AU623707B2 - Improvements relating to connectors - Google Patents

Description

COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA Form Patents Act 1952-1969 COMPLETE SPECIFICATION

(ORIGINAL)

FOR OFFICE USE: 623707 Clas, Int. Class Application No Lodged I r Complete Application No Specification Lodged Published Priority: Related art: n TO BE COMPLETED BY APPLICANT 9 Name of Applicant: Address of Applicant: Actual Inventor: Address for Service: L.C.F. Higgins, 7 The Parade, Norwood, State of South Australia, Commonwealth of Australia STEPHEN BERNARD NICHOLAS Care of COLLISON CO., 117 King William Street, Adelaide, South Australia, 5000 MAGNOR PTY. LIMITED Complete Specification for the invention entitled: IMPROVEMENTS RELATING TO CONNECTORS The following statements is a full description of this invention, including the best method of performing it known to us: 04/12/09 -a This invention relates to connectors.

It is well known to provide an interconnection between a hollow member and a second member which extends thereinto by having a resiliently outwardly extending finger or fingers interengaging with apertures through a wall of the said first member.

One of the problems with such an arrangement arises when the members are to be disengaged ond the protruding fingers are to be depressed into a non-interlocking position.

This is normally achieved by manually pushing the fingers through the 15 aperture in the outer wall and then pulling the two members apart while such depression is maintained.

Such a technique is essentially only useful with very thin walled members and even then it is a very awkward and, on many occasions, an 20 uncomfortable action.

This type of technique has particular application where a handle is to be connectod to a useful head, for instance a long handle is secured to a head having a filtering net which might be useful for extracting leaves or other debris from a swimming pool.

The problem here is that such an arrangement will be constantly dipped into water and will therefore be consistently subject to high potential for corrosion and of course lock up of the relevant parts.

There is provided according to the invention an arrangement for providing for interconnection of a hollow end of a handle, the arrangement including a connector which includes a detent and a detent operator, the detent being resiliently supported with respect to a body of the connector and adapted in an interlocked position to interlock with an aperture within a wall of the hollow end of the handle, and the detent being spaced apart from the detent operator and connected to said detent operator by an interconnecting arm such that depression of the said detent operator will effect release of the said i _1 i detent from the interlocked position, said detent, the interconnecting arm and the detent operator being integrally formed and each of the detent operators is a second detent being adapted to pass through an aperture within the wall of the connector body.

The advantage of this arrangement is that the detent operator can be located in a position most appropriate for manual depression and this can be spaced away from any interlocking relationship with a handle to be connected.

1 0 Accordingly, there can be much more certainty of full depression of the said detent which will then assist in easy removal.

According to a further form of this invention the connector body comprises, a io hollow member adapted at one end to interconnect with the hollow end of 0 a 1 5 the handle, two interconnecting arms resiliently connected together so as to effect an outward resilient force and being located within the connector body, a pair of detents oppositely located, one located on one interconnecting arm and the other on the other interconnecting arm and each of said detents adapted to extend through the wall of the hollow connector body, the hollow 20 end of the handle having oppositely located apertures through the wall adapted to coincide with the said pair of detents, and a pair of detent operators oppositely located, one of th.a detent operator located on a first of the interconnecting arms and a second located on a second of the interconnecting arms, the said pair of detent operators being separately 25 spaced from such interconnected handle.

The invention will be better understood when referred to a preferred embodiment which shall be described with the assistance of drawings in which: FIG. 1 is a plan view of a connector showing an interconnecting position with a handle shown in cross-section, FIG. 2 is a perspective view from a first side of the connectors which is the same connector as shown in FIG. 1, FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the same connector as in FIGS. 1 and 2 from "pOo1pposite side from that shown in FIG. 2, M- u rr 4 FIG. 4 is a side elevation of the same connector, FIG. 5 is a plan view of the same connector, FIG. 6 is an end view from a first end, and FIG. 7 is an end view from the second end of the connector.

Referring in detail to the drawings, the connector is Ade from two separable 1 0 parts, each of which is manufactured from plastics material such as PVC, the two parts being the body 1 and the other part being a detent support arrangement 2.

C C It C (C I t 2 C1 ,.t

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C CC aa a a 00 0orr The body 1 of the connector includes a rear cylindrical part 3 which can engage the hollow end 4 of a handle 5 with slideable freedom.

The body 1 further includes outermost end arms 6 and 7 to which a scoop or other implement dan be attached in a conventional pivotal way by, for instance, mutually aligned pins passing thorough apertures 8 and 9.

The sides 10 of the body 1 are outwardly inclined from the cylindrical part r so that this spreads out from the narrow cylindrical part.

The detent support assembly 2 is a separable member which is comprised of integrally moulded arms 11 and 12 which are joined together at apex 13 in such a way that there can be maintained a resilient interconnection between these and so that there is an outward resilient pressure on firstly the two detents 14 and 15 and then the said pair of detent operators 16 and 17.

The said first pair of detents 14 and 15 are adapted to interengage with mutually located apertures 18 and 19 in the wall of the hollow end of the handle The feature of this invention is, of course, that there can be separate means by which the said first pair of detents 14 and 15 can be withdrawn from interengaging relationship with the apertures 18 and 19 and this is achieved by the pair of detent operators 16 and 17 being secured to the respectively same i i. i arms to which the detents 14 and 15 are attached.

There is, however, a correspondingly longer length of the detent operators 16 and 17 so as to allow for the greater travel necessary because of the lever arm length from the effective pivot point 13 which is, of course, the apex of the respective arms 11 and 12 so that in this way a person can manually press together the detent operators 16 and 17 pushing these through the respective apertures in the wall of the body 1 and this will have the result of providing very easy means for fully depressing the detents 14 and 15 and allowing freely 1 0 available removal of the handle The fact that the member 2 is made from plastics material and is an integral part provides firstly very low maintenance problems and secondly means that the part can be made at very economic cost and it can be fitted by simply compressing the two detent operators 16 and 17 very closely together and then feeding these into the position as shown.

It has been found useful to provide locating legs 20 and 21 which simply S engage against tha sides of the inner wall of the body 1 so as to keep the pivot 0 0 4 "2 0 connection 13, that is the apex of the two arms 11 and 12, reasonably central S.o which ensures that when the two detent operators 16 and 17 are fully repressed and pulled back through the respective walls of the corresponding apertures in these walls of the body 1.

o 25: This then describes the preferred embodiment from which it will be seen that in 0 00 0 o' a very convenient and economic manner, there can be provided a very economic and long lasting connector which has the advantage of being able to S°0 be more easily usable by users.

U 0 o 3 Throughout this specification the purpose has been to illustrate the invention Al and not to limit this.

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Claims (7)

1. An arrangement for providing for interconnection of a hollow end of a handle, the arrangement including a connector which includes a detent and a detent operator, the detent being resiliently supported with respect to a body of the connector and adapted in an interlocked position to interlock with an aperture within a wall of the hollow end of the handle, and the detent being spaced apart from the detent operator and connected to said detent 1 0 operator by an interconnecting arm such that depression of the said detent operator will effect release of the said detent from the interlocked position, said detent, the interconnecting arm and the detent operator being integrally formed and each of the detent operators is a second detent being adapted to pass through an aperture within a wall of the connector body. or o so a on 0 0 0o 0o 0 0 0 oa ae o a a o o o a a 00o o o 3 a o oo 6 o a« o o 25 o oo aa a o o o o e o a 0° 0 o o or 30

2. An arrangement as in claim I wherein the connector body comprises, a hollow member adapted at one end to interconnect with the hollow end of the handle, two interconnecting arms resiliently connected together so as to effect an outward resilient force and being located within the connector body, a pair of detents oppositely located, one located on one interconnecting arm and the other on the other interconnecting arm and each of said detents adapted to extend through the wall of the connector body, the wall of the hollow end of the handle having oppositely located apertures therethrough adapted to coincide with the said pair of detents, and a pair of detent operators oppositely located, one of the detent operator located on a first of the interconnecting arms and a second located on a second of the interconnecting arms, the said pair of detent operators being spaced apart from such interconnected handle.

3. An arrangement as in either claim 1 or 2 wherein the hollow member has a substantially cylindrical shaped part at one end adapted to interconnect with a hollow cylindrically shaped end of the handle.

4. An arrangement as in any one of the preceding claims wherein 3 5 said two interconnecting arms are joined at one end to form a V-shaped body, and two legs extend outwardly and oppositely to each other frcm the V-shaped body and proximal to the apex of the V-shaped body into opposite oTrsites in the wall of the connector body so as to locate the arms within the connector body.

An arrangement as in any one of the preceding claims wherein the connector is of plastics material.

6. An arrangement as in the preceding claim wherein the plastics material is a PVC.

7. An arrangement for providing for interconnection of a hollow end of a handle substantially as described in the specification with reference to the figures. CI Cr C 1 CC CI 'II I SI Dated this 8th day of January 1992 MAGNOR PTY LIMITED By their Patent Attorneys COLLISON CO 'U' 0 0-I I C-1 i F