Flexible toroidal reel

Abstract

A reel or spool comprises of a long flexible split cylindrical channel joined end to end to form a hollow toroidal reel with the slit on its circumference open to accept wound material. The resulting reel or spool is used to store, transport, receive or dispense linear flexible materials such as wire, hose, cord, or chain which lend themselves to being wound helically and / or over themselves. The spool's main purpose is to provide inexpensive, robust, lightweight, flexible, rapidly windable, easily carriable, wall hangable, easily manufacturable, single piece, easily recyclable, compact and secure containment of the wound material while preventing external damage, destructive bending, kinking, flattening or tangling of the material and allowing controllable winding and unwinding of said material. The channel can be made of a lengthwise split flexible tube, a formed sheet of plastic or preferably from single split corrugated plastic drainage pipe. The ends can be joined with a sleeve coupling, welded, riveted, stapled or glued. Being of a single piece construction, there are no flanges or joints to break and the reel is free to expand and evenly distribute forces exerted by the wound material. Different size reels are easily manufacturable from different size pipes or different pipe lengths without re-design, re-molding or re-tooling. The opening on the reel can be oriented anywhere on the reel's circumference at the time of manufacture simply by curving the pipe along a different line.

Description

BACKGROUND OF INVENTION [0001] A reel or spool usually comprises of two flanges spaced apart by and sharing a common axis with an intersecting cylindrical barrel. The resulting reel or spool is used to store, transport, receive or dispense linear flexible materials such as wire, hose, rope, or chain which lend themselves to being wound helically and / or over themselves. The spool's main purpose is to provide compact and secure containment of the wound material while preventing destructive bending, kinking, flattening or tangling of the material and allowing controllable winding and unwinding of said material. [0002] The standard approach to reel design is a one-piece, two-piece or three-piece assembly of the two flanges and barrel. In most designs the barrel and flanges are rigid yet full of holes to minimize weight. The flanges are relatively thin discs which extend radially and orthogonally from the barrel ends and are subject to breakage and chipping along their circumferences bec...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

"The present invention is a new type of reel made from a split corrugated pipe or flexible tube that solves problems associated with traditional flange and barrel reels. The reel is easy to manufacture, flexible, lightweight, and secure. It can be used as a garden hose reel and is recyclable. The slit opening on the reel allows for easy winding of material and prevents it from unraveling. The reel is also decorative and can be printed on. The technical effects of this invention include improved manufacturing, flexibility, durability, and ease of use."

Problems solved by technology

The flanges are relatively thin discs which extend radially and orthogonally from the barrel ends and are subject to breakage and chipping along their circumferences because of their exposure.

Too small a diameter will kink and / or flatten the wound material, severely weaken the reel at the flange to barrel joints and slow winding.

Hence, most reels enclose a significant amount of wasted space because the reel diameter is usually a significant percentage of the flange diameter.

Large flanges need to be stronger which generally means the weight and cost of the reel increases.

This makes reels bulky, squarish and difficult to carry.

Currently, there is no reel design which satisfies these criteria.

In cold weather, air hoses kink and loop and are difficult to manage if wound on a reel with a small diameter barrel.

This makes for all kinds of problems with twisted, tangled and unraveling bundles.

The bulkiness of reels also extends into their storage and shipment.

This is a big problem for one-piece reels but two and three piece reels can be assembled on site which greatly saves on storage space.

However, because flanges cannot be adjusted once in storage, reel capacity is usually increased by adjusting the barrel length.

Increasing the barrel length also increases the exposure of the wound material to external dirt and damaging blows.

Another disadvantage to the prior art is that holes are placed on the flange extremities through which the end of the wound material is fixed to prevent unraveling.

This is as cumbersome as threading a needle and since the wound material cannot cover the hole, space is again wasted on the reel.

Another disadvantage to the prior art is that reels made of differing materials are difficult to recycle.

Hence, many end up in landfills where their bulky nature takes up an inordinate amount of space.

Garden hose reels sold in hardware stores take up an inordinate amount of valuable shelf space because of their bulkiness.

They are also quite expensive yet fragile when compared to ordinary reels.

This requires bending over in an uncomfortable and backbreaking position in order to reel in the hose.

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