Bird Drinking Trough Lever-Piston Assembly for Adjustable Water Flow
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing drinking troughs for breeding birds struggle to adapt to varying water requirements across different growth stages, are difficult to adjust, and require precise assembly, leading to inefficiencies and inconsistencies in water delivery.
Innovation Solution
An automatic drinking trough with a drive assembly featuring a movable piston and lever member with a concave-convex geometry, allowing for increased axial movement of the valve plug, enabling adjustable water flow and easy assembly.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a bowl and pendulum-lever system are added to satisfy adult turkey drinking needs, then water delivery capability is improved, but device complexity and assembly difficulty increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines the bowl and pendulum-lever system into a single pre-assembled unit that attaches to the PVC pipe as one integrated component. This merging eliminates the need for separate assembly of multiple parts on-site, reducing assembly complexity while maintaining the enhanced water delivery capability for adult turkeys.
Solution Approach 2:
The bowl and pendulum-lever system are pre-assembled together before delivery to the customer. This preliminary assembly action ensures proper configuration and reduces on-site assembly complexity, allowing unskilled personnel to simply attach the pre-configured unit to the pipe without dealing with complex multi-step assembly procedures.
2Productivity
If delivery valves are threaded onto rigid PVC pipes with automatic machines, then manufacturing efficiency is improved, but assembly precision and water level control deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an adjustable mechanism that allows the valve position and water delivery parameters to be modified after initial assembly. This enables compensation for positioning variations introduced by automatic threading machines, maintaining water level control precision despite the high-speed automated assembly process.
Solution Approach 2:
The system incorporates adjustable components that can be modified post-assembly to fine-tune valve positioning and water flow characteristics. This dynamic adjustment capability compensates for the lack of precision in automated threading, ensuring proper water levels are achieved despite variations in machine assembly tolerance.
3Ease of manufacture
If bowls and pendulum-lever systems are assembled separately and then coupled to pipes, then logistics and storage are improved, but on-site assembly difficulty and time increase
Solution Approach 1:
The bowl and pendulum-lever system are merged into a single pre-assembled unit that can be logistics-optimized and stored as one component. This eliminates the need to handle and assemble multiple separate parts on-site, reducing assembly time and complexity while maintaining the logistics efficiency of separate shipping of components to the customer.
Solution Approach 2:
The complex coupling of the bowl and pendulum-lever system to the pipe is performed as a preliminary action during manufacturing rather than on-site. This preliminary assembly reduces on-site installation time and complexity, allowing unskilled personnel to complete the installation quickly by simply attaching the pre-configured unit to the pipe.
4Measurement precision
If the swing range of the drive element is confined to a narrow angle, then valve control precision is improved, but water flow rate adjustability deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an adjustable mechanism that allows the drive element's swing range and leverage ratio to be modified based on the animals' growth stage. This dynamic adjustment capability enables the system to maintain precise valve control for chicks while achieving greater water flow rates for adult animals, resolving the contradiction between control precision and flow adjustability.
Solution Approach 2:
The system allows changes in operational parameters such as drive element swing angle and leverage ratio to adapt to different growth stages. This parameter adjustment capability enables the same basic mechanism to provide both precise control for small animals and high flow rates for large animals, eliminating the need for different systems at different stages.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution provides a wider range of water flow adjustment, ensuring consistent water delivery throughout an animal's life cycle and simplifies installation, even for unskilled personnel, while compensating for mounting tolerances.
Implementation Method 1
a movable piston placed between the stem and the lever member to move the plug between a position for intercepting and a position for delivering the flow of water depending on the inclination taken by the lever member
Implementation Method 2
The particular coupling with concave-convex geometry between the head portion of the lever member and the base portion of the cylinder exerts an effect of the 'cam' type which further extends the vertical movement of the piston
Data Source
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AI summary
An automatic drinking trough (10) for breeding birds, comprising valve means (30) arranged along a water supply channel (12) and at least one bowl (20) for collecting the water delivered through the valve means, is described. The drinking trough further comprises a drive assembly (40) having a lever member (41) and a tubular actuator (50) integral with the lever member, suspended at the center of the bowl (20). A movable piston (51) is placed between the valve means (30) and the lever member (41) in the drive assembly (40) for intercepting or delivering the flow of water depending on the inclination taken by the lever member (41).