An elongated shank has a handgrip at the rear end portion. At the forward end portion there is a holder for releasably retaining a cigarette lighter of the throw-away gas or butane type having a conventional flint wheel and a gas valve actuator. An actuator rod is guided for reciprocable sliding movement along the shank. The rod is urged forward along the shank by a biasing spring and may be pulled backward against the spring by a trigger adjacent the handgrip. An integral outer extension of the rod, forward of the holder, is movable between extended and retracted positions by the biasing spring and the trigger, respectively. An elastic friction member, consisting of a backwardly extending, cantileverly supported, diagonally oriented coil spring is mounted on the outer extension and is movable backward by the trigger to engage and rotate the flint wheel and depress the valve actuator. This ignites the lighter and holds it ignited as long as the trigger is held. The device is adapted for lighting pilot lights of gas appliances, candles, fireplaces, barbecue grills, camping lights and stoves, and the like.
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13. An elongated igniting device for a conventional cigarette lighter having a head end with a rotatable fling wheel adjacent a movable valve actuator controlling flow of fuel through a valve to an outlet port, said device comprising:
an elongated shank; a handgrip on one end portion of said shank; holding means on the opposite end portion of said shank for releasably retaining the cigarette lighter with the head end facing away from the hand grip; an actuator rod guided for reciprocable movement parallel to said shank, said rod having an outer extension beyond the head end of the lighter and being movable between extended and retracted mode conditions relative to the lighter head end; trigger means adjacent the hand grip and connected to the actuator rod, effective in response to pull on the trigger, to move said actuator rod to said retracted mode condition; and igniting means supported on said outer extension in position to engage and rotate the rim of said flint wheel and depress said valve actuator to ignite the lighter in response to movement of the actuator rod to its said retracted mode condition.
1. An elongated igniting device for a conventional cigarette lighter having a head end with a rotatable flint wheel adjacent a movable valve actuator controlling flow of fuel through a valve to an outlet port, said device comprising:
an elongated shank; a handgrip on one end portion of said shank; holding means on the opposite end portion of said shank for releasably retaining the cigarette lighter with the head end facing away from the hand grip; an actuator rod guided for reciprocable movement parallel to said shank, said rod having an outer extension beyond the head end of the lighter and being movable between extended and retracted mode conditions relative to the lighter head end; spring means biasing said actuator rod toward its said extended mode condition; trigger means adjacent the hand grip and connected to the actuator rod, effective in response to pull on the trigger, to move said actuator rod to said retracted mode condition against the bias of said spring; and igniting means supported on said outer extension in position to engage and rotate the rim of said flint wheel and depress said valve actuator to ignite the lighter in response to movement of the actuator rod to its said retracted mode condition.
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This invention is an improvement in disposable cigarette lighters commonly called "gas" or "butane" type lighters. Several of these are on the market under various trade names such as "BIC", "CRICKET", "RONSON" and "SCRIPTO". Typically, they have a plastic body about three inches long containing liquid butane fuel, and a head end with a rotatable flint wheel adjacent a movable valve actuator controlling flow of fuel gas to an outlet port.
The flint wheel and the valve actuator are at one side of the head end and positioned so both can readily be manipulated by a user's thumb. The valve associated with the actuator is normally closed by a spring inside the head. The user must hold his thumb on the valve actuator to keep the valve open and the lighter lit.
While these lighters are classified as cigarette lighters, they are used for other lighting purposes such as for pilot lights and burners in stoves, ovens and water heaters, and gasoline and kerosene lamps and heaters, to name a few. The lighting of such a burner inside an enclosure, and particularly the lighting of an oven burner for a domestic gas stove or a main burner of a gas furnace or water heater is a risky procedure due to the necessary location of the burner at a point spaced from the door or opening through which the operator's hand must extend if he holds a lighted signle single motion of the thumb to ignite the lighter with a simple one-hand operation.
All lighters intended for use in the present invention will have flint wheels and valve actuators in the same general arrangement as shown in FIG. 1, and their body lengths will be substantially the same, although their individual cross-sections will vary somewhat. The oval cross-section lighter 42 shown in FIGS. 2 and 7 is marketed under the trademark "BIC". Round cross-section lighters 42a, as shown in FIG. 9, are marketed under the trademarks "CRICKET" and "RONSON". And generally rectangular cross-section lighter 42b, as shown in FIG. 10, are marketed under the trademark "SCRIPTO".
A rectangular cross-section actuator rod 68 is guided for reciprocable movement parallel to the shank 22. It has a downwardly and forwardly curved trigger 70 at the rear end adjacent the hand grip 24 and an outer extension portion 72 at the front end beyond the head end portion 58 of the lighter. The actuator rod 68 is reciprocably journaled for forward and backward movement through a rectangular-shaped eye 74 in a down-turned tab 76 at the forward end of the shank 22. Rearwardly of the tab, the actuator rod has an elongated through-slot 78 (FIGS. 3 and 4). A pin 80 extends upwardly through the slot and is threadedly engaged with the shank. Another pin 82 is threadedly engaged with the actuator rod 68. A biasing spring 84 is tensioned between the pins to urge the actuator rod 68 in a forward direction to the extended position shown in FIGS. 1, 3 and 5. A pull on the trigger 70 moves the actuator rod in a backward direction through the intermediate position shown in FIG. 6, and further pull on the trigger moves the actuator rod to the fully retracted position shown in FIGS. 4 and 8. The fully retracted position of the spring 84 and trigger 70 is also shown in broken lines in FIG. 1.
Igniting means generally designated 86 is supported on the outer extension portion 72 of the actuator rod 68. This functions as a sort of substitute or "mechanical" thumb which rotates the flint wheel 60 and depresses the valve actuator 62 in response to pull on the trigger 70. It comprises an elastic friction member consisting of a coil spring 88 mounted on the end of a cantileverly mounted core member 90 formed from flat metal strap or spring stock.
More specifically, the coil spring friction member 88 shown is cylindrical, with a plurality of abutting coils at the forward end portion 92, and a plurality of relatively loosely wound, compressible coils at the free, rear end portion 94. Because of the arrangement described, the coil spring 88 is thereby cantileverly mounted on a flat core which comprises in this case the free end portion or arm 96 of the member 90, the opposite end portion 98 being fastened by rivets 100 within the space between upper and lower leaves 102 and 104 of the bifurcated forward end portion of actuator rod extension 72. The member 90 is here shown as an elastic member, made from flat spring steel stock. Alternatively, if desired, it may be relatively stiff and operate by transverse movement of the lighter within the constraints of the elastic yoke 34.
The free arm portion 96 of leaf spring member 90 is backwardly and downwardly inclined and is connected to the fixed end portion 98 by an intermediate section 106. It supports the free end of the coil spring 88 at a proper level to engage the serrated rim of the flint wheel 60 below its center (as shown in FIG. 6) when the actuator rod 68 is pulled backward by the trigger. This initial offcenter engagement of the flint wheel is shown in FIG. 6 which represents an intermediate mode condition between the extended (extinguished) and retracted (ignited) mode conditions shown in FIGS. 1 and 8 respectively.
Further pull of the trigger from the intermediate position (FIG. 6) rotates the flint wheel counterclockwise. Initially, this is caused by endwise engagement of the coil spring with the rim of the flint wheel below its center, followed by bodily downward displacement of the coil spring friction member 88 and its elastic core 96, and upward displacement of the lighter permitted by the elastic yoke 34, causing further rotation as the outer surface of the spring coils act as teeth engaging the serrations on the wheel rim. As the free end of the coil spring friction member 88 approaches a position of tangency with the flint wheel (about half-way between the FIGS. 6 and 8 positions), the normally-separated coils at the rear end portion 94 compress. Beyond that point, they rapidly expand, increasing the rotational speed of the flint wheel to facilitate generation of sparks.
In the fully retracted (ignited) mode condition shown in FIG. 8, both the free end portion 96 of the leaf spring member and the end of coil spring friction member 88 engage the valve actuator 62 and combine to hold the valve (not shown) open and maintain the flame 108. Alternatively, either the leaf spring member 90 or coil spring friction member 88 may hold the valve actuator open in the ignited mode condition.
The device may be made in any convenient length, in fact, it may be made several feet long. Typically, however, an all-purpose igniting device as shown and described preferably will have an overall length of fifteen to twenty inches and can serve a wide variety of remote utility igniting uses for restarting pilots and main burners in gas ovens, furnaces and water heaters.
Use and operation will be apparent from the above description. Briefly, however, any one of a variety of readily available throwaway lighters may be placed in the holder 26 with the body portion gripped between the spring sidewalls 38, 38 and with the head end portion 58 held down by the bridle portion 56 of the yoke 34. Then, after placing the device with its front end extending into the appliance housing adjacent the stream of gas to ignited, all the operator need do is pull the trigger to produce a flame at the exact point of need. One substantial advantage of this invention is that, even if the fuel is so low that pulling the trigger fails to ignite the ligher, the sparks generated by the flint wheel will themselves ignite the gas in the appliance.
While one form in which the present invention may be embodied has been shown and described, it will be understood that various modifications may be effected without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims. For example, the spring members 88 and 90 may take many specifically different forms, and the hand grip frame 28 may be formed integrally with either the shank 22 or actuator rod 68 or both.
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| 6669466, | Jul 27 2001 | Zippo Manufacturing Company | Utility lighter |
| 9885479, | May 15 2014 | Balt Designs, LLC | Hands-free striker for lighting a torch |
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| Executed on | Assignor | Assignee | Conveyance | Frame | Reel | Doc |
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