Foldable Clothes Horse Locking Mechanism Against Accidental Closure
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing clothes horses, particularly trestle-type folding models, often have complex and potentially dangerous mechanisms for transitioning between folded and open configurations, and lack safety features to prevent accidental closure while in use, posing risks to users and inefficient rack utilization.
Innovation Solution
A foldable trestle-type clothes horse with an automatic opening and locking mechanism using a grooved guide and support rod system, allowing single-handed operation and independent movement of shelves, along with a bayonet coupling for a folding arm, which ensures safe and secure opening and closing without external locking systems and eliminates lower support racks.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If traditional hinge devices and articulated arms are used for folding mechanism, then the clothes horse can transition between folded and open configurations, but the mechanism becomes complicated and potentially dangerous to user's hands
Solution Approach 1:
The patent removes traditional hinge devices and articulated arms from the folding mechanism. Instead, it uses a simplified system where shelves directly engage with support feet through hooks and pins, eliminating the complex intermediate components that posed safety risks to users' hands.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces protection elements (hooks and pins) as intermediary components that mediate the engagement between shelves and support feet. These elements allow the folding action to occur safely without direct contact between user fingers and moving parts, while still enabling the transition between configurations.
2Device complexity
If traditional hinge devices are used without safety systems, then the structure remains simple, but the clothes horse can accidentally close when loaded with clothes
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary anti-action by providing counter-elements (protection elements on support feet and corresponding hooks on shelves) that prevent the harmful effect of accidental closure before it can occur. These elements are pre-positioned to block unintended movement while allowing intentional folding.
3Device complexity
If hooks and pins are made integral with shelf and support foot, then the structure is simplified, but no protection for user's hands is provided
Solution Approach 1:
The patent converts the potentially harmful integral hooks and pins into beneficial protection elements by adding specific geometric features (protruding hooks on shelves, corresponding pins on support feet with protective elements). These same integral components that simplify structure now provide finger protection through their designed geometry that prevents finger insertion while maintaining structural integrity.
Data Source
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AI summary
The invention describes a clothes horse consisting of a foldable structure that comprises at least one support foot, configured to keep said structure firm and stable on the floor in an open or operative configuration of the clothes horse, and at least one shelf in rack form that, in the open configuration of such a clothes horse, is arranged in substantially horizontal position, at a predetermined height with respect to the floor, and in turn comprises a plurality of bars on which the clothes to be dried are arranged. Each shelf is operatively connected to a corresponding support foot through one or more pins that allow the mutual rotation of such a shelf with respect to the corresponding support foot, so that the clothes horse can pass from the open configuration to a folded configuration and vice-versa. The clothes horse comprises, for each side of the relative foldable structure, an articulated opening and closing mechanism, operatively connected to each shelf and to each support foot. The articulated opening and closing mechanism comprises mutual engagement means between each shelf and the corresponding support foot. The mutual engagement means can be actuated manually to take the clothes horse from its open configuration to its folded configuration and vice-versa, as well as to keep such a clothes horse locked in its open configuration.