Eye Cup Dropper Assembly for Accurate, Low-Contamination Eye Delivery
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing eye drop dispensers struggle with accurate delivery, often miss the eye and contaminate the dispenser tip, leading to waste and potential infections, especially for children, elderly, and those with hand tremors.
Innovation Solution
A dispenser assembly with an eye cup and nipple design that aligns with the eye socket, preventing contact and contamination, and includes a cap to seal the nipple, ensuring precise delivery.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If existing eye drop dispensers are used, then the dispenser structure is simple, but the delivery accuracy is poor and contamination risk increases
Solution Approach 1:
An eye cup is introduced as an intermediary component between the dispenser tip and the user's eye. The eye cup acts as a mediator that guides the eye drop delivery and prevents direct contact between the dispenser tip and the eye, thereby improving delivery accuracy while reducing contamination risk without significantly complicating the overall dispenser structure.
Solution Approach 2:
The dispenser is divided into distinct functional components: the dispenser body, the eye cup, and the cap. This segmentation allows each component to perform its specific function optimally - the eye cup for accurate delivery and contamination prevention, the cap for sealing and protection - while maintaining overall structural simplicity through modular design.
2Reliability
If existing eye drop dispensers are used, then the dispenser is easy to manufacture, but contamination and waste increase
Solution Approach 1:
The eye cup serves as a protective intermediary that prevents direct contact between the dispenser tip and the user's eye or surrounding surfaces. This intermediary barrier significantly reduces the risk of bacterial contamination and subsequent eye infections, while the simple cup-shaped design keeps manufacturing complexity minimal.
Solution Approach 2:
The eye cup design enables the user to self-position the dispenser correctly over the eye without requiring precise manual dexterity. The cup's shape naturally guides alignment, reducing the need for complex adjustment mechanisms and maintaining ease of manufacture while improving reliability.
3Productivity
If existing eye drop dispensers are used, then the dispenser design is simple, but multiple attempts are needed increasing time consumption
Solution Approach 1:
The eye cup acts as a guiding intermediary that ensures accurate positioning of the dispenser tip over the eye on the first attempt. By providing a physical guide structure, it eliminates the need for multiple adjustment attempts, thereby improving administration efficiency without adding significant design complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The eye cup is pre-positioned on the dispenser before use, establishing the correct delivery path and target area in advance. This preliminary setup ensures that when the user applies the dispenser, the eye drop is delivered accurately to the eye on the first attempt, reducing time consumption without requiring complex real-time adjustment mechanisms.
4Ease of operation
If existing eye drop dispensers are used, then the dispenser structure is straightforward, but hand tremors exacerbate delivery difficulty
Solution Approach 1:
The eye cup serves as a stabilizing intermediary that compensates for hand tremors. By providing a larger, more stable base structure that rests on or near the eye, the eye cup creates a steadier platform for drop delivery, reducing the impact of hand shaking without requiring complex stabilization mechanisms.
Solution Approach 2:
The eye cup extends the interaction from a simple tip-to-eye contact in one dimension to a broader contact area in multiple dimensions. The cup's circumferential structure provides additional contact points and stability, making the dispenser more forgiving of hand tremors and improving ease of operation for users with neurological conditions.
Data Source
AI summary
A dispenser assembly includes a dispenser bottle having a nipple for dispensing a solution (e.g., eye drop solution, eye wash solution, eye lid cleaner and/or wash solution), and a cap removably couplable to the dispenser bottle over the nipple. The dispenser bottle has a chamber that removably receives a single-use vial cartridge. An eye cup is fixedly coupled to the dispenser bottle around the nipple, or the eye cup is detachable and invertible relative to the dispenser bottle. The eye cup can be supported on or rest on the periphery of the eye socket to facilitate delivery of the solution onto or over a user's eye.