Balance Windshield Guide Rail Design for Smooth Door Operation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing windshield designs for balances face challenges with friction and wobbling of opening and closing doors, leading to difficult sliding and increased friction, which complicates cleaning and affects the sealability of the weighing chamber.
Innovation Solution
The windshield features guide rails formed of horizontal and vertical portions without grooves, allowing for easy cleaning and preventing dust accumulation. Restricting members are used to prevent the lower ends of the opening and closing doors from wobbling, ensuring smooth movement and reducing friction.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If a groove is provided in the guide rail to guide the lower end of the opening and closing door, then the door movement is guided, but dust and specimen accumulate in the groove making cleaning difficult and obstructing smooth operation
Solution Approach 1:
The invention removes the groove structure from the guide rail, extracting the problematic feature that caused dust and specimen accumulation. The guide rail is redesigned to have a flat surface without grooves, eliminating the cleaning difficulty while maintaining door guidance through a different mechanism (contact with the lower surface of the guide rail).
2Reliability
If the lower inner side surface of the opening and closing door is always in close contact with the boundary end portion by biasing torque, then the closed space is defined, but friction becomes great making smooth sliding difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The invention applies local quality by providing a smooth, low-friction surface specifically at the contact area between the door's lower inner side surface and the guide rail's boundary end portion. This localized surface treatment maintains the necessary contact for sealability while reducing friction in the sliding area, allowing smooth operation without compromising the closed space definition.
3Ease of operation
If the lower end of the opening and closing door is free in the thickness direction, then the door can move freely, but the door wobbles during movement impairing sealability
Solution Approach 1:
The invention constrains the door's movement to a specific plane by providing guide rails that prevent displacement in the thickness direction. The guide structure ensures the door moves only along the intended sliding path, eliminating wobble while maintaining smooth movement. This dimensional constraint is achieved through the guide rail geometry that contacts the door at strategic points.
Data Source
AI summary
Provided is a windshield for a balance, for which opening and closing doors of the windshield are smoothly moved without wobbling, dust or the like is unlikely to accumulate on the part of guide rails that guide the opening and closing doors, and cleaning is easy. Upper portions of the pair of opening and closing doors of the windshield are respectively suspended by upper frames provided along respective side portions of an upper surface door, and the opening and closing doors are reciprocated by air cylinders by being guided by guide rails each formed of a horizontal portion and a vertical portion. On the respective horizontal portions, projections that restrict lower ends of the respective opening and closing doors from being displaced in separating directions from the vertical portions are provided along movement paths of the respective opening and closing doors.