NOVELTY TOOTHBRUSH WITH LIGHT-UP FIBER OPTIC BRISTLES
A low cost and manufacturable toothbrush with bristles that light up at the tips is provided for brushing teeth and entertaining children. The toothbrush includes a body with a handle and a head. Bristles are attached to the head and include transparent filaments fused to the head. A light source is disposed in the body of the toothbrush and light emanating from the light source is directed into the transparent filaments and is visible a tips of the transparent filaments that face away from the head.
The present application claims the benefit of provisional application No. 61/754,968, filed on Jan. 21, 2013.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a manual toothbrush for brushing teeth having toothbrush bristles that light up at the tips, designed to get kids excited about brushing their teeth by creating an enchanting ‘Pixie Dust’ effect.
2. Background
Current toothbrushes designed to get kids excited about brushing their teeth include toothbrushes with handles that light up and toothbrushes that play music. The toothbrush of the present invention has bristles that light up at the tips and is arguably more magical and thereby more exciting to children than current toothbrushes. The present invention is directed toward overcoming one or more of the problems identified above.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONThe aforementioned deficiencies are addressed, and an advance is made in the art, by a low cost manufacturable toothbrush with bristles that light up at the tips to get children excited about brushing.
Toothbrushes are bristled by either the Staple Set method or the less common Fused Bristling method. In the Staple Set method a small group of toothbrush filaments are folded over a nickel staple and forced into a cylindrical hole in the brush head. This forms a tuft. Placing a light source behind a Staple Set bristled tuft of transparent toothbrush filaments will not result in a fiber optic effect as both ends of each filament in the tuft are facing away from the light source. The light source only shines on the folded portion of the filament. However, in the Fused Bristling method, the bristles are not folded. Instead, they are fused straight with heat. The resulting tuft is placed into a molding machine with others and the molding machine makes the toothbrush handle body head and tufts into one. So, by placing a light source behind a Fusion bristled tuft of transparent toothbrush filaments one can achieve the desired fiber optic effect.
To get a clean visual effect, the face of the head must be opaque to force the light to appear substantially at the tips of the bristles. I found it very confusing if the head face is transparent or even translucent—too much light noise to see the desired effect. Toothbrush filaments of varying diameters are also used to achieve lit bristle tips of varying sizes, creating the visual effect of distance. The filaments should have square cut ends for best lighting results. Different sized filaments can be mixed together in a bushy pattern as opposed to the highly structured and segmented bristle sections found on many of today's toothbrushes for a more organic look and galactic aesthetic. The goal is to create lit bristles tips that look like bright stars of varying sizes with the illusion of being at varying distances all mixed together. The bristles may be cut flat or with a topological pattern designed for improved brushing.
To achieve a toothbrush having bristles with tips that light up with the desired dynamic ‘pixie dust’ effect, transparent nylon toothbrush bristle filaments (such as the bristles filaments made by Dupont) are attached to the toothbrush head using an anchorless bristling process such the fusion process employed to form the Eco-DenT replacement brush heads. The typical stapling method used to bristle most toothbrushes does so by folding the filament in half and stapling it into the bristle hole in the head of the body with a steel wire. Even if you used transparent bristles with a light source in the head you would not be able to achieve a fiber optic effect as you would be aiming the light source at the fold and not at the base of the bristle filaments. In the stapled fold-over method used today, both ends of the filament are up. Fusion anchorless bristling however is not folded over and can be bristled straight into a thru-hole bristle hole. One can then place a light source behind the bristles.
In accordance with the first preferred embodiment of the present invention, the toothbrush is a manual toothbrush with transparent (clear) toothbrush bristle filaments attached to an opaque body by way of fusion bristling or other form of anchorless bristling process. A light source is placed behind the bristles that shines through the bristles to the tips of the bristles.
An object of the present invention is to provide a low cost manufacturable toothbrush with bristles that light up at the tips.
An further object of the present invention is to provide a low cost manufacturable toothbrush with normal toothbrush filament bristles that light up at the tips and that has a handle with a thin head and neck so as not to detract from the toothbrushing experience.
An object of the present invention is to provide a low cost toothbrush with bristles that light up at the tips and with a thin neck and head to allow for very easy access in the mouth and increased comfort when brushing.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a toothbrush that can display a lit starry pattern on the brush.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a toothbrush with dynamically lit bristle tips.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a toothbrush with dynamically lit bristle tips of varying sizes.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a toothbrush with dynamically lit bristle tips that has fused bristles, which eliminates spaces between the bristles where harmful bacteria hide and breed.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a method of lighting up the bristle tips while still leaving room in the handle to add a vibrating motor for a pulsating head power toothbrush.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a method of lighting up the bristle tips while still leaving room in the handle to add a power fountain such as that found in the Rinser Toothbrush to creating a Pixie Rinser—a toothbrush with light-up fiber optic bristles and built-in power fountain for rinsing after brushing.
The various features, functions and advantages characterizing the invention will be better understood by reference to the detailed description which follows, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
The secondary PCB 201 holds seven 0805 SMD LED's with wide viewing angles greater than 100 degrees and is placed in the head of the toothbrush body behind the thru-hole fused transparent toothbrush filament bristles. With reference to
Claims
1.-9. (canceled)
10. A toothbrush, comprising:
- a toothbrush body having a head portion and a handle portion;
- a light source disposed in the toothbrush body;
- transparent bristles disposed in the head portion of the toothbrush body, the transparent bristles being fused to the head portion of the toothbrush body, the light source being configured such that light emanating from the at least a portion of the light source faces first ends of the bristles held by the toothbrush body, and second free ends of the bristles face away from the head portion of the toothbrush body;
- wherein light emitted from the light source that enters the first ends is visible at the second ends of the light source.
11. The toothbrush of claim 10, wherein the light source is wholly located within the head portion of the toothbrush body.
12. The toothbrush of claim 10, further comprising a diffuser lens disposed between the first end of the transparent bristles and the light source.
13. The toothbrush of claim 10, wherein said light source includes a light disposed in the handle portion of the toothbrush body and includes a light pipe to direct light to the first ends of the transparent bristles.
14. The toothbrush of claim 10, wherein said light source includes a light disposed in the handle portion of the toothbrush body and includes a reflector with a reflective surface redirecting light to the first ends of the bristles.
15. The toothbrush of claim 10, wherein the transparent filaments have square cut ends.
16. The toothbrush of claim 10, wherein the transparent bristles include at least two different bristles having different diameters from each other.
17. The toothbrush of claim 10, wherein the toothbrush body is opaque.
18. The toothbrush of claim 10, wherein the bristles are arranged in tufts and are thermowelded to eliminate spaces between the bristles.
19. The toothbrush of claim 10, further comprising a switch for one of switching the light source on, switching different colors, or switching different lighting patterns.
20. The toothbrush of claim 10, further comprising a switch turning the light source on and a controller automatically turning off the light source after a predetermined period.
21. The toothbrush of claim 10, wherein the light source includes at least two different color LEDs that are turned on and off in sequence.
22. The toothbrush of claim 10, wherein a face of the head portion is transparent.
23. The toothbrush of claim 10, wherein the light source is disposed within the head of the toothbrush and comprises surface mount LEDs with a wide viewing angle of greater than 100 degrees.
24. A toothbrush comprising:
- a toothbrush body having a handle portion and a head;
- a plurality of toothbrush bristles connected at a front face of the head and having distal ends facing away from the head, wherein the bristles have varying diameters;
- a circuit including a light source, wherein the light source is configured so that light emitted from the light source is directed into the bristles and is emitted from the bristles at the distal ends.
25. The toothbrush of claim 24, wherein the circuit includes a switch operable to one of the turn the light sources on/off and select a lighting color or a lighting pattern.
26. The toothbrush of claim 24, wherein the light source is disposed within the head of the toothbrush.
27. The toothbrush of claim 26, wherein the light source comprises surface mount LEDs with a wide viewing angle of greater than 100 degrees.
28. The toothbrush of claim 27, further comprising a diffuser filter placed between the base of the bristles and the light source.
29. The toothbrush of claim 24, wherein the bristles are transparent filaments fused in place in through holes in the front face of the head.
30. The toothbrush of claim 24, wherein the front face of the head is opaque.
Type: Application
Filed: Apr 7, 2014
Publication Date: Oct 6, 2016
Inventor: Scott Amron (Smithtown, NY)
Application Number: 14/160,386