Floor cleaning machine using micro-fiber pad

Abstract

A floor cleaning machine includes a vacuum pick-up in front of the machine for suctioning loose material and debris off the floor. A micro fiber pad assembly is mounted beneath the machine for cleaning the floor following the vacuum pick-up. The micro fiber pad may be motor driven. A source of solution delivers a controlled amount of solution or water to moisten the micro fiber pad. A vacuum motor provides suction to the forward vacuum pick-up, routes the suctioned air through filter, and the filtered air is then delivered to an air diffuser at the rear of the machine to dry any residual moisture behind the micro fiber pad.

Description

RELATED APPLICATION [0001] This application claims the benefit of co-pending, co-owned U.S. Provisional Application No. 60 / 485,521 filed on Jul. 7, 2003 for “FLOOR CLEANING MACHINE USING MICRO FIBER PAD”.FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002] The present invention relates to floor cleaning machines; and more particularly, it relates to a floor cleaning machine using a micro fiber pad for engaging and scrubbing the floor. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0003] One widespread procedure for cleaning floors commercially requires that the floor be pre-swept, normally by hand, prior to using a floor scrubbing machine to scrub the floor. Automatic floor scrubbers typically use a water spray or gravity feed from a solution tank applied directly to the floor (after the loose dirt and debris are removed manually or by a separate vacuum machine), followed by a series of brushes which may include cylindrical scrub brushes, a group of disc scrub brushes or a combination of the two, to work the solution into ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0013] By applying a controlled amount of solution to the micro fiber pad during operation such that no substantial amount of residual water is left following operation of the micro fiber pad, there is no need to have a vacuum recovery system behind the machine. The vacuum air, after passing through a filter, may be returned as exhaust air behind the micro fiber pad and directed on the cleaned surface, at the rear of the machine, to serve as a source of forced air onto the surface immediately behind the pad and in front of the operator, to evaporate any residual moisture left by the pad so that the operator continues to walk on a clean, dry surface, rather than a wet floor.

[0014] Persons skilled in the art will immediately appreciate some of the advantages of the present invention. First, a single pass of a machine removes all loose dirt and debris. Secondly, in the same pass, a cleaning pad scrubs the floor clean and leaves no residual water after operation. The size of the machine may thus be reduced for a given application area because there is no need to store recovery solution, or, conversely, the design application area for a given machine may be increased because of the size constraints discussed above. Third, the machine may be simple and inexpensive. No adjustments are necessary during operation. In fact, it is desirable not to leave the operator with the ability to control the amount of solution applied to the micro fiber pad. The machines uses simple principles known to those skilled in the art, namely, a vacuum recovery head with a vacuum bag or other filtering system, a conventional vacuum motor, and means for returning the suction air back to the floor behind the micro fiber pad.

[0015] Leaving the floors virtually dry immediately after the machine passes provides an obvious maintenance and safety feature in that the area may be accessible to consumers or workers immediately after cleaning.

Problems solved by technology

If the area is of substantial size, these two operations, vacuuming and scrubbing in tandem may consume considerable time and require the use of a separate vacuum and scrub machines.

Moreover, automatic scrubbers are expensive, particularly more current machines such as rider / scrubbers.

Such machines use a considerable amount of solution and leave a substantial amount of water at the scrub deck, which must be recovered and disposed of.

Moreover, for scrubbing machines designed for application to larger areas, the size of the machine may be limited by the reality of design constraints.

The physical size of a typical battery source may occupy a substantial portion of the overall machine.

The presence of two separate tanks, one for clean solution and one for spent solution acts as a limitation on the total area the machine may treat before the need to replace the clean solution and discharge the dirty solution.

However, the size of the tanks are restrained because of the overall size limitations on the machine for practical reasons, and the presence of bulky batteries.

Nevertheless, the size of the typical commercial scrubbing machine has limited the area which the machine may clean before returning to the supply closet to discharge the spent solution and to place additional clean solution in the clean solution tank.

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