WO2016001472A1

WO2016001472A1 - Apparatus for tying vine to their supporting wire

Info

Publication number: WO2016001472A1
Application number: PCT/ES2015/070522
Authority: WO
Inventors: Alejandro MAYOR FERRARI
Original assignee: GARCÍA CORTÉS, Óscar
Priority date: 2014-07-04
Filing date: 2015-07-03
Publication date: 2016-01-07
Also published as: UY35646A

Abstract

The invention relates to an apparatus for attaching a vine or other plant to a supporting wire or other support, characterised in that it essentially takes the form of a pliers with a rotary handle through which the covered wire or cord passes that is used to attach the plant to the support. The wire passes along a projection or ridge inside the inlet passage, such that only one end of the wire is rotated, the part to be rotated being passed through the cutting edges of the pliers, with one hand always remaining free.

Description

APPLIANCE FOR PLANT LIGAD, IN SPECIAL LIVES

Definition v field of application

Our device is used to easily, repetitively and without great effort, make ligatures for all types of plants, especially those that need a tutor, wire or any type of support to grow effectively. It was conceived, especially, for vines, but it can be just as efficient for tomatoes, vines, and any other type of plants, whether farm or garden.

Genesis v raison d'être In our long experience as wine growers, we have always had an unsatisfied need, which consists of an apparatus to make the endless ties of the vines to the wires that support them, which are several tens of thousands per planting of a few hectares (precisely 12,000 / ha) and require enormous time, effort and cost.

As we have always kept in touch with the inventions and technology of our activity throughout the world, of which in this paper we will present a summary, we have had at our disposal a series of devices that although they have facilitated the task , have left us dissatisfied. Our dissatisfaction has been due to several factors, often happening all of them at the same time: cost, size, weight, complexity, difficulty of use, fatigue that they produce, frequent breaks, obtaining and replacement difficulties, short useful life, constructive deficiency, etc. The vast majority of competitive devices feed the wire separately from the pliers, and the few that do it through the handle do so with a mechanical difficulty that makes them expensive, laborious to operate and easy to break.

In turn, most turn the loop of the tie by hooking it and pulling towards it, which causes the hook to rotate, stretching by means of a spring its attachment to the rest of the device, which makes it uncomfortable and easily broken. On the other hand, the effort to turn the tie, and of course to cut it, is given by the lever that is squeezed together with the rest of the apparatus, such as a clamp, pliers or pliers. This makes the separation between both parts of the handle considerable, causing a great fatigue of the hand and forearm that forces to stop after making a certain number of links.

All the details described mean that the devices are, at best, uncomfortable, tiring, expensive, and of a mechanical complexity that makes them necessarily easy to break.

As having something expensive, uncomfortable and short-lived is obviously a deficit in terms of efficiency, time and costs, is that we have set out to invent an apparatus that will solve all the problems mentioned.

State of the Art

We have found several commercial products and patent applications that refer to the same subject. For the reasons that will be seen in "Description of the invention", none of them is an inhibitory antecedent for our invention.

We will start with the two commercial products to which we have had access and whose deficiencies are what motivated us to investigate the matter on our own.

Tying LIGAPAL - French product of which we attach your propaganda online. It does not feed the wire through the handle, it is not rotary, and the tournament is achieved by pulling the pliers in this way, which rotates the hook that is attached to a spring. It is not, therefore, inhibitory antecedent for our invention.

Tiefix Tying - this device also does not feed the tie wire through the handle, but separately from the device, it is composed of two uncomfortable halves of the handle, very separate and which provide, during 90% of its approach, the driving force so that the hook rotate and turn to the loop of the bond, which is cut with the remaining 10% of the movement of joining the handles. This is very tiring, it does not use centrifugal force. Therefore, it does not constitute an inhibitory background for our invention. Patent FR2790638 - the apparatus described herein is essentially an improved pruning shears. In addition to this use, it has another fixing position with shear effect for cutting wires, and in a completely separate cylinder, provided with a spring to which a hook that rotates when the spring is stretched. All its assembly, the use of a spring hook, the lack of wire feeding through the handle, the need to pull it to operate, do not constitute an inhibitory background for our invention.

US5778946 (EP0763323) - This tool consists of a feeder for the end of the wire, with several transmission gears, and an electric motor that does the mechanical work of feeding, turning and cutting the cable. The mere existence of a driving force, batteries, support harness, etc., makes this invention totally incomparable to ours. The hook, in addition, is tilting with respect to pivots 19 and 20. It has a pistol shape and does not grip you, and all its electrical sophistication can be seen in the handle, which obviously influences its weight, especially due to the batteries . For all the above, it does not constitute an inhibitory antecedent for our invention.

KR800000784 - In this case, the attaching device does not use a wire but a tape, which expires its function as a pliers, and is rather a tightener (presser), also having a means to tighten or join with the tape, that is a filiform medium in addition to the ribbon and to tie with it, and a base plate where to make the cut. The two parts of the "pliers" handle are also extraordinarily separated and their pressure is partly intended to run the belt. For all the above, it does not constitute an inhibitory antecedent for our invention.

SU971168 - This Soviet patent has no translation or summary in a Western language, but nevertheless, appreciating the three drawings on page 2, we clearly see that it is not an apparatus that can be considered, even distantly, of the same type as ours, being rather dedicated to squeeze and where not There is wire to be turned or cut. The wire seems to be passed through the circular part, the vine taken by the bases of the "handles," and an intern holds those handles in place. This gadget is rather a hook in itself than a device for tying, turning and cutting.

TW201028081 - Large appliance with the feeder attached to one of the handles. It approaches open and well separated to the vine and to the support wire, it closes and the end that does not have tie wire takes the end of it, which is exposed from the feeding end, reopens the ends, then tending the tie wire on the other side of the support wire and the vine, and when pulling the operator towards it causes, by means of hook and attached spring, that the tie is turned, cutting it later with another function of the lever that acts as if it were the another half of the handle (lever 4 in figure 1). We see that it almost does not resemble our invention, by tending a tie from the far side to the operator, and by the complexion of the entire system, while our invention barely opens the jaws of its pliers in a couple of mm. For all the above, it does not constitute an inhibitory antecedent for our invention.

NL8302801 - This invention, which is really nothing more than a harness to hold the roll of the wire and possibly batteries and in the same equipment when it is motorized and heavy, we quote it to contrast the simplicity and lightness of our invention with all those who they are motorized or for another reason - such as their complexity - they are heavy. US5394644 - The apparatus described herein has the particularity of using a tape that is specifically an adhesive tape. It is not in the form of pliers or pliers, but the wire and the vine are placed between two of the rays with spherical terminations on which the tape goes, which does not move on said spheres as it is glued, but when these spheres move on the end of their respective ray make the tape move in space, hugging the vine and its wire, without turning the tie. It has a great mechanical complexity, as seen in figures 6 and 7, and the final cut is not by means of a plier but by a simple blade, similar to the cut of a desktop tape. Its difference with our invention is obvious, not even using wire or pliers, so it does not constitute an inhibitory background for our invention. Comments of the Figures

Fig. 1 A - General side view of the device. Observe the conduit through which the wire passes starting from the base of the handle, as well as the gutter where the rudders, the "trigger" of cut with its respective spring emerges to return to its place, the cutting head, etc. See the contraption consisting of two parallel metal parts and to the right (in the figure) of the two cutting edges, which will hold the wire fixed during operation and before cutting.

Fig. 1 B - idem Fig. 1 A but now with the wire (in this case contained between two glued paper tapes, instead of wrapped in paper).

Fig. 2 - Main parts separated with the threaded wire. The left part (which contains the cutting head) is the one that rotates around the right part (handle) when a centrifugal force is exerted on the latter. Note the bearings (part of the head) and the metal tube that is inserted into them (part of the handle). It could also work with an eyelet instead of wheel bearings.

Fig. 3 - View of the rollers inserted in the lower part of the portion of the apparatus that contains the cutting head. On the left of the figure you can see the "trigger" of cut and its respective separating spring.

Fig. 4 - Front view of the cutting head, looking at the top of the figure, and between the edges, to the holding device in place of the wire before it is cut.

Fig. 5 - View of the handle portion from above, clearly showing the metal tube that will be inserted into the bearings and through which the wire that passes from the handle part of the device to the part containing the head of the device is fed cut.

Fig. 6 - Side view of the handle as a separate piece. Note the metal tube that will be inserted into the bearings, and the wire conduit through the handle, which is fed by the base of the same, at the right end of the figure. This piece is the one that remains firm in the hand and the only one that does not rotate during the operation.

Fig. 7 - Wire feeding hole, at the base of the handle, and gutter (upper part of the figure) where it emerges and then penetrates the handle again and passes to the head portion.

Fig. 8 - The two main parts, now shown together and from another angle, so as to look good at both the coupling portions themselves and the channel through which the wire is fed from one part (handle) to the other (cutting head).

Description of the invention

Our invention consists of a pliers, with one of the handle halves longer, wider and more anatomical than the other, rotating, both halves being separated by a space of a couple of millimeters, which makes its cutting operation extremely easy, fast , and not producing almost fatigue.

The fundamental factor for turning is, in our case, the coupling of the larger half of the handle to the body of the pliers by means of a tube (through which the feed wire passes) that comes out of the large end of the handle and inserted into pressure in two rollers located in the body of the pliers, allowing the latter to rotate freely around the greater part of the handle which is the one that is held in the hand, and that by means of a rotating movement to sound a rattle gives the Loop of the bond the tension and the turns that the operator deems appropriate according to the case. As mentioned, the wire of the linkage is fed through the larger half of the handle, the conduit through which said wire slides a ridge or projection that produces a tension in it such that only the part of the wire between that crest and the end where that pliers (the end of the tie) is turned. In other words, the part of the feed is not turned, that is, between the crest and the entrance of the wire through the base of the handle.

There is no hook or spring to which it is attached, it is not necessary to pull the apparatus to turn the wire, it is not necessary to tighten two halves very far apart from the handle to achieve the tournament, the wire must not be fed separately, the function of turning is not performed by the act of squeezing the handle or pulling the apparatus towards itself, but by a simple centrifugal rotating movement of the hand, which holds the largest part of the handle (which is the rotating) and thus allowing the Another hand is totally free. It is necessary to emphasize that, unlike other similar devices, this is useful for both left-handed and right-handed people.

In all other similar articles of which we have news, the tension of the turning of the loop through which the vine or other plant joins its wire or guardian is preset by a certain number of turns that is independent of the operator and that is not can regulate Our device, on the other hand, tightens what is necessary as the operator deems it convenient, there is no tension or number of turns preset, this being fundamental because different plants in different climatic and seasonal conditions require different tensions of the bond, being the correct tension in a case a "strangulation" tension in another.

Prototype Unlike the vast majority of inventions, which consist of ideas that can be successfully implemented or not, ours has been brought to the prototype level and has been tested with great success in plantations. We believe that this advantage is very important and reliably demonstrates the feasibility of our development, needing only the protection of a patent to start its mass production, promotion and sale.

The operation with undeniable efficacy and efficiency of this invention is shown in the videos that accompany this application. If we add to this a great simplicity of design, a very small number of pieces, and a cost of production several times below that of the competition, we are sure that Mr. Evaluator will see its advantages over the prior art.

Claims

1) Apparatus for attaching the vine or other plant to the charger wire or to another support, characterized in that it is essentially a pliers through whose rotating handle enters the lined wire or thread that will be the one that finally ties the plant to its support, passing that wire through a projection or crest inside the inlet duct such that it turns only from the end of the pliers and not from the end of the feed; being that the part to be turned is passed through the edges of the pliers and held in place by a curved wire and the same happens for the return of the lined wire after the plant and its support have been surrounded, allowing then to rotate the apparatus centrifugally by means of its rotating handle which is attached to the body of the pliers by means of a tube that comes out of the rotating handle and one or several rollers that are in the body of the pliers, forming the wire already turned back and forth as a tie, the tighten something that fits easily and anatomically in the hand and whose wire feeding is done inside the rotating handle, allowing each link to be made in a few seconds. 2) The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the roll of feed wire is held to any part of the operator's body by means of a tie that allows rotation.

3) The apparatus of claim 1 and optionally of 2), wherein the feed wire is contained - for example in the form of a reel - within the handle of the pliers.

4) The apparatus of claim 1 and optionally one or more of the others, whose separation between both parts of the pliers, that is between the part that is tightened and fixed (the body), is adjustable.

5) The apparatus of claim 1 and optionally one or more of the others, the same having a changeable spring and variable tension to separate both parts of the pliers (the one that is pressed to cut and the body) after having made the cut. 6) The apparatus of claim 1 and optionally one or more of the others, which also has an adjustable device that determines the opening of the pliers.

7) The apparatus of claim 1 and optionally one or more of the others, the handle of which can have a non-slip and / or padded lining to facilitate handling and prevent injuries by the operator. 8) The apparatus of claim 1 and optionally one or more of the others, whose pliers can be much more powerful than what is strictly necessary to cut the binding wire.

9) The apparatus of claim 1 and optionally one or more of the others, wherein the connecting tube can exit the pliers body and the rudder (s) may be inside the rotating part of the handle, whether or not there may be a part serrated to prevent the tube from slipping on the bearings.