WO2024079740A1 - Shower system - Google Patents

Abstract

A diverter system comprised of generic plumbing parts comprising pipes, bends, control valves, and one-or-more 3-or-higher way junctions.

Description

SHOWER SYSTEM

Field of the Invention:

The field of the invention is shower systems and in particular, the diverter used in shower systems.

Background of the Invention:

Modem showers are commonly comprised of an overhead shower head, a diverter that takes a hot water input, a cold water input, and then mixes and outputs the result to the shower head, or tap at the bottom of the system. The dimensions of operation of the system are therefore:

• The extent and quality of cold and hot water mixing

• The extent and quality of outputs

• The extent and quality of pressure head transferred to outputs, given the pressure head input the system starts with

Modem diverters excel in water mixing and providing a one-ot-the-other output combination as a system. They do not ordinarily supply a no output function or a both outputs simultaneously function. A single-lever control is ordinarily supplied, wherein the single lever identifies the ratio of hot and cold water mixing and the flow rate to the output selected. The common usage is for a user to determine the ratio position of the lever first for his/her comfort and then repeatedly adjust the flow rate in the course of a shower. The single lever function is primarily used in the flow rate adjustment, as that is the maximally used function. Since both outputs are not supplied, a single lever control of the dividing ratio among the outputs simply does not arise.

Commonly, one or two options are available for improving pressure transfer from the input head to the system output. Besides the ordinary diverter, a high-flow diverter is provided, with somewhat larger input sizes to increase the flow of water through the system.

Maintainability of a diverter is an important additional consideration. Diverters are commonly constructed as a monolith, maintained only by complete replacement of the diverter in a shower system upon need. Opening the diverter design, for maintenance by piece and part adds important value to the diverter.

The prior art of diverters is therefore lacking in optimal coverage of its dimensions of its operation. Even for mixing, control over its quality is pre-fixed by the monolithic construction and not under the control of the deploying user. The story is the same for pressure head transfer. It is therefore highly desirable for a diverter system to be proposed that overcomes these shortcomings and allows a deploying user scalability and choice over all the dimensions of a diverter system, besides offering better, open, maintenance of the diverter.

Before we arrived at the novel diverter system proposed herein, we explored multiple combinations of the existing diverter systems in the novel arrangements shown in fig. 2 and 3 to improve their shortcomings. Fig. 2 runs two diverters in parallel with large diameter pipes feeding cold and hot water supplies to the diverter inputs, from rooftop hot and cold water tanks. Both the diverters are high-flow diverters, the highest flow monolithic system obtained from the market. The outputs of two diverters are combined, the shower outputs combining to feed the common shower head, and the tap outputs combining to feed the common tap. The cost of the diverters Is doubled, excess piping is used, and the system still has a problem that - when a user toggles from the tap to the overhead shower, (sjhe has to press the toggling switch on the two diverters simultaneously using both hands to make this function. Else the toggling does not succeed. Fig. 3 tries to scale this further with 3 parallel high flow diverters, tripling the cost, but then the toggling becomes even more difficult, requiring skill in simultaneously pressing three switches. Finally, the lever in the figures for the tap output does not succeed in saving overflow from the tap after shower use, as placing it in the off position disables the toggling function, which only works when the tap lever in on, allowing the system to breathe. So to prevent overflow after a shower, of the leftover water in the pipes down through the tap after the shower, the user has. to remember to shut the tap lever just beforethe shower end, which commonly gets forgotten. The fig. 3 shower is our fancier shower, with a three-headed common shower output. The diverter system is just the same as fig.2, with parallelism between diverters being used to increase the pressure of the water output. After these experiments, we finally made the progress to proposing the required, novel diverter system proposed herein.

Summary of the Invention: Accordingly, the present invention provides a practically a no wish left unfulfilled, optimal diverter that scales fully along all its dimensions of (a) desired hot and cold water mixing, (b) parallel output combinations and control of tap and shower head, and (c) highest pressure water outputs for the given water head of the supply tank. Furthermore, the diverter is cheap to implement, and cheap to maintain, with very occasional maintenance requirements only, carried out piece by part, in an open manner for a longer life, robust system.

The specific novel apparatus, arrangement, and functioning that realize the above benefits is detailed in the claims section below.

Brief Description of the Accompanying Drawings:

These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the present invention will become better understood when the following detailed description is read with reference to the accompanying drawings in which like characters represent like parts throughout the drawings, wherein:

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of our diverter system in a shower context;

Fig. 2 shows a prior art deployment of two parallel high-flow diverters for a high pressure shower,

Fig. 3 shows a prior art deployment of three parallel high-flow diverters for a higher pressure shower;

Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the drawings are illustrated for simplicity and may not have been necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the drawings may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of aspects of the present invention. Furthermore, the one or more elements may have been represented in the drawings by conventional symbols, and the drawings may show only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the drawings with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having benefit of the description herein.

Detailed Description of the Invention:

It should be noted that the steps of a method may be providing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention and so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having benefit of the description herein.

All methods described herein can be performed in any suitable order unless otherwise indicated herein or otherwise clearly contradicted by context The use of any and all examples, or exemplary language (e.g. “such as”) provided with respect to certain embodiments herein is intended merely to better illuminate the invention and does not pose a limitation on the scope of the invention.

It should be apparent to those skilled in the art that many more modifications besides those already described are possible without departing from the inventive concepts herein.

Moreover, in interpreting the specification, all terms should be interpreted in the broadest possible manner consistent with the context. In particular, the terms “comprises” and “comprising" should be interpreted as referring to elements, components, or steps in a nonexclusive manner, indicating that the referenced elements, components, or steps may be present, or utilized, or combined with other elements, components, or steps that are not expressly referenced. Where the specification refers to "at least one of something selected from the groupconsistmg of A, B, C .... andN, the text shouldbe interpreted asrequiring only one — element from the group, hot A pIusN, of B plus N, etc.

Our teaching is presented schematically in Fig. 1. The figure shows two overhead water tanks, one cold, one hot, as rectangles at the top. The height of these tanks above the shower system is the pressure head available apriori. The best shower pressure that can be expected is capped by this head and it is the endeavour of the diverter system to provide this head almost unreduced, at the shower outlets, namely the shower head (shown as a large circle) or the tap (shown as a triangle). To do this, the entire system is built from generic parts, namely pipes, bends, T junctions, valves (shown as small circles with a thick short controlling lever line), etc All these generic parts are available in a large selection of sizes from very small to very large, allowing the implementor any particular choice appropriate for his site. The choice of large pipes, components ensures an almost un-reduced transfer of the input height to the shower outputs.

There are 4 valves in the system, all shown in the off position (the controlling lever is perpendicular to the path in the depiction). So there is no output in this position. The cold water input has a lever, as does the hot water input. The user adjusts these levers to choose the ratio of the input hot water versus the cold water. There are controlling valves at the shower outlet and the tap outlet. The user adjusts these levers to obtain the chosen flow at these outlets. The common use case is that the user after setting the hot and cold inputs, only turns an output on or off to varying degrees, using that output’s lever for his/her purpose. So the common case of single lever control is obtained. A single lever control for each output is symmetrically obtained. We had tried to apply a single lever control to our prior system taps, in Fig. 2 and 3, but with limited results, as mentioned before. By shifting to our own diverter design, we bypass this earlier problem.

Commonly, the input controls may stay untouched across showers for the same user as the day- to-day changes of weather are slow and the drift of water temperature settings, also slow. Thus the single lever output control is the most common pattern of use.

There are 2 T junctions in our design. One takes the inputs to the shower and the other the inputs to the tap. The inputs after merging at the T go through a series of bends before reaching a valve-controlled output. The bends, of short lengths, ensure that the water goes through a series of rapids, as in the mountains, before it reaches an output. For any output, the two incoming water supplies gush through the T, go through these rapids and on to the output, ensuring excellent mixing of the water. The number of bends are left to the implementer, as his/her decision on the quality of mixing. Turbulence may be engendered in this mixing, by for example, the bubbling of air from the output, say the tap, through the pipes on to the tanks.

Instead of 2 T junctions, each of which is a 3 -way junction, clearly one 4- way junction can be used in fig. 1 , the 4 arms of the junction connecting to the 2 inputs and the bends of the two outputs. We show the T junctions as the preferred embodiment, for their commonplace availability and the common case use of one output at a time, wherein the entire path to the unused output is blocked by stagnant water, leading to identical behaviour of the T-junctions and the 4-way alternative. Similarly, higher way junctions can also be used.

All the input and output flows occur in parallel. By using fat pipes and components, this parallel flow is magnified multifold in terms of the streamlines that run in parallel through the flows. In applying for this patent, we do not wish to exclude anyone from implementing the teaching herein, so our overall licensing policy for this work is as follows. Individuals who implement this teaching for their individual household may do so, voluntarily paying us a teacher’s tithe (i.e. 10% of their implementation cost), following the instructions at www.buffnstaff.com , We believe the savings enabled by our teaching will much more than offset this voluntary tithe, the function improvement of course being the motivating bonus. Institutional users, e.g. builders, who build for others, schools, gymnasiums, etc. need to obtain a formal license from us, or can also pay using the abovementioned mechanism at www.buffiistaff.com. in an auditable, accurate manner. Benefits, other advantages, and solutions to problems have been described above with regard to specific embodiments. However, the benefits, advantages, solutions to problems, and any components) that may cause any benefit, advantage, or solution to occur or become more pronounced are not to be construed as a critical, required, or essential feature. While specific language has been used to describe the disclosure, any limitations arising on account of the same are not intended. As would be apparent to a person in the art, various working modifications may be made to the process in order to implement the inventive concept as taugfit herein.

Claims

I CLAIM:

1. A diverter system comprised of generic plumbing parts comprising pipes, bends, control valves, and one-or-more 3-or-higher way junctions.

2. The diverter system of claim 1, where the control valves are one apiece for the inputs and one apiece for tiie outputs.