.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, and given that the description submitted relates only to an example of preferred realisation of the invention, it will be understood that, within its essence, several variations of detail may be introduced, similarly protected, which may alter the shape, the size or manufacturing materials of the whole or of its parts, without any change whatsoever of the invention as a whole, delimited only by the claims provided hereinafter .

INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE (RULE 20.6) - 1 -

POWER SUPPLY WIRELESS DEVICE IN FURNITURE

DESCRIPTION

Subject matter of the Invention

The current invention refers to a device of electric power in furniture, which supplies basic characteristics of innovation and significant advantages in relation to the known and used means for the same purposes in the current technical state of the art.

More particularly, the invention proposes the development of a device able to supply light sources installed in furniture elements or other constructions through wireless energy transfer by using an inductive resonant coupling between a magnetic field generated via an oscillator and one or more fixed transmitter coils connected to such oscillator, and a receiver coil connected to the mobile part of the furniture or to other object which integrates the light source. The location of the receiver coil is therefore changeable, and the connection between coils is produced in one or more nearby positions between them, which means, when the mobile coil is located in a nearby position and facing any of the transmitter fixed coils.

The area of application of the invention is included inside the industrial sector committed to the construction and assembling of wireless energy transfer devices . - 2 -

Background and Summary of the Invention

The electrification of equipped elements with illumination means and with some mobility, whether by sliding or downward displacing, as it happens for example in certain furniture elements which are mobile regarding a part of fixed structure, has always shown several disadvantages that, to date, have not been completely solved. Therefore, in practice, when the electric connection with the illumination mean of the mobile element is carried out by an expandable cable, it unfavourably happens that when the mobile element moves, the connection cable may sustain stress derived from voltages, shearing circumstances, etc., which end up producing the cut or interruption of the power connector, losing therefore the lighting functionality connected to such mobile element.

In other instances, when the power connection between the supply and the light transmitter mean integrated in the mobile element is performed through metallic pieces or through conductive tracks over which move the corresponding contacts of the mobile element, both the metallic pieces as the electrified tracks represent added risks related to potential discharges for the user, besides the inconvenience that due to the stress that is part of the use, the electrified tracks end up acquiring clearances between the contact areas, losing the electric continuity in many points along the course, with the subsequent shutdown of the lighting means when they pass through the mentioned cutting points. - 3 -

In an attempt to solve the problems above mentioned, it has been proposed as well in the state-of-the-art the fact that the power supply could be done through one or more batteries or through some sort of energy cell. This solution shall not apply in most cases due to the strain of the battery or of the energy cell in relatively short periods of time.

Clearly, the devices currently in use to supply power to any light transmitter device assembled in a mobile element, such as a furniture piece or a similar structure, show inconvenients which need to be solved.

Taking into consideration the situation above outlined, the present invention has proposed as main target the development and construction of a power supply wireless device, which would succesfully solve the problems of the current technique.

Basically, the proposal of the present invention focuses in the fact that the power supply for the light transmitter mean assembled in the mobile element of the furniture structure or similar is provided wireless, which means, without physical contact, neither with direct power connection between the power source and the light transmitter mean. Thereto, the device is designed so that the fixed part of the furniture or other structure is equipped with one or more means for generating an electromagnetic field, here labelled transmitter coils, located in one or more positions previously determined and selected in accordance to the trail or movement followed by the mobile element of the furniture structure. At the same time, such mobile element includes a receiver mean materialized in a coil placed in the same mobile element, thus moving jointly with the last, in such a manner that - 4 - when they reach positions facing the ones occupied by the transmitter coil(s) and be affected therefore by the magnetic field generated by any of the transmitter coils, generate electrical voltage between their edges which is applied to the lighting mean assembled in the mobile element, causing the ignition of the last. In any other position of the element in which the receiver coil is not affected by the field lines of the transmitter coil(s), the light transmitter mean will remain turned off as it does not receive power supply from the receiver coil, either while receiving an insufficient power supply for the ignition of such light transmitter mean.

The device of the invention has foreseen the peculiarity that both the transmitters assembled in a fixed part of the furniture or any other structure, as the receiver assembled in a fixed part of the furniture or any other structure, comprise tuned resonant elements at the same frequency to reach an optimum power generation in the condition of linked coils.

As functional complementary means, the device of the invention includes, in connection with the fixed part of the furniture or any other structure, an oscillator to generate a default frequency signal, and an amplifier to amplify the signal generated by such oscillator before being supplied to the transmitter means. In addition, in connection with the mobile part of the furniture or any other structure, the invention has foreseen that a signal generated in the receiver means when they couple with the transmitters, supplies a strain rectifier whose regulated output directly supplies the light transmitter mean. - 5 -

Understandably, the device proposed by the invention constitute a power supply mean for a light transmitter device assembled in an element that moves with regard to another fixed part of a structure, with which current problems can be solved in the state-of-the-art by producing such wireless power supply.

Brief Illustrations Description

These and other characteristics and advantages of the invention will be clearly highlighted from the detailed description that follows from an example of preferred achievement of the same, provided only for illustrative but not limited purposes, in reference to the illustrations that accompany it, in which:

Figure 1 is a schematic representation of an example of achievement of a device in accordance to the invention, consisting of a fixed portion and a mobile element, in which the fixed portion of the structure includes a single transmitter mean;

Figure 2 is a schematic representation of a device equivalent to the one shown in Figure 1, but with the particularity that the fixed portion of the structure includes a multiplicity of transmitter means;

Figure 3 is a schematic representation of an example of achievement of a device in accordance to the invention, - 6 - equivalent to the representation shown in Figure 1, but in which the portion of fixed structure includes a single transmitter mean and the mobile element of the structure includes as well a tool of presentation of information for the user, and

Figure 4 is a schematic representation of a way of achievement equivalent to the one shown in Figure 3, but with the particularity that the fixed portion of the structure includes a multiplicity of transmitter means.

Description of a Preferred Way of Achievement

In view of the above, the detailed description of the preferred way of achievement of the object of the invention, is going to be carried out as follows with the help of attached illustrations, through which tha same numbered references are used to appoint the same or equivalent parts. Therefore, treating firstly Figure 1 of the illustrations, it is discernible a schematic representation of a basic version of a first performance of wireless power supply device, applied as aforementioned through the present description, by way of an illustrative but not limited example, a furniture structure, in which exists a fixed portion, materialized in the illustration by the identified block with the reference number 1, and a mobile portion identified with the reference number 2, and able to move along the fixed portion 1 between the preset limits. The fixed portion includes the transmitter means, composed of an oscillator device 3 of known type, designed to oscille at a determined frequency and in which it has - 7 - been added an amplifier to boost the signal generated by the oscillator, and a transmitter mean which includes a coil identified with the reference number 5, which ensures the generation of a magnetic field in a determined sphere of influence, and electrically connected to the output of the amplifier included in the oscillator block 3 through a conventional electric connection designated illustratively with the reference number 7.

Meanwhile, the mobile element 2 is linked to the fixed portion 1 through some element that allows its relative movement concerning the fixed portion, for example a movement of shifting or even of dejection, and includes a receiver mean established around a receiver coil identified with reference number 6 in Figure 1, connected electrically to a light transmitter mean 4 through a conventional connection mean identified with reference number 8. The receiver coil 6 moves jointly with the element 2 constitutive of the mobile portion of the structure, in a way that it will be able to occupy a wide variety of positions concerning the transmitter coil 5, but in a way that when the receiver coil 6 occupies a position in which falls inside the magnetic field generated by the transmitter coil 5 (that is, a position more or less facing the one occupied by the transmitter coil 5), the lines of magnetic field cut such coil 6, generating an electric voltage between its ends which is used for the supply of the light source 4, allowing the last one to illuminate.

Preferably, the receiver coil 6 is associated with a strain rectifier device that provides a regulated supply voltage which supplies such light source 4. - 8 -

Referring now to Figure 2 of the illustrations, it is schematically shown an equivalent disposition to the one shown in Figure 1 which has just been described, but with a design that, diferring from the last one, shows a multiplicity of transmitter means materialized through several coils 5 which occupy a multiplicity of positions along the positions facing the path that the receiver coil will follow 6 during its combined displacement with the mobile portion 2 of the furniture structure. Therefore, a user can select the position of the mobile element 2 in which the light source is illuminated 4 and which is more adequate for illumination effects in each moment.

The Figure 3 is a schematic representation of an achievement example of the device of the invention similar to the version of the Figure 1, but in which the mobile portion 2 of the furniture structure holds an information tool 9 in substitution for the light source 4. The rest of the components are exactly the same to the ones commented for the Figure 1, so they are not going to be described again .

According to this arrangement, a user can have access to any informative element (for example, a screen or a visual display), to receive informations about any subject. In the achievement of the Figure 3 it has only been included a transmitter coil 5 incorporated in the fixed portion 1 and a receiver coil 6 incorporated in the mobile portion 2 without physical contact between them, but this situation matches again only with an illustrative example, given that the fixed portion 1 may include a multiplicity of transmitter means, such as the coils 5 located in a multiplicity of positions, therefore the informative element 9 may show the informations in a multiplicity of - 9 - positions along the path of the mobile portion 2, selectable freely by the user.

As afore mentioned, both the transmitter means and the receiver means described above compose resonant circuits at the same frequency, with the object of a succesful energy transfer performance from the transmitter ones to the receiver ones.

It is not considered necessary to amplify the content of the current description so that an expert in the subject may understand its extent and the advantages deriving thereof, as well as performing the practical realization of its object.

Despite this, and given that the completed description matches only one example of preferred performance, it will be understood that within its essenciality it may also be introduced several modifications and variations of detail, also comprised within the reach of the invention, and particularly, it may affect the type of structure to which the invention device will be applied, to the means used and to the characteristics of the components, or to any other which do not alter the invention as it has been described and as it is determined in the following claims.

Claims

1.- Manual opening device for fresh coconuts, intended specially to drill the hard shell of a fresh coconut (1) to give access to the inside of the same to remove the inner fluid, characterised by comprising a base (2) rigid enough, metallic, equipped with a pull-ring (3) projected together from the centre of the base and incorporated in the coconut shell (1), with a weakening line (2') surrounding the mentioned rigid base (2) and which enables the separation of that portion of shell when a consumer exerts an appropriate pulling on the ring (3) to leave exposed an access hole (5) to the inside of the coconut (1) .

INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE (RULE 20.6) - 10 -

2.- A device according to the claim 1, characterised by comprising an informative element (9) built in the mobile portion (2) of the structure.