Brushroll for vacuum cleaner

Abstract

A brushroll for a vacuum cleaner includes a brush dowel having a plurality of bristles and a drive motor within the brush dowel for rotating the brush dowel in a first direction of rotation, wherein an armature and motor shaft of the drive motor counter-rotates in a second direction of rotation.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION(S)[0001]This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62 / 313,439, filed Mar. 25, 2016, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.BACKGROUND[0002]Conventional brushrolls for vacuum cleaners have been driven by an external motor coupled to the brushroll via a drive belt. The external motor may be a dedicated brushroll motor, or may be the same motor used to generate suction force at the suction nozzle inlet opening of the vacuum cleaner.[0003]The conventional belt-driven configuration results in many undesirable effects, including: loss of brushroll rotation due to broken or stretched-out belts, melted end caps, hair wrap in the belt area; reduced or impeded suction in the belt area, intermittent brushing; obstructions in the air path created by the belt and motor; reduced edge cleaning performance; excessive noise; bearing failure due to high belt loads; increased costs necessitated by the motor a...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The invention is about a vacuum cleaner brushroll that has a motor to rotate the brush. The motor has a special design that allows the brush to rotate in two directions. The bristles on the brush are arranged in a way that they can move in different directions, which helps to make the brush more effective at picking up debris.

Problems solved by technology

The conventional belt-driven configuration results in many undesirable effects, including: loss of brushroll rotation due to broken or stretched-out belts, melted end caps, hair wrap in the belt area; reduced or impeded suction in the belt area, intermittent brushing; obstructions in the air path created by the belt and motor; reduced edge cleaning performance; excessive noise; bearing failure due to high belt loads; increased costs necessitated by the motor and belt parts; and frequent and costly repairs.

Attempts have been made in the past to incorporate a DC motor into a brush dowel for a vacuum cleaner (also known as an inside-out motor brush dowel) with limited success.

The key challenges with this motor configuration have been attaining the desired torque and speed necessary for adequate cleaning while maintaining the brush diameter within reasonable dimensional limits so as to introduce minimal impacts on vacuum cleaner foot architecture and performance.

Making the brush dowel an inside-out motor brush dowel with an outer diameter similar to an externally-driven motor has been attempted, but cleaning performance has been less than acceptable because the motor torque is too low and brush speed is too high.

Limited success has been achieved by inserting a fixed permanent magnet foot motor into the dowel and using a planetary gear train to drive the brush.

However, this configuration typically increases the dowel diameter and can cause the brush to run at low speed or with low torque.

An increased brush dowel diameter can enlarge the height of the foot structure including the brush chamber, which can hinder or limit access to confined spaces, such as under cabinet toe kicks and various furniture.

The costs associated with these previously attempted configurations can also be relatively high compared to a conventional externally-driven brush roll configuration.

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