Dispenser Assembly With Deflectable Projections For Lid Separation
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing lid dispensers fail to maintain sanitary conditions, protect lids from contamination, and ensure efficient, damage-free separation of lids, often requiring complex mechanisms and tools for operation and maintenance.
Innovation Solution
A dispenser assembly featuring a tube with a pressure plate and movable door assembly, including deflectable projections to facilitate the sequential and sanitary dispensing of individual lids, ensuring separation without damaging the lids or the stack, and allowing intuitive operation with inexpensive materials.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If lids are substantially exposed to the environment in vertical or horizontal arrangements with wide access slots, then ease of operation is improved, but sanitary conditions deteriorate and lids are susceptible to contamination
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs a flexible membrane that forms a sealed barrier over the lid storage chamber, allowing only controlled extraction through a narrow slot. This flexible film maintains sanitary sealing while permitting operational access, resolving the contradiction between exposure and contamination protection.
Solution Approach 2:
The narrow extraction slot acts as an intermediary element between the user and the lid stack. It provides controlled access while maintaining the seal, serving as a mediator that enables operation without compromising sanitary conditions through direct exposure.
2Ease of operation
If tube configurations have wide elongated openings for lid extraction, then ease of operation is improved, but lid integrity deteriorates due to flexure and rotation during removal
Solution Approach 1:
The flexible membrane creates a constrained extraction path that limits lid flexure and rotation. The membrane's properties allow controlled passage while maintaining lid integrity, preventing damage during removal through the narrow slot.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the extraction slot dimensions to a narrow configuration that constrains lid movement parameters. This dimensional change limits the degree of flexure and rotation during extraction, preserving lid integrity while still enabling removal.
3Manufacturing precision
If dispenser assemblies use complex moving parts to grasp and separate lids, then lid separation precision is improved, but device complexity increases and susceptibility to vandalism increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the complex grasping and separation mechanisms from the dispenser assembly. Instead of using moving parts to grasp and separate lids, the design relies on the structural configuration of the narrow slot and flexible membrane to naturally guide and separate lids during extraction, reducing device complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The dispenser assembly uses the user's extraction action itself to achieve lid separation, rather than requiring separate grasping and separation mechanisms. The narrow slot configuration causes automatic separation as the lid is pulled through, making the system self-servicing and reducing mechanical complexity.
4Ease of operation
If dispenser assemblies provide wide access openings for lid removal, then ease of operation is improved, but reliability deteriorates due to inadvertent concurrent extraction of multiple lids
Solution Approach 1:
The flexible membrane creates a seal that maintains contact with the lid stack, ensuring that only one lid can be extracted at a time. The membrane's flexibility allows it to conform to the lid edges, preventing concurrent extraction while still permitting smooth sequential removal.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the extraction slot width parameter to a narrow dimension that physically prevents multiple lids from being extracted simultaneously. This parameter change ensures reliable sequential dispensing by making concurrent extraction mechanically impossible while maintaining ease of single-lid removal.
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 cost-effective, intuitive, and sanitary method for dispensing lids, ensuring repeatable and non-damaging separation, maintaining lid integrity and reducing the risk of contamination and user interaction issues.
Implementation Method 1
A plurality of deflectable projections extend across the extraction gap and operate to ensure separation of a discrete lid from the remainder of the stack of lids during each extraction event
Implementation Method 2
The dispenser assembly is generally defined by a tube, a pressure plate assembly and a door assembly
Data Source
AI summary
An assembly and method of forming a disposable container lid dispenser assembly and which is constructed to sequentially dispense respective container lids from a stack of container lids housed in the dispenser assembly. The dispenser assembly is generally defined by a tube, a pressure plate assembly and a door assembly. The door assembly is movable relative to the tube to allow loading of the tube with a stack of lids and supports a cover that is moveable relative to a door. The door and cover cooperate with one another to define an extraction gap shaped to allow manual extraction of a discrete lid from the stack of lids contained in the dispenser assembly. A plurality of deflectable projections extend across the extraction gap and operate to ensure separation of discrete lid from the remainder of the stack of lids during each extraction event.