Equipped balancing jacket
An equipped balancing jacket comprising a stiff back housing (1), a first stage pressure (101) reducer connected to at least one compressed air tank, said first stage pressure reducer being in turn connected by means of a low pressure hose (LP) to a first distributor (3) (12), said first distributor being in turn connected by lines coming out from said first distributor with a plurality of outlets (13, 14) characterized in that the stiff back housing has a cavity, the internal surface of the cavity has a grooved guide (15) and the distributor (12) is engaged with this guide and in use moves trough it.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,287,053 filed on Feb. 23, 1999 and issued on Sep. 11, 2001 to the same Assignee, an equipped balancing jacket is described including a stiff back containing a first stage reducer, connected by lines to a high and low pressure distributor, which are connected by hose connections to various equipment. The jacket further includes exhaust valves with pneumatic or mechanical control, a manual emergency control and a mouth inflation device.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,749,369, filed on Jan. 31, 2002 and published on Jun. 15, 2004 to the same Assignee, some improvements to the device forming the object of the above mentioned patent are described, which more particularly relate to a new simplified circuit for the feeding of air at low and high pressure. Such equipped balancing jacket foresees two embodiments, one involving the use of an intermediate low pressure dispenser, while in the other the intermediate dispenser is eliminated. In both embodiments, the high pressure air does not pass through the intermediate dispenser as in U.S. Pat. No. 6,287,053, but instead is connected directly to the usage. The first dispenser, which is a low pressure dispenser, is fasten at and is housed in the internal cavity of the jacket stiff-back, whereas the connection between the first stage reducer which is connected to the bottle and the first dispenser of the low pressure line is made by a flexible hose.
The equipped balancing jackets are tailored for holding air-bottle of different sizes either in height or in diameter. The length of the flexible hose which connects the first distributor of the low pressure line to the first stage reducer has to have different lengths for better adapting to the sizes of the air-bottle hold on the jacket stiff-back.
By recovering the jacket when the reducer not connected to the air-bottle, it is advisable to protect the reducer by recovering and fastening it into a jacket docking slot and by housing the low pressure hose inside the cavity shaped inside the jacket stiff-back in order to reduce the damages to the reducer during transportation. To this extent the connecting hose his putted away into the cavity shaped inside the jacket stiff back. This procedure results more difficult as a function of the stiffness of the hose material. For this reason some hoses made of material which although are flexible show plastic deformation at particularly low curve-radius have been cast off.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONThe present invention has as object some improvements to the device forming the object of the above mentioned patents, which solve the problems posed. More particularly, the present invention relates to a new simplified fixing system engaging the low pressure distributor and the back of the equipped balancing jacket. The equipped balancing jacket comprising a stiff back housing, a first stage pressure reducer connected to at least one compressed air tank or bottle, said first stage pressure reducer being in turn connected by means of a low pressure hose (LP) to a first distributor, said first distributor being in turn connected by lines coming out of said first distributor with a plurality of outlets characterized in that the stiff back housing has a cavity, the internal surface of the cavity has a grooved guide and the distributor is engaged with this guide and in use moves through it.
Other preferred embodiments of the invention are described in the dependent claims. Due to this features the whole system balancing jacket including the stiff back and first stage reducer show more flexibility especially when the system is put away.
These features and advantages of the present invention
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGSThe invention will be now better described with reference to the enclosed drawings, where:
With reference to the drawings and with particular reference to
The stiff-back comprises a hollow part made by coupling two shells, one so-called internal, which adapts to the shoulders of the diver, and one so-called external where the air-bottle is fixed on his external convex seat.
The connecting hose between the first-stage reducer and the distributor is housed within the hollow part made inside the stiff-back of the jacket. The
When the distributor (12) is at the lower dead end, the protrusion (16) of the distributor and the protrusion (17) on the guide are engaged each other, see
The stripe (18) has to be pushed, therefore lowered, to allow the releasing of the distributor which otherwise could not shift towards the upper part of the cavivity. Further, the stripe (18) sticks out from the matching area (19) of the jacket-back on the air bottle such that in the case the diver forgives to release the distributor (12) before mounting the jacket on the air bottle, the distributor is automatically released, because the stripe which sticks out from the external surface of the back is pushed during the fixing of the air-bottle on the stiff-back of the jacket.
In
The functioning of the apparatus is as follows: with reference to
Accordingly to the embodiments of
Claims
1. An equipped balancing jacket comprising a stiff back housing (1), a first stage pressure (101) reducer connected to at least one compressed air tank, said first stage pressure reducer being in turn connected by means of a low pressure hose (LP) to a first distributor (3) (12), said first distributor being in turn connected by lines coming out from said first distributor with a plurality of outlets (13, 14) characterized in that the stiff back housing has a cavity, the internal surface of the cavity has a grooved guide (15) and the distributor (12) is engaged with this guide and in use moves trough it.
2. The balancing jacket according to claim 1, wherein the guide is vertical and the distributor (12) has a protrusion (16) of profile corresponding to the groove of the guide (15) such as to allow only the vertical movement.
3. The balancing jacket according to claim 2, wherein the inside of the guide (15) has in his lower part a protrusion (17) and below the protrusion (17) the guide continues on a vertical stripe (18) attached to the lower part of the stiff back (5).
4. The balancing jacket according to claim 3, wherein on the external upper part of the stripe (18), corresponding to the docking station of the air tank, there is a protuberance (20).
5. The balancing jacket according to claim 4, wherein the length of the hose (10) is such that no bending is present with the reducer in transportation position and the reducer hooked to the protrusion (17).
6. The balancing jacket according to claim 5, wherein the length of the hose (10) and the length between of the guide (15) between the lower end (C) and the upper end (D) is such that the hose is sufficiently to connect the reducer to the air-tank.
7. The balancing jacket according to claim 6, wherein the low pressure hove is made of flexible thermoplastic material.
Type: Application
Filed: Nov 30, 2004
Publication Date: Jun 9, 2005
Inventor: Gabriele Canella (Rapallo)
Application Number: 11/000,169