Epilation Head Movable Clamping Units Skin Contact Area

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing epilation devices are inefficient and painful, especially for areas with thick hair growth, as they require multiple clamping elements and complex mechanisms, which increase time, effort, and discomfort during the hair removal process.

Innovation Solution

A motor-driven epilation head with a rotating cylinder featuring movable and stationary clamping elements that form multiple plucking gaps, where the movable clamping units have a large skin-contacting surface area, allowing for efficient and painless hair removal by utilizing a compact design and self-amplifying clamping force, enabling effective epilation on both thick and sparse hair growth areas.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Productivity

If multiple clamping elements are arranged on a rotation cylinder to handle thick hair growth, then the epilation effectiveness is improved, but the device complexity and time required increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveepilation effectivenessVSAvoidmechanism complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
ProductivityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent combines multiple clamping elements (first, second, and third clamping elements) into a single integrated rotation cylinder assembly, where they operate simultaneously to grasp and pluck multiple hairs in one rotational cycle, thereby improving epilation effectiveness without proportionally increasing device complexity

Inventive Principle:
Principle #5Merging (Combining)

Solution Approach 2:

The rotation cylinder is segmented into distinct functional zones with multiple independent clamping elements arranged at different positions, allowing each element to independently grasp and pluck hairs while working in parallel, thus increasing productivity without requiring a proportionally complex control mechanism

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

2Productivity

If a large number of clamping elements are used to handle thick hair growth, then the epilation thoroughness is improved, but the time and effort required increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveepilation thoroughnessVSAvoidepilation time
Core Design Contradiction:
ProductivityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The rotation cylinder enables continuous epilation action by maintaining multiple clamping elements in constant rotational motion, where each element continuously grasps, plucks, and releases hairs in an unbroken cycle, eliminating idle time between plucking actions and significantly reducing total epilation time

Inventive Principle:
Principle #20Continuity of useful action

Solution Approach 2:

The clamping elements are pre-positioned and pre-tensioned on the rotation cylinder before contact with the skin, allowing them to immediately grasp hairs upon contact without requiring additional adjustment or preparation time during the epilation process

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

3Ease of operation

If the skin contacting surface area of movable clamping units is increased, then user comfort is improved, but the device size increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveuser comfortVSAvoiddevice size
Core Design Contradiction:
Ease of operationVSVolume of moving object

Solution Approach 1:

The patent utilizes the rotational dimension of the cylinder to distribute multiple clamping elements around the circumference, allowing each element to have adequate skin-contacting surface area while the overall device diameter remains compact, effectively adding a dimensional solution to the surface area constraint

Inventive Principle:
Principle #17Another dimension (Dimensionality change)

Data Source

PatentEP2471404B1Novel tweezer arrangement for an epilation head
Publication Date: 2018.06.27 BRAUN GMBH
  • EP2471404B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP2471404B1 patent drawingFigure 2~3
  • EP2471404B1 patent drawingFigure 4~5

AI summary

The invention relates to an epilation head (3) for an epilation device (1), in particular for plucking hair from human skin having a rotating cylinder (5) and rotating around a rotational axis (20), the rotating cylinder (5) having a number of plucking units for grasping and plucking out hair and having a skin oriented surface (10), wherein each plucking unit comprises a movable clamping unit (12), a stationary clamping unit (13), wherein the movable clamping unit (12) and the stationary clamping unit (13) form a closable plucking gap (16) and characterized in that the movable clamping units (12) have a skin contacting surface and the total area of the skin contacting surfaces of the movable clamping units (12) is greater than 5% of the area of the skin oriented surface.