CA2032637A1 - Individual baby diaper washing machine - Google Patents

Abstract

ABSTRACT

The invention concerns apparatus and method to wash and clean cloth baby diapers individually. The apparatus comprises of an endless stainless steel mesh belt to carry the attached diaper around its pat through the wash, rinse and squeeze cycles when it is in motion. The motion is created by a manual crank or a power drive.
Water and water detergent mix is sprayed an to the diaper surfaces. Washing and rinsing cycles are also equipped with rotating bristle brushes.
The entire system is housed in a portable container.
Water hoses for inlet water and for drain are part of the system.

Description

~3~fi~7 BACKGROUND OF INVENTION
Field of invention This invention relates to pol-table indiviclual cloth baby diaper washer.

Review of the Art It is becoming more apparen-t that usiny loth baby diaper will considerable reduce the amollrlt of garbaye generated in todays society. The disposable diaper are adding to the land fill problems.
Washing the diapers with standard householcl washing machine will require a prolonged storage of dirty diaper which generate unpleasant odors, or wash them each one at the time using unrealistically high energy.
The portable diaper washer will make traveling wi-th /~j babies diapered in cloth diaper so much easier s~n6e the small portable unit can be used anywhere where tap water is available.

SUMMARY OF THE IN~'ENTION.
The portable unit is like suitcase with tap water inlet connection and a discharge outlet both with flexible hose attachment. The unit to be used with a water tap and sink drain.
After the proper hook-up of the wa-ter connections the top of the case to be opened. The diaper -to be stretched and attached manually to prepositioned snaps ~P~3~37 on a stainless steel wire mesl~ enclless conveyor belt.
The top to be closed ancl the sei~m to be sealed with proper rubber seal, attalhed to -the top portion of the encloser.The hot water -tap shall be opened and the nozzle will start to spray water lnsicle -the enclosure, simultaneously the manual crank shall be turned providing motion to the diaper attached -to the stainless steel helt and rota-ting motion to -the bristle brushes positioned at the washing s-tation, the rinsing station.
The squeeze rolls are also driven by the same mo-tion.
Before entering the washing station the diaper will be sprayed with a mix-ture of water, detergent and bleach.
The required pressure for the spray is obtained from the static tap water pressure. The washing is accomplished via two counter rotating round bristle brushes. The surface motion of the brushes to be against the diaper movement.
Next station will be the rinsing unit, where clean water will be forced through the diaper and a rotating bristle brush wil~ help to rinse the surrace.
After the rinse cycle the diaper is carried through a set of squeeze rolls to squeeze out as much water as possible to reduce drying time. Moving the belt further o complete a 360 deg. cycle, the attached ~,a,per will ~ S~
return to the starting position, ~Fg*~ washed.
The case top will be opened and the washed diaper will be manually removed from -the belt.

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SHORT DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGSAn embodiment of the invention will now be described by way of example with reference to the lrawings, in which Figure 1 is a diagJ-ammatic vertical sectlon through the apparatus;
Figure 2 diagrammatic water hook-up.

DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
In the drawings bahy diaper 10 is stretched and secured, with soiled side up, to the endless stainless steel wire mesh conveyor 12 via conventionally available snaps. In this example the stainless steel belt 12 travels clock wise. The belt 12 is stretched around the two end rollers 16 and sheet metal supports 14. The shaft of roller 16A is pretruded through the casing bottom 4, and formed to be a crank to provide the motion to the inner mechanism when it is turned manually.
Bristle brush 18 is driven by roller 16A with a belt drive and brush 22 is driven by brush 18 -through a set of gears. Rinse bristle brush 20 is driven by brush 18 with a belt drive. The above combination provides -the right surface movement between diaper and brushes. Spray nozzle 26 will force a mixture of water' detergent and bleach through the diaper cloth by moving -the diaper over the spray holes. The presoaked diaper 10 will be scrubbed by rotating brushes 18 and 22. Rinse nozzle 24 will force clean water through the cloth diaper 10 while ~32~7 rotating rinse bris-tle brush will help lo rinse the surface of the diaper.
In FIG 2 the water tap 56 is any household water tap connected to manifold 60 by a flexible hose 50. Manifold 60 is attached -to rinse -tubes 24 , 2~ , 30, and detergent box 52 intern 52 box is attached to nozzle 26.
Detergent box 52 is a contalner to hold the detergent and the bleach to mix with wa-ter flowing through the box into nozzle 26 to soak the diaper as one of the washing cycle. Drain tube 36 is connected to any household sink drain 58 by flexible hose 54.

Claims (2)

1. Apparatus for individual cloth baby diaper washing machine housed in a small portable container. The container water inlet and outlet can be hooked up to any household tap and drain. The container top can be opened and soiled diaper can be attached to a stainless steel wire mesh conveyor to carry the diaper through a wash, rinse and squeeze cycle immediately after the diaper has been removed from the baby.

2. The apparatus is portable allowing to be carried at travel and be readily available when required. This feature will make environmentally friendly cloth baby diapers more acceptable and more convenient to clean anywhere with minimum energy use.