Push-Push Sealable Lid With Toggle Cam Mechanism
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing containers with sealable lids face difficulties in securing and removing the lids easily, often requiring significant force and can be prone to latch failure, leading to the need for new containers and increased costs.
Innovation Solution
A food storage container design featuring a toggle mechanism with heart-shaped cam surfaces and a button that shifts between compressed and uncompressed positions, allowing for easy sealing and unsealing with a push-push operation, utilizing a bias structure like a coil spring to facilitate one-handed operation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a snap-fit or friction-fit lid is used to form a seal with the container, then a seal is formed to maintain freshness, but the lid becomes difficult to stretch and secure and difficult to remove due to tight friction fit
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs a dynamic latch mechanism with cam surfaces that transition between locked and unlocked positions. The cam surfaces convert rotational motion into linear displacement, dynamically adjusting the seal engagement force. This allows the seal to maintain high engagement force for reliability while enabling easy release through minimal rotational input, resolving the contradiction between seal quality and ease of operation.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a latch mechanism with cam surfaces as an intermediary between the user's manual input and the seal engagement. This intermediary mechanism amplifies the user's input force and transforms it into controlled seal engagement or release, making it easier to secure and remove the lid while maintaining reliable sealing when engaged.
2Reliability
If latches are used to engage the container and hold the lid on, then the lid can be securely held, but if the latches break or stop working properly, a new cover and possibly a new container must be purchased, costing consumers additional time and money
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the lid assembly into modular components including the latch mechanism, cam surfaces, and seal elements. This segmentation allows individual components to be replaced independently if they wear or break, rather than replacing the entire lid or container assembly, thereby reducing replacement costs and time while maintaining reliable engagement.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent designs the latch mechanism with replaceable wear components such as the cam surfaces and seal elements. When these components wear or break, only the specific worn components need to be discarded and replaced, while the main lid structure is recovered and reused, minimizing waste and replacement costs.
3Reliability
If a tight friction fit is used to secure the lid, then a sufficient seal is formed, but significant force is required to secure and remove the lid, increasing user effort
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs cam surfaces with curved geometries that convert small rotational movements into large linear displacements of the seal. The curved cam surfaces create a mechanical advantage, allowing minimal user force applied during rotation to generate sufficient seal engagement force, and similarly enabling easy release with minimal force while maintaining seal integrity when engaged.
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 design enables easy connection and removal of the lid from the container, ensuring a secure seal to maintain freshness while minimizing the need for frequent replacements and reducing user effort.
Implementation Method 1
The bias structure includes a spring operable to bias the button to the up position
Data Source
AI summary
A storage container including a housing having an open-top wall structure defining a receptacle for receiving material to be stored. The container includes a cover disposable on the housing in a closed position relative to the receptacle. A button is movably carried by the cover and a seal. The seal is carried by the cover and shiftable between a compressed condition for sealingly engaging the wall structure when the cover is disposed in the closed position, and an uncompressed condition for disengaging from the wall structure. The container also includes a toggle mechanism coupled to the button and to the seal for effecting movement of the seal to its compressed and uncompressed conditions respectively in response to alternate actuations of the button.