Abstract:
A ventilating base for combined use with a given electronic device has a frame construction including an apertured top wall. An air fan mounted to the frame and functionally connected with the apertured top wall is operative to produce one of air suction, air blowing, or either at alternate times. The given electronic device is set or docked upon the ventilating base such that a ventilated bottom panel of the electronic device is functionally coupled with the apertured top wall of the ventilating base. That way, operation of the ventilating base&#39;s fan induces a forced air current through the electronic device&#39;s enclosure and thus provides an augmenting forced air cooling current through the electronic device for improved removal of waste heat therein.

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO PROVISIONAL APPLICATION(S) 
     This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/117,436, filed Jan. 26, 1999. 
    
    
     BACKGROUND AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The invention generally relates to a base or stand for elevating a given electronic apparatus and not only that but, more particularly, to a ventilating base which operatively couples with the given electronic apparatus so as to service or augment service of waste-heat removal within the electronic apparatus by means of air moving equipment built-in to the ventilating base. 
     In an alternative use of the invention, it is set on the ventilation vents on the sloping backside of a television cabinet, above the picture tube, and while there suctions a current of air through the television&#39;s cooling vents by virtue of being set on top there. 
     A number of additional features and objects will be apparent in connection with the following discussion of preferred embodiments and examples. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     There are shown in the drawings certain exemplary embodiments of the invention as presently preferred. It should be understood that the invention is not limited to the embodiments disclosed as examples, and is capable of variation within the scope of the appended claims. In the drawings, 
     FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a ventilating base in accordance with the invention; 
     FIG. 2 is a reduced scale perspective view thereof, except including an example unit of an electronic apparatus to show various operative uses of the ventilating base, including that it not only elevates a given electronic apparatus up off a given reference elevation but also operatively couples to the given electronic apparatus so as to service or augment service of waste-heat removal within the electronic apparatus, wherein direction arrows show how the electronic unit preferably sets down on the ventilating base; 
     FIG. 3 is a side partial section view of FIG. 2 in general, as taken through a vertical plane of symmetry, wherein direction arrows show one example of air circulation as induced by air moving equipment built-in to the ventilating base; 
     FIG. 4 is a comparable partial section view except showing an alternate embodiment of the ventilating base; 
     FIG. 5 is a perspective view of an alternate ventilating device in accordance with the invention, for setting on top of the ventilation grills of television&#39;s set sloping backside; and, 
     FIG. 6 is a perspective view thereof in an alternate use environment, as setting on top of a satellite signal processor unit. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
     FIGS. 1 through 3 show a base stand or “ventilating base”  10  in accordance with the invention. The ventilating base  10  provides multiple services. It not only elevates a given electronic apparatus  20  up off a given reference elevation, but it also operatively couples with the given electronic apparatus  20  so as to service or augment service of waste-heat removal within the electronic apparatus  20 . The ventilating base  10  does this by means of air moving equipment  30  built-in to it. 
     In the drawings, the example electronic unit  20  is more particularly shown as a SONY® Play-Station™ control unit  20 ′. The SONY® Play-Station™ is a popular in-home video game system that connects by cable directly to the television (no television is shown). However, the ventilating base  10  can be produced in configurations suitable for use with various other electronic apparatus besides the SONY® Play-Station™ as shown, and accordingly, the depiction and description of the SONY® Play-Station™ is used merely for convenience in this specification for sake of an example, and its inclusion as an example here does not limit the invention exclusively to use with the SONY® Play-Station™. 
     The example of the SONY® Play-Station™ does allow, however, a brief description of the problems with a representative class of electronic apparatus that are addressed by the invention. The marketplace has virtually exploded with a bewildering variety of electronic devices which fill the home and workplace. These include without limitation entertainment devices such as games, VCR&#39;s, stereo equipment and all the peripherals including CR-ROM units and tape decks, satellite signal processors and so on. A game system such as the SONY® Play-Station™ is brought into the home. The main control unit  20 ′ of the system may have several resting places during a week. At times when put away the main control unit  20 ′ may have a place in a cabinet or on a shelf in the home where it is out of the way. When pulled out for use the main control unit  20 ′ might be set about anywhere, like on a coffee table or even on the floor. An informal survey finds that users of the SONY® Play-Station™ quite commonly set it on the floor from time to time, and when they do so, as during use, as generally square in front of the television. That way, the users have a clear view of the television with the main control unit  20 ′ close at hand to change between games. The users play the games by of course skilled manipulation of the handheld interface devices (eg., one shown in FIG.  2  and indicated as  21 ). 
     As inherent to most electronic apparatus, the SONY® Play-Station™ main control unit  20 ′ produces waste heat. Presumptively the SONY® Play-Station™  20  has built-in means for handling or dissipating the waste heat. Inspection of an actual SONY® Play-Station™ main control unit finds that it has a relatively flat plastic box-like housing (eg.,  22 ). The housing  22  includes a bottom wall  24  which has ventilation openings (indicated as  25  in FIGS.  3  and  4 ). Such ventilation openings  25  are consistent with waste heat removal because they allow the movement of circulation air in or out of the unit  20 ′. 
     While indeed the housing  22  has a ventilated bottom wall  24 , the housing  22  has no corresponding ventilation openings in the top or side walls thereof. However, the SONY® Play-Station™ has a CD-ROM drive naturally enough, for playing the CD-encoded games. The top wall includes a dust cover lid  27  for covering over the CD-ROM drive. The lid  27  flips open on rear hinges to allow access to the CD-ROM drive and swapping out the game CD&#39;s. The thing about this lid  27  is that, when it closes shut it is still sufficiently leaky so as to allow the movement of circulation air in and out of the housing  22  much as the ventilation openings  25  in the bottom  24 . 
     Further inspection of the SONY® Play-Station™ main control unit  20 ′ failed to definitively prove how waste heat is handled inside. By inspecting as by listening carefully, no apparent sound was discernible which could be attributed to a blower fan. That function may indeed be handled by the CD-ROM drive because it is known in the art to unite in a single drive system both a CD-ROM drive and an impeller or sorts, as shown for example by U.S. Pat. No. 5,793,740—Nguyen or U.S. Pat. No. 4,662,830—Pottebaum. Whether or not the SONY® Play-Station™ incorporates such impellers as driven off the CD-ROM drive, casual inspection tends to suggest that there indeed is some weak motivator of circulation air. 
     Casual inspection also suggests that a major way which waste heat is dissipated is through natural convection. In use a plume of waste heat seems to rise off the SONY® Station™, and evidently the feed air for much of that plume enters the housing  22  through the ventilation openings  25  in the bottom  24 . 
     And so to return to the matter of the control unit  20 ′ and the floor, in many homes the floor is carpeted. Carpeting blocks or plugs those ventilation openings  25  in the bottom wall  24 . Thus carpeting stifles the infeed of circulation air in through the ventilated bottom  24 . Needless to say this detracts substantially from the waste-heat removal ability of the SONY® Play-Station™. 
     In fact, arguably, carpeting can block the intake of fresh air in through the ventilated bottom  24  (or else its movement out) sufficiently such that the control unit  20 ′ moderately overheats. 
     The problems that result from moderate overheating are numerous. The game speed may slow, and to the great consternation of the players. The temperature differential between ON-and-hot against OFF-and-cold becomes greater. Thus repetitive cycles of ON and OFF likely shortens the lifetime of the control unit  20 ′. That is, it likely reduces the number of times it can survive cycles of ON/hot and OFF/cold before something fails. Simply put, the build-up of waste heat inside the control unit  20 ′ is problem which deserves attention. 
     Players perhaps could be more careful about not setting the control unit  20 ′ on carpeting. However the players are often children and the persons who suffer the financial consequences of failed units  20 ′ are just as often the adults. What is needed is an improvement, one of the main objects of which is to overcome any of the aforementioned problems. These and other objects and inventive aspects are accomplished by the ventilating base  10  in accordance with the invention. 
     The ventilating base  10  provides a cabinet-like structure. It has a top panel  32  that plainly allows elevating the control unit  20 ′ up off, say, the floor, or any like given reference elevation. 
     The cabinet-like configuration of the ventilating base  10  is given in the drawings here merely for convenience of one example embodiment of the invention, as it can be rendered by routine skill in various other ways as would be apparent to one having ordinary skill in the art. As shown, the cabinet structure  10  has six outer panels  32 - 37  comprising four side panels  33 - 36  and a top and bottom  21  and  37 . An interior partition  39  divides the interior space into an upper and lower compartment  40  and  42 . The upper compartment  40  provides for the installation of the air motivating equipment  30  in accordance with the invention. 
     The lower compartment  42  is utilized in an inventive way merely to take advantage of its existence. In the drawings, it is shown as a storage bay as, more particularly for example, a drawer space for drawer  46 . It could alternatively include racks or dividers for organizing CD&#39;s as well. Thus, the top panel  32  preferably measures a given distance above the feet  44  of the base  10  just so that it props the given electronic apparatus  20  at the given elevation above the floor (eg., or given reference elevation). One compartment or another  40  or  42  is relied on to house the air motivating equipment  32 , and that has been decided in favor of a compartment  40  lying immediately underneath the top panel  32 . Alternatively, this compartment for the fan or blower system  30  could just as easily be set to one side of the top panel  32 , and not just underneath. However, there being space available between the top panel  32  and the feet  44 , this space has been utilized in the format of a fan blower compartment  40 . Moreover, given the abundance of space, it has further been utilized in the format as a drawer compartment  42 . A drawer  46  is provided to slide in and out of the drawer compartment  42  through a suitable opening in the front panel  33 . 
     In general the drawer  46  provides users with a convenient storage place for any accessories (eg.,  21 ) to the given electronic apparatus  20 . In more concrete terms, since the example electronic apparatus  20  shown by the drawings is the SONY® Play-Station™, its major accessories include the handheld interface devices  21  and the CD game cartridges (not shown). The drawer  46  has been partitioned with a series of dividers  48  for convenience of organizing and filing away such game CD&#39;s as well as interface devices of about the same small size (eg.,  21 ; however, joysticks—not shown—are likely not to fit in such slots unless an enlarged space is provided for them). But configuring the lower compartment  42  as a drawer space is merely shown as a non-limiting example of how to advantageously employ the available space for the purposes of the SONY® Play-Station™. 
     To turn attention now to the upper compartment  40 , it houses the air motivating equipment  30  in accordance with the invention. The air motivating equipment  30  comprises a fan unit  50  having a blade structure  52 , a motor (hidden from view) for turning the blades  52 , and a shroud  54  for surrounding the blades  52  and motor. The base  10 &#39;s top panel  32  is formed with a square port  56 . The fan  50  is mounted to that periphery of that port  56  by the shroud  54 . The shroud  54  has four corner tabs extending out from its cylindrical body to fill up the corner gaps in the square port  56  and so limit leakage around the blades  52 . The port  56  also has a grill  58  to cover the fan blades  52 . 
     In the upper compartment  40 , the left and right side panels  35  and  37  are provided with sets of ventilation slots  62 . These slots  62  permit movement of circulation air in or out of the upper compartment  40 . The back or front panels  34  or  33  may likewise be formed with such slots but this is not shown by the drawings. The top panel  32  includes next to the port  56  a set of controls  64 , 66 . These controls  64 , 66  preferably control the following operative functions of the fan  50 :—eg., to change its ON or OFF state, to change or reverse its direction of turning, and to change its speed. Changing its direction of turning allows changing whether the fan  50  blows or suctions air through the SONY® Play-Station™. The speed control  66  is preferably variable speed but it may alternatively be configured for discrete speeds such as HI and LO. A line cord  68  is included for plugging into a conventional socket of public-utility supplied electric power (not shown). The top panel  32  has a rectangular-frame foam gasket  70  affixed to it and extending around covering an inside margin of the top panel  32 &#39;s four (4) rectangle edges. 
     The foam gasket  70  provides several benefits. It increases the frictional gripping between the base  10  and the SONY® Play-Station™  20  and hence enhances the stability of the SONY® Play-Station™  20  on the base  10 . The gasket  70  forms a light air seal and hence eliminates leakage of air moving between the ventilating base  10  and the SONY® Play-Station™  20 . In fact, in use, preferably the ventilated base  10  is operated such that it suctions air through the SONY® Play-Station™  20 . The suction of air through the SONY® Play-Station™  20  is likely to increase the compression of the SONY® Play-Station™  20  on the gasket  70 . In contrast, blowing air through the SONY® Play-Station™  20  is likely to lighten the contact between the gasket  70  and SONY® Play-Station™  20 . Accordingly, with no other good reasons why not, preferably the ventilated base  10  is operated to suction air through the SONY® Play-Station™  20 . Even though for the SONY® Play-Station™  20  the built-in movement of air is probably up, preferably the ventilating base  10  is operated in opposition to the built-in movement of air. The fan power of the ventilating base  10  is sufficient to overcome the built-in circulation scheme of the SONY® Play-Station™  20 . Regardless, the built-in circulation scheme for the SONY® Play-Station™  20  seems to measure weak. Hence it is not thought to be problematical to run it in reverse. 
     However, the ventilating base  10  specifically includes a reverse control  64  for those users or owners who prefer to run the air circulation in the direction as they see best. The speed control  66  gives the users or owners further control over the waste-heat removal dynamics within the given electronic apparatus. In the case of the SONY® Play-Station™  20 , the OEM s literature on it is silent on the issue of augmenting its waste heat removal capability. Accordingly, based on such lack of information, a user who may nevertheless wish to augment the waste heat removal may also do it conservatively as by running a low speed air current through the given apparatus  20 . In contrast, other users may be of the view that OEM&#39;s provide as minimal built-in waste heat removal as necessary to insure only that their products will survive the warranty. Those owners needless to say might be the same ones who wish to extend the lives of their electronic apparatus  20  as much as possible. Those owners more than likely would run the ventilating base  10  at higher speed(s). 
     FIG. 3 shows a representative scheme of air movement through the ventilating base  10  and SONY® Play-Station™  20  as indicated by arrows  75 . These arrows  75  are typical of a suctioning scheme. A blowing scheme would appear fairly similar except in having the arrows  75  point in the opposite directions. It is noted that the SONY® Play-Station™  20  is shown merely diagrammatically for convenience in FIG.  3 . 
     The ventilating base  10  has feet pads  44  sticking down from the corner areas of the bottom panel  37 . The feet pads  4  are preferably synthetic rubber or the like to prevent slippage and accommodate moderate surface roughness or unevenness and so on whatever surface the ventilating base  10  is rested on. As previously discussed, such a surface includes carpeted floor and the like. 
     FIG. 4 is a comparable partial section view of FIG. 3 except showing an alternate version  12  of the ventilating base. This alternate version  12  includes several further inventive aspects as the following. 
     The alternate version  12  has a master ON/OFF switch  80  provided on its front panel  33 . It has an auxiliary  120  VAC socket  82  provided on its back panel  34 . The auxiliary  120  VAC socket  82  permits the line cord  29  of the SONY® Play-Station™  20  to plug into the socket  82 , as shown. That way, the master ON/OFF switch  80  controls the ON/OFF state of both the ventilating base  12  and SONY® Play-Station™  20  simultaneously. Thus the master ON/OFF switch  80  helps eliminate times when the SONY® Play-Station™  20  is switched ON but the ventilating base  12  remains OFF. (Regardless of those times, air is free to move through the upper compartment  40 , as in through the slots  62  and up through the fan  50 , without any real impedance. It&#39;s just that the air isn&#39;t positively motivated as when the fan  50  is OFF, and accordingly the ventilating base  12  works best when the fan  50  is ON.) 
     Also, the auxiliary socket  82  comprises a built-in surge protector  84  for providing protection to the given electronic apparatus  20  (eg., SONY® Play-Station™ against both small (eg., in-house) or large (eg., lightning) types of line surges. With attention to the bottom panel  37 , it is supplemented with a weighted plate  86 . This weighted plate  86  make the ventilating base  12  more bottom heavy and should also make the base  12  less susceptible to getting knocked over. 
     Further aspects of the invention concern the choice of components to produce the air motivating system  30  that is incorporated into the invention. There are available such off-the-shelf air fans as having low-noise motors, low noise fan blades, and motors which give off low EMI emissions (or else are suitably shielded or located remote from sensitive electronics in the given electronic apparatus  20 ). Such air motivation systems are commonly available for incorporation into laptop and desktop personal computers from a wide variety of commercial sources. Persons having ordinary skill are able to routinely choose the appropriate components for incorporation into the ventilating base  10 , 12  given the various use environments it will serve. 
     Accordingly, the ventilating base  10 , 12  in accordance with the invention provides a simple means of elevating a given electronic apparatus  20  up—as moderately out of harm&#39;s way—as well as service or augment service of waste-heat removal within such a given electronic apparatus  20 . The ventilating base  10 , 12  can optionally be configured in a cabinet-like format, including a compartment  42  for storing or organizing accessories ordinarily attendant to the given electronic apparatus  20 . One non-limiting example as shown by the drawings includes a drawer compartment  42  which when combined with a drawer  46 , allows storage and filing organization of CD&#39;s (not shown) and the like for a SONY® Play-Station™  20 . 
     The ventilating base  10 , 12  can include a blower or impeller fan  50  and the like for expelling or suctioning air. The controls  64 , 66  can include variable speed and/or reverse. Further functions can include an auxiliary socket  82  for plug-in of the power cord  29  of the given electronic apparatus  20 . That way the master power switch  80  of the ventilating base  12  becomes dominant. It eliminates a situation in which the given electronic apparatus  20  is switched ON but the ventilating base  12  is left OFF. 
     FIG. 5 shows an alternate embodiment  10 ′ of a ventilating device in accordance with the invention. This ventilating device  10 ′ is comparable to the previously described ventilating base  10  except it omits the drawer  46  and drawer compartment  42 , and otherwise is arranged inverted with respect to the ventilating base  10  shown by the previous drawings. This ventilating device  10 ′ is given the inverted arrangement as shown in FIG. 5 to allow use by setting the device  10 ′ on top of the ventilation grill  92  in the sloping backside panel of a television set  90 . 
     FIG. 6 shows an alternate utilization of the FIG. 5 ventilating base, as setting on top of a satellite signal processor unit  94 . 
     The invention having been disclosed in connection with the foregoing variations and examples, additional variations will now be apparent to persons skilled in the art. The invention is not intended to be limited to the variations specifically mentioned, and accordingly reference should be made to the appended claims rather than the foregoing discussion of preferred examples, to assess the scope of the invention in which exclusive rights are claimed.