Display Bar Assembly With Captive Brackets for Slotted Uprights
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing merchandise display systems suffer from inefficiency and expense due to separable mounting brackets that easily become lost or misplaced when display facilities are reused or stored.
Innovation Solution
A display bar assembly with non-removable mounting brackets, featuring flanged plugs and angularly oriented hooks that securely attach to uprights, ensuring the display bar and brackets remain a unitary assembly, allowing for adjustable orientation and fit with various upright configurations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If mounting brackets are made separable for easy assembly and disassembly, then ease of operation is improved, but reliability deteriorates as brackets become lost or misplaced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines the mounting brackets with the display bar into a single integrated assembly. The brackets are permanently attached to the display bar through formation or attachment processes, ensuring they cannot be separated. This merging eliminates the problem of lost or misplaced brackets while maintaining ease of assembly and disassembly of the entire display unit.
2Reliability
If mounting brackets are made non-removable to prevent loss, then reliability is improved, but ease of operation deteriorates due to inability to separate components
Solution Approach 1:
The mounting brackets are merged with the display bar through permanent attachment methods such as formation during extrusion or subsequent attachment processes. This ensures the brackets remain reliably attached and cannot be lost, while the entire assembly (display bar with integrated brackets) can still be easily assembled and disassembled as a complete unit for storage and reuse.
3Adaptability or versatility
If display bar and brackets are kept as separate components for flexibility, then adaptability is improved, but loss of time increases due to searching for misplaced parts
Solution Approach 1:
By integrating the mounting brackets with the display bar into a single assembly, the patent eliminates the need to search for separate bracket components. The integrated design maintains adaptability through the overall assembly's ability to be assembled and disassembled, while preventing time loss associated with locating misplaced brackets.
Solution Approach 2:
The integrated display bar assembly with permanently attached brackets serves multiple functions: it acts as both the display structure and the mounting mechanism in one unit. This multi-functionality eliminates the need for separate bracket components, reducing assembly complexity and time while maintaining versatility in display configurations.
4Ease of operation
If mounting brackets are made easily separable for storage, then ease of operation is improved, but productivity deteriorates due to inefficiency in managing scattered parts
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the mounting brackets with the display bar into an integrated assembly that can be stored as a single unit. This eliminates the inefficiency of managing scattered bracket parts while maintaining ease of storage, as the complete assembly can be readily stored and retrieved without component separation issues.
Data Source
AI summary
A display bar assembly for mounting on spaced apart slotted uprights on a merchandising gondola or the like. A tubular display bar of polygonal cross section is fitted with a pair of mounting brackets, which are slideable along the bar to enable spacing of the mounting brackets to agree with the spacing between the slotted uprights, which can be somewhat variable. The mounting brackets are formed with openings which closely and non-rotatably receive the display bar and are provided with hooks which engage slots in the uprights. Flanged end plugs are received tightly in each end of the display bar to prevent removal of the slideable brackets, such that the display bar and brackets form a permanent assembly. The mounting brackets may have multiple slot-engaging hooks for installation on uprights of different thicknesses in different rotary positions of the assembly. Where necessary to maintain a predetermined orientation of the display bar, the display bar can be formed with an axially limited portion of reduced cross section, enabling the mounting brackets, when positioned thereat, to be rotationally reoriented relative to the display bar.