DE29916841U1 - Guide fitting for furniture, with self-closing - Google Patents

Description

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Company hülsta-werke Hüls GmbH & Co. KG, Gerhart-Hauptmann-Str. 43 - 49, 48703 Stadtlohn

"Guide fitting for a piece of furniture, with self-closing"

The invention relates to a guide fitting according to the preamble of claim 1.

Such guide fittings are known from practice. They have two components that can be moved relative to one another, e.g. a guide rail that can be moved along a support profile. With the so-called self-closing function, a drawer, a shelf or a similar pull-out element is automatically retracted into the furniture body for the rest of the way when it has been pushed into the furniture body by the user over a predetermined distance. This is usually done with the help of spring force, whereby the spring was initially tensioned when the element was pulled out of the body. The desired, automatic movement of the element in the known furniture takes place as a continuous acceleration, whereby the element is always stopped abruptly in its fully pushed-in end position almost from the highest speed reached. This abrupt stop is associated with a vibration of the furniture, at least of the stopped element, as well as with noticeable noises, which can come partly from the furniture itself, but also partly from the objects in the furniture.

These vibrations are undesirable in terms of the service life of the furniture parts, particularly connecting elements, furniture fittings, etc. If the vibrations are also transferred to fittings in the furniture, such as glasses, it cannot be ruled out that these may amplify the noise and/or tip over and/or be damaged.

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In practice, it is therefore known to combine the self-closing mechanism with a shock absorber, for example in the form of a self-adhesive rubber buffer or a similarly dampening stop. The disadvantage here is that the attachment of these shock absorbers requires an additional assembly step in the

Furniture construction requires a high level of durability and that they usually detach from the substrate after a certain period of use, which is considerably less than the lifespan of the furniture.

The invention is based on the object of providing a generic

The aim is to further develop the guide fitting in such a way that, while maintaining the desired effect of self-closing, the pull-out element returned to the furniture body reaches its final position with as little vibration and noise as possible, whereby a cost-effective production of the furniture is ensured.

is favoured.

This object underlying the invention is solved by a guide fitting with the features of claim 1.

In other words, the invention proposes to provide a damper directly on or in the guide fitting, whereby the damper dampens the relative movement of the two components that are movable relative to each other and thus the movement of the

The advantage of such shock absorption is that the force with which the self-retraction takes place is maintained, so that a safe movement of the element in the originally desired manner until it reaches its

The damping only reduces the speed of this movement, so that the final impact is reduced and noise and

Vibrations can be reduced or avoided altogether.

Equipping the guide fitting with the damper enables quick assembly in the furniture factory, as a separate assembly step for attaching the damper is avoided. In addition, a secure mounting of the damper can be ensured in a simple way, so that its effectiveness

throughout the entire life of the furniture.

For several reasons, the guide fitting can advantageously be designed with a rotation damper.

Firstly, rotary dampers are damping elements with comparatively small structural dimensions, so that they can be easily integrated into existing guide fittings.

Secondly, it is advantageous that the guide fitting itself is designed with the damper, so that structural changes to the furniture are not necessary or only minimal, so that even during ongoing production the furniture can be

can be equipped accordingly.

Thirdly, the use of a rotary damper allows for an uncomplicated application of the dampers regardless of the distance over which the damping is to take place. This applies

On the one hand, the ease of use with different types of guide fittings. On the other hand, the comfort feature of the self-closing mechanism can be improved by allowing a longer path during which the spring normally provided for the self-closing mechanism is tensioned.

the element is also caught earlier when pushed in and drawn into the furniture body until it reaches its final position. Commercially available guide fittings usually have the self-closing function on the first approx. 30 mm of the extendable path length. A longer effective path of the self

one would cause the element to strike too hard.

or a weaker spring, which could jeopardize the reliable effectiveness of the self-closing mechanism. According to the invention, higher spring forces can be sufficiently dampened and therefore used.

Fourthly, the fact that the damper is attached to the guide fitting

No additional assembly step is required during furniture production as the damping function is integrated into the guide fitting.

Finally, such rotary dampers are mass-produced

commercially available, relatively inexpensive and durable, as they are usually designed and tested for use with several tens of thousands of loads. Apart from the mentioned low-cost assembly, this low-cost availability enables the inexpensive production of a

Furniture that offers the benefits associated with impact damping.

In a simple manner, it can be provided to dampen the two elements of a guide fitting that are movable in the axial direction relative to one another in such a way that the rotary damper with its housing is fixed to one element, while the other element acts on the rotary part of the rotary damper. The rotary part can, for example, have a friction wheel that is attached to the moving part of the guide fitting.

impact is applied.

However, a particularly reliable function is ensured by the fact that the rotating part of the rotary damper is equipped with a gear and the movable second part of the

guide fitting has a rack that interacts with this gear.

The rack can be arranged on the second element of the guide fitting in such a way that the damping effect

effect only occurs when the function of self-regulation has already

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is activated. This allows the user to move the furniture element quickly and without damping until the element has been moved into the position in which the self-closing mechanism engages. Only then does the damping take place and guides the furniture element gently, with little vibration and little noise, into its final position retracted into the furniture body.

Apart from the small structural dimensions, the use of rotary dampers enables the inexpensive addition of a damping function to a guide fitting, since the rotary dampers are commercially available mass-produced components.

An embodiment of the invention is explained in more detail using the purely schematic drawings.

Fig. 1 a guide equipped with a damper

fitting,

Fig. 2 a commercially available guide fitting without

Damper, and the

Fig. 3 to 6 show the guide fitting of Fig. 1 in different operating positions.

In Fig. 1, 1 generally designates a guide fitting, which essentially consists of a holder 2 that can be fixed to a furniture frame and a guide rail 3 that is movable relative to it and can be fixed to a drawer or a similar element that can be pulled out of the furniture body. The holder 2 has a tongue 4 on which a commercially available rotary damper 5 is arranged, which has a housing 6 that is firmly connected to the tongue 4 and an axis that is movable relative to it and is provided with a gear 7.

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The rotary damper 5, in particular its gear 7, interacts with a rack 8 which is attached to the guide rail 3.

For comparison, Fig. 2 shows an essentially similar,

However, a commercially available guide fitting 1 is shown, in which no rack is provided on the guide rail 3 and no tongue and in particular no rotation damper is provided on the bracket 2. From this comparison it can be seen that for the attachment of the rotation damper 5 and the cooperating

Rack 8 requires only minimal changes both to the guide fitting 1 itself and to the furniture in which the guide fitting 1 is to be installed according to Fig. 1. On the one hand, this enables the retrofitting of furniture with guide fittings with comparatively little effort

according to Fig. 1 for customers who want the shock absorption effect. Furthermore, this makes it possible to incorporate guide fittings designed according to Fig. 1 into existing furniture production with comparatively little effort.

Fig. 3 shows the guide fitting 1 in its operating position according to Fig. 1. In this position, for example, the drawer of a piece of furniture is closed. The guide rail 3 is completely pushed onto the bracket 2. The rack

gear 8 meshes with the gear 7 of the rotary damper 5.

Fig. 4 shows an operating position of the guide fitting 1, in which the guide rail 3 has been moved on the bracket 2 according to the arrow shown in Fig. 4. The

Rack 8 no longer meshes with gear 7. The spring of a mechanism for the self-retracting function, which the guide fitting 1 has, is tensioned in this state or is still being tensioned.

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Fig. 5 shows the operating position of the guide fitting 1, in which the running rail 3 is moved as far as possible on the holder 2. The drawer mentioned is in its fully extended position. After the spring for the self-closing mechanism has been tensioned, all that was needed to move the drawer further was to overcome the frictional resistance of the guide fitting 1. The same applies when the drawer is then pushed into the furniture body: As indicated by the two arrows in Fig. 5, the running rail 3 is now increasingly pushed onto the holder 2, whereby here too only the frictional resistance of the guide fitting 1 needs to be overcome. The self-closing mechanism is activated at a later point in time, usually via a lever provided in the guide fitting 1. The initially pre-tensioned spring will now automatically move the running rail 3 to its end position, as can be seen in Fig. 3.

As can be seen from Fig. 6, the rack 8 comes into contact with the gear wheel 7 of the rotary damper 5, so that in this final phase of the retraction a comparatively slow and dampened movement of the guide rail 3 takes place, so that finally the aforementioned drawer strikes at a minimum speed and undesirable vibrations or noises are avoided.

Claims (5)

1. Guide fitting for an element that can be pulled out from the front of a piece of furniture, such as a drawer or shelf, wherein the guide fitting has a so-called self-closing function, characterized in that the guide fitting is equipped with a damper. 2. Guide fitting according to claim 1, characterized in that the guide fitting is equipped with a rotation damper. 3. Guide fitting according to claim 2, characterized in that the housing of the rotary damper is fastened to a first element of the guide fitting, while a rotary part of the rotary damper is driven in rotation via a driver which is arranged on the element of the guide fitting which is movable relative to the first element. 4. Guide fitting according to claim 3, characterized in that the rotating part has a gear and that the driver is designed as a rack. 5. Guide fitting according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the damper is arranged in such a way that it only begins to act on the guide fitting when the self-retracting function is activated.