Closure with Hinged Lid
A closure for a container of the kind use to deliver milk and juice. The closure is a two-piece construction comprise of a lid and a base. The closure preferably has overall dimensions that approximate a standard unitary cap use with the same containers, so that the closure can easily be used with standard feeding equipment in a bottling facility. The closure has a hinge that is formed of a post connected by a tab to the lid, and hinge supports extending upwardly from the closure's base. The hinge supports include a hook and a bridge. The hook allows the tab to slide under the hook during assembly of the lid to the base. Once the tab is positioned between hook and the bridge, the hook bocks disassembly of the lid from the base. The post of the hinge assembly fits within tunnel sections formed by the hook and the bridge, and gripping forces applied by the hook and/or bridge hold the lid in an open position when contents are poured from the container.
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The closures shown and described are for use with containers for beverages, such as milk, other dairy products and juice. Containers that are blow-molded by bottlers of dairy and juice drinks closures have typically been used with simple threaded or push-on closures with flat integral lids. The closures require some form of tamper indicating feature, a popular version of which is the use of a foil liner placed on the interior of the closure. The foil liner is subsequently sealed against and connected to the neck of the container at an induction sealing station after the container is filled and after the closure is installed on the container.
Closures for bottled water (e.g., 28 mm diameter) have in recent years been supplied with a wide variety of flip top designs in which an easily openable and closeable lid is carried by a threaded closure base, and such flip-top features are popular. Flip top features, however, have not typically been included on larger diameter closures (e.g., 38 mm) of the kind used on blow-molded gallon, half-gallon and quart sized containers, perhaps because of cost concerns and/or the difficulty of designing a flip-top feature that will not cause problems when run through existing feeding equipment that is in place in bottling facilities. Some relatively large closures have been designed with integral hinges, known as a “butterfly” hinge, an example of which is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,588,546. Such hinges are a form of living hinge, and tend to break easily.
The closures described herein have a two-piece design that includes a flip top feature, and yet they are compatible with existing feeding equipment used in numerous dairies and other beverage bottling operations. The closures described herein also have the advantage to a closure supplier of allowing a single or standard color base component to be used with lids of different colors. This allows a closure supplier to quickly and efficiently respond to orders for closures, because instead of having to mold closures to fill an order for a particular colored closure, the supplier can simply assembly lids of a particular color lid to a standard base.
When the lid 14 is in its closed position, the plug 15 abuts and seals against the lip 26 of the base 12, and the opening 28 in the base 12 is closed by the cover 47. The closure 10 of the present invention is preferably initially (as provided to a bottler) equipped with a foil liner (not shown) that has a heat sealable layer on its underside. The foil liner (when attached by induction heating to a container neck) provides the closure 10 with a tamper evident seal. When a consumer purchases a container having a lid of the present invention, the foil liner prevents access to the contents of the container. When the consumer wants to dispense the contents, the threaded base 12 is unscrewed, the foil liner is removed, the closure 10 is put back onto the container, the lid 14 is opened by disengaging the bead 60 from the bead 62 and rotating the lid 14 about the post 28, and the desired amount of contents is dispensed. After dispensing, the consumer pushes the lid 14 back into engagement with the base 12, by pressing down on the lid, forcing the bead 60 to snap past the bead 62. This snapping engagement is coincident with the plug 15 engages and seals against the lip 26 on the flange 18. The seal between the plug 15 and the lip 26 help preserve the contents of the container, and limits spillage of the contents from the container.
The bead 60 on the lower interior end of the portion of the lid skirt 49, and bead 62 on an upper portion of the base 12 are both disposed opposite the respective hinge structures on the lid 14 and base 14. The beads are preferably semi-circular in cross-section and preferably have diameter of about 0.032 inches. The beads 60 and 62 are preferably designed to have a center-to-center distance (i.e. the bead 60 passing over and lying below the bead 62 to create such distance), when the lid 14 an base 12 engaged in an uninstalled condition (i.e., not on a container) of about 0.079 inches. It has been found that this extra distance is needed to accommodate the “doming” or upward displacement of the flange 18, and spreading of the skirt 16 of the base 12, as the cap is tightened onto a container. When the closure shown herein is tightened onto a container, and the doming and related stretching and displacement of closure components occurs, a bead arrangement as describe above will allow effective and repeatable latching of the lid 14 to base 14, by the snapping engagement of bead 60 with bead 62.
As depicted in
The base 12 has knurls 22 formed on the skirt 16, such that the top of the knurls 22 form a shoulder. The knurls preferably have varying height (
These parameters mean that the closure 10 of the present invention will have very similar proportions to standard unitary closures and it will perform well in standard feed systems, such as vibratory feeding bowls and ramp systems of the type that are currently used to feed standard, unitary closures. This means that the closures of the present invention can be used interchangeably with standard caps without any need to replace or otherwise change or modify the closure feeding equipment used in a bottling facility.
An additional purpose and benefit of the closures describe herein is to allow different colored lids 14 to be used with a single (or standard) colored base 12. This allows cap manufacturer to supply a bottler (of milk, for example) with closures that have a single standard base 12, and the cap manufacturer can on very short notice supply caps having a particular color lid 14 (e.g., light blue for skim milk, red for whole milk or yellow for 1%, brown for chocolate etc.) without having actually prepare an injection mold and manufacture a particular cap in response to an order. The manufacturer can simple have a supply of base components on hand and a supply of different colored lids on hand and can quickly assembly the color combinations that a bottler requires. By forming splines 58 on the exterior of the post 48, a lid 14 can be made to have a sufficient frictional hold between the lid 14 and the base 12, regardless of color and the associated variability in shrinkage properties resulting from the use of different colorants. This system has the additional advantage that a single lid mold can be used to form lids of all of the colors (blue, red, yellow, brown etc.) that a customer may desire, because the forgiveness afforded the splines will allow lids with different shrinkage properties to perform as needed. The friction between the splines 58 and the inside surfaces of the tunnel sections 44 and 46 (formed by the hook 30 and bridge 32, respectively) will hold the lid in an open position and resist the tendency for the lid 14 to be pulled to a closed position onto the base 12 by gravity.
It should be noted that while the closure discussed herein is useful on closures used to deliver beverages, the flip-top closure of the present invention can be used in a wide variety of applications, including medicines (both solid, i.e., pills, and liquids, and a wide variety of other liquids and solids, such as syrups and spices, for example.
The foregoing descriptions of specific embodiments have been presented for purposes of illustration. They are only examples and are not intended to a basis for limiting the scope of the inventions claimed below. It will be apparent to persons of ordinary skill in the field of closure design that many modifications, variations and substitutions are possible in light of the above teachings. The embodiments were chosen and described in order to explain the principles of the inventions claimed below and to demonstrate practical application thereof, and to thereby enable others of ordinary skill in the art to utilize the claimed inventions.
Claims
1. A closure comprising:
- a base having a skirt and at least one internal thread formed on an inside surface of the skirt, the base having an opening;
- a lid having a depending plug shaped to fit at least partially into the opening of the base;
- a hinge joining the base and the lid, the hinge comprising:
- a post carried by the lid, the post being integrally connected to the lid by a tab;
- at least two post supports extending upwardly from the base, one post support being a bridge having a first end and a second end, each of the ends of the bridge being integrally joined to the base, the bridge defining a first tunnel section adapted to receive a first portion of the post, a second post support being a hook with a proximal end being integrally joined to the base and the hook having a free distal end, the hook forming a second tunnel section adapted to receive a second portion of the post, the first and second portions of the post being separated by a middle portion of the post, the middle portion being joined by the tab to the lid.
2. A closure of claim 1 further comprising:
- a beveled portion on the free distal end of the hook, whereby during assembly of the lid to the base, the beveled portion will guide the tab under the distal end of the hook.
3. A closure of claim 1 further comprising: a buttress formed adjacent an intersection of the proximal end of the hook and the base, whereby the buttress provides the hook with improved resistance to bending from upward forces applied to an inner surface of the hook by the second portion of the post.
4. A closure of claim 1 further comprising: the at least one thread formed on an inside surface of the skirt being a single helical thread adapted to mate with a single helical thread on a bottle, whereby the closure when installed on a bottle having a handle will generally have a single alignment in which the direction of opening of the lid will correspond to the location of the handle.
5. A closure of claim 1 further comprising: a first latch bead on the base and a second latch bead on the lid, the first and second latch beads being positioned to snap past one another and hold the lid in a closed position over the opening in the base.
6. A closure of claim 1 further comprising: the post having at least one generally axially extending external rib, the rib being deformable when the post is inserted into at one of the tunnel sections.
7. A closure of claim 6 wherein the post has eight generally axially extending external ribs, the ribs being generally equally spaced about the perimeter of a portion of the post and each rib having a height of about 0.003 inches.
8. A closure of claim 1 wherein the bridge and the hook have a height that is approximately equal to an elevation of an upper surface of the lid when the lid is attached to the base, and the base includes a platform from which the bridge and hook extend upwardly, the bridge and hook being disposed in plan view within the periphery of the closure, whereby the hinge does not extend either radially from the closure beyond the skirt or axially a substantial distance beyond the lid, when the lid is assembled to the base.
9. A closure of claim 1 wherein the skirt has a lower skirt section and an upper skirt section, and axially extending knurls are disposed over a major portion of an exterior surface of the lower skirt section, an upper portion of the skirt section being with knurls, such that the top of the knurls form a shoulder, and the lid having a downwardly depending lid skirt that is shaped to fit around an upper portion of the skirt, the lid skirt having a thickness that is approximately equal to the depth of at least some of the knurls.
10. A closure of claim 1 wherein the lid is made of a plastic containing a first colorant, and the base is made of a plastic containing a second colorant, and the first and second colorants are different.
11. A two-piece closure comprising:
- a base having a skirt a thread formed on an inside surface of the skirt, the base having an opening;
- a lid having a depending plug shaped to fit into the opening of the base;
- a hinge joining the base and the lid, the hinge comprising:
- a post carried by the lid, the post being integrally connected to the lid by a tab;
- a post support extending upwardly from the base, the post support being integrally joined to the base and defining a tunnel section adapted to receive a portion of the post, the tab being joined to the lid by a tab;
- the hinge being disposed substantially within a space defined by a plane corresponding to the upper surface of the lid, and a cylinder generally corresponding to an outermost portion of the skirt.
12. A closure of claim 11 wherein the post support is comprised of two upwardly extending formations, one formation being a hook having a fixed end and a free end, and a second formation being bridge having two fixed ends, each of the hook and bridge defining a tunnel section for receiving portions of the post.
13. A closure of claim 12 wherein a beveled portion is formed on the free end of the hook, whereby during assembly of the lid to the base, the beveled portion will guide the tab under the distal end of the hook during a sliding assembly of the lid to the base.
14. A closure of claim 13 wherein the tab has a width that is less than a distance that separates the hook and the bridge, such that when the tab slides under the free end of the hook and is disposed between the hook and the bridge, the hook moves in the direction of an original position of the hook and the free end of the hook blocks the tab and restricts disassembly of the lid from the base.
15. A closure in accordance with claim 11 wherein the lid includes a colorant that is not present in the base.
16. A closure in accordance with claim 11 wherein the base has a single helical internal thread formed on the inside of the skirt.
17. A closure in accordance with claim 11 wherein the post has eight generally axially extending external ribs, the ribs being generally equally spaced about the perimeter of a portion of the post and each rib having a height of about 0.003 inches.
18. A closure comprising:
- a base having a skirt and a single internal thread formed on an inside surface of the skirt, the base having an opening;
- a lid having a depending plug shaped to fit at least partially into the opening of the base;
- a hinge joining the base and the lid, the hinge comprising:
- a post carried by the lid, the post being integrally connected to the lid by a tab;
- at least two post supports extending upwardly from the base, one post support being a bridge having a first end and a second end, each of the ends of the bridge being integrally joined to the base, the bridge defining a first tunnel section adapted to receive a first portion of the post, a second post support being a hook with a proximal end being integrally joined to the base and the hook having a free distal end, the hook forming a second tunnel section adapted to receive a second portion of the post, the first and second portions of the post being separated by a middle portion of the post, the middle portion being joined by the tab to the lid;
- the hinge being disposed substantially within a space defined by a plane corresponding to the upper surface of the lid, and a cylinder generally corresponding to an outermost portion of the skirt.
19. A closure in accordance with claim 18 wherein the lid includes a colorant that is not present in the base.
20. A closure in accordance with claim 18 wherein the post has eight generally axially extending external ribs, the ribs being generally equally spaced about the perimeter of a portion of the post and each rib having a height of about 0.003 inches.
Type: Application
Filed: Jun 16, 2014
Publication Date: Dec 17, 2015
Applicant: BLACKHAWK MOLDING CO., INC. (Addison, IL)
Inventors: Jeffrey S. DAVIS (DeKalb, IL), Douglas J. HIDDING (Barrington Hills, IL)
Application Number: 14/305,086