Abstract:
In a first embodiment of the invention, an intra-fishing lure animator, comprising: a vibrator; an electrical power source electrically connected to the vibrator for providing electric power to the vibrator; and a programmable controller electrically connected between the vibrator and the electrical power source to animate the fishing lure by actuating the vibrator. In a second embodiment of the invention, a fishing lure, comprising: a lure body having a cavity defined therein; a fishing hook attached to the lure body; an eyelet attached to the lure body for connecting the lure body to a fishing line; a first microcontroller housed in the cavity, the first microcontroller operative to electronically animate the lure body from side to side in the water; an energy source electrically connected to the first microcontroller to operate the first microcontroller; and a switch connected between the energy source and the first microcontroller. Further embodiments are also disclosed.

Description:
This application claims benefit of provisional U.S. Patent Application Ser. No. 60/298,455, filed Jun. 15, 2001, under 37 C.F.R. § 1.53(c), entitled “Microlure: Programmable Electronic Vibrating Device for Fishing Lures &amp; Other Devices.” 
   Be it known that I, Rick W. Talbert, a citizen of the United States, residing at 102 Hillwood Drive, Dickson, Tenn. 37055; have invented a new and useful “Intra-Fishing Lure Animator Apparatus.” 
   A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material that may be subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent disclosure, as it appears in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever. 

   BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
   Fishing lures have been used for both commercial and recreational fishing for many decades, if not hundreds of years. As an alternative to catching live bait for use in fishing, and the occasional onerous task of keeping live bait alive while fishing, many fishermen have found it beneficial to use fishing lures as artificial bait to catch fish. Historically, the use of artificial lures in fishing required fishermen to learn and employ techniques to make the artificial lures behave as live bait would behave when moving through the water, since it has been demonstrated that greater fishing success can be had in so doing. 
   It will be appreciated that attempting to impart realistic movements to artificial lures is a somewhat physically demanding task, requiring specialized knowledge in the movements of live bait as well as a physical ability to use such knowledge in making the artificial lure appear to be alive, thus increasing the enticement and resulting harvest of fish. Not only do these demands make fishing more arduous, the movements of the fishermen that are required to impart such lifelike behavior to an artificial lure often place physical strains on the fisherman&#39;s arms and hands as the fisherman attempts to animate an artificial lure using such techniques. In fact, many fishermen can attribute muscular and nerve ailments to the physical stresses associated with animating artificial lures. 
   To remedy some of the difficulties associated with animating artificial lures, fishing lures have been developed to act on their own to ease the task of animating the lures during fishing. For example, lures have been developed to emit fish-attracting scents. Other lures have been developed with rattles inside to attract fish through sound. Still other lures have been made to vibrate after being wound up with a winding device to visually attract fish through lifelike movement. However, no lure has been developed to imitate lifelike bait movement through electrically- or electronically-driven animation. 
   What is needed, then, is an electrically-powered fishing lure animator to mimic live bait movements while the lure is in the water. 
   SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
   The present invention generally relates to an intra-fishing lure animator that is electrically powered. More specifically, the present invention relates to the animating of a fishing lure by an electrically powered and programmably controlled vibrator within the fishing lure body. 
   The intra-fishing lure animator of the invention incorporates a vibrating device that is both electrically powered and programmably controlled via a programmable control system that dictates the operation of the vibrator. The vibrator, the programmable controller, and the electrical power source are arranged in an electrical circuit. The circuit is naturally broken, and the majority of the circuit is housed within a fishing lure to be animated. The broken portion of the circuit is exposed through the exterior of the lure so that placing the fishing lure underwater enables the circuit to be closed by the water itself. When the circuit is closed, the vibrator is actuated by the electrical power source and the action of the vibrator are controlled by the programmable controller. The programmable controller may be programmed in any of a number of ways to direct that the vibrator be actuated in any desirable manner, even in a random manner. 
   Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a fishing lure animator having improved lure-animating characteristics. 
   It is a further object of the invention to provide a fishing lure animator that is electrically powered from within to mimic the action of live bait. 
   It is a further object of the invention to provide a fishing lure that electronically attracts fish by imitating the actions of live bait. 
   It is further object of the invention to provide a modular fishing lure system that allows for a fishing lure to be fitted with any of a variety of intra-fishing lure animators, each of which causes the fishing lure to behave in a different manner when in place. 
   It is a further object of the invention to ease the physical task of animating artificial lures to imitate live bait. 
   It is a further object of the invention to ease the mental task of continually animating an artificial lure in a manual fashion. 
   In addition to the foregoing, further objects, features, and advantages of the present invention should become more readily apparent to those skilled in the art upon a reading of the following detailed description in conjunction with the drawings, wherein there are shown and described illustrated embodiments of the invention. 

   
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       FIG. 1  is a plan view of a first embodiment of the intra-lure animator of the invention. 
       FIG. 2  is a plan view of a generic lipless lure with the intra-lure animator of  FIG. 1  inserted into a cavity therein. 
       FIG. 3  is a schematic diagram of the intra-lure animator circuit of the invention. 
       FIG. 4  is a graphical representation of the operation of the circuit of FIG.  3 . 
       FIG. 5  is a plan view of a second embodiment of the intra-lure animator of the invention. 
       FIG. 6  is an end view of the intra-lure animator of  FIG. 5  showing rotational motion of a portion of the animator. 
       FIG. 7  is a side view of a generic lipped lure fitted with the intra-lure animator of FIG.  5 . 
       FIG. 8  is an end view of a generic lipped lure fitted with the intra-lure animator of  FIG. 5  while the lure is not animated. 
       FIG. 9  shows the lure of  FIG. 8  as the lure is animated by the intra-lure animator of  FIG. 5  in a first direction. 
       FIG. 10  shows the lure of  FIG. 8  as the lure is animated by the intra-lure animator of  FIG. 5  in a second direction. 
   

   DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
   Referring to  FIG. 1 , a first embodiment of the intra-fishing lure animator of the invention is shown, with a vibrator  10  that is designed in a bullet capsule configuration for insertion into a fishing lure as will be seen below. Bullet capsule  11  houses at least one micromotor  12  having a weighted armature  13  extending therefrom to impart vibratory motion to a fishing lure. Micromotor  12  is mounted on a circuit board  20 , which supports the hardware that will control the actions of micromotor  12 . The micromotor is DC voltage polarized, and is of a type similar to a Vibramotor Model OTL-4TH3 DC coreless motor with an operating voltage range of 1.1 to 4 VDC, of a type such as are manufactured by K&#39;otl/Jinlong Machinery &amp; Electronics Co., Ltd. of Wenzhou Zhejiang, China. A process controller  14  contains resident firmware or software that instructs motor control circuit  15  to activate micromotor  12 , which in turn rotates weighted armature  13  to impart vibration to the fishing lure. Weighted armature  13  is similar to model OTL4-4 or model OTL-6 coreless DC motor that can be purchased from the same company as that listed above. A power supply regulation and water contact sensor circuit  16  is also mounted to circuit board  20  to control the power that is supplied to the rest of the circuitry and the micromotor mounted to circuit board  20 . Specifically, power supply regulation and water contact sensor circuit  16  is operative to sense that water has closed the circuit at water activation contacts  17 , thus allowing power from batteries  19  to cause process controller  14  to send instructions to motor control circuit  15 , which in turn controls the operation of micromotor  12 . A water seal and retention ring  18  is placed around the end of bullet capsule  11  that is closest to water activation contacts  17  to provide both a seal against the ingress of water to the cavity in which bullet capsule  11  is to be inserted, as well as a retention ring for preventing bullet capsule  11  from inadvertently sliding out of the cavity. 
   Referring to  FIG. 2 , a generic lipless lure  21  is shown, having a lure body  22 , at least one hook  23 , and a line tie eyelet  24  as are well known in the art. A cavity  25  is formed in lure body  22  sufficient to slidably receive and retain bullet capsule  11 . Having received bullet capsule  11 , lure  21  is animated as follows. Process controller  14  contains firmware and/or software resident therein that cause micromotor  12  and weighted armature  13  to operate, imparting rotational torque to vibrator  10  and causing vibrations to translate to lure body  22  and the surrounding water. The preferred method of making a process controller is to use a processor with on-board memory storage such as EPROM. Using a low-voltage controller such as process controller  15  would be desirable to extend the battery life of batteries  19 . Process controller  14  may be operated at any of a variety of frequencies, rpm vibration routines, or cadences to cause lure  21  to behave in any of a variety of ways to imitate various types of live bait. Lure body  22  could be made of soft plastic, hard materials, or any other conventional material. Bullet capsule  11  may be color-coded according to various specific characteristics of vibration that are imparted thereby, so that a fisherman desiring to use a particular vibrator may identify it by sight and select it for use in animating lure  21 . This is desirable because different species of fish are attracted by different movements. In the preferred embodiment, circuit board  20  is less than twenty-four (24) millimeters long and no more than seven (7) millimeters in width or height. The end of bullet capsule  11  adjacent water activation contacts  17  also should have edges or an area that is able to be grasped to aid the removal of bullet capsule  11  from lure body  22 . 
   In an alternative version of the second embodiment of the invention, the actuation of vibrator  10  may be enhanced by the addition of a temperature sensor connected to process controller  14  that will cause vibrations to operate at a faster rate in warmer temperatures according to the programming of process controller  14  and to operate more slowly at lower temperatures. This type of temperature sensitivity will enable lure  21  to assume a more lifelike motion, since it is well known that living animals under the water typically animate more slowly in colder temperatures than in warmer water temperatures. 
   Referring to  FIG. 3 , a preferred embodiment of a schematic diagram of the intra-lure animator  30  of the invention is shown, with a microchip  31  having resident logic thereon to animate a fishing lure in the manner herein described. Microchip  31  has a number of input/output pins that allow microchip  31  to interface with the other components of the animator. An activation switch  32  is closed by water, connecting the electrical source that is a battery  33  to a voltage regulator  34  and activating microchip  31 . Microchip  31  and voltage regulator  34  then activate motor  35  via switching transistor  36  in the manner directed by the resident logic of microchip  31 . Various auxiliary pins that are unused in the basic embodiment of the invention may be used to receive inputs from a temperature sensor  37 , for example, to control the speed and duration of the vibration to mimic known live bait behavior in response to water temperature. Microchip  31  would contain routines to receive input from temperature sensor  37  and to control the vibration actions in response thereto. Also, a remote actuation mechanism may be connected to microchip  31  to provide the fisherman with the ability to remotely control the activity of the fishing lure. For example, a conventional mercury switch or ball vibration switch  38  may be attached to an auxiliary pin of microchip  31  and to ground to receive manual actuation or sleep commands from the fisherman controlling the lure. In one embodiment of the invention, the fisherman jerks the rod and reel to close mercury switch or ball vibration switch  38 , which in turn signals microchip  31  to activate vibrations or, if vibrations are activated, to terminate vibrations. Many types of on/off commands may be issued to the lure animator by the mere introduction of mercury switch or ball vibration switch  38 . Moreover, many types of remote actuation mechanisms may be employed to perform this function. 
   Referring to  FIG. 4 , a graphical representation  40  of the operation of the circuit of  FIG. 3  is shown, as voltage is supplied to the circuit to cause the animator to vibrate. Specifically, three voltage pulses  41  are shown, each pulse  41  indicating that voltage is supplied to the animator in amplitudes up to 2.5 volts DC. Each pulse  41  is approximately five minutes in duration, and there are rest periods  42  of approximately two minutes between pulses  41 . These pulses  41  and rest periods  42  are merely exemplary; many variations may be made to the system of the invention to cause the animator to vibrate in a desired manner. 
   Referring to  FIG. 5 , a second embodiment of the intra-fishing lure animator is designed primarily for installation in a lipped lure, so that the animator imparts not only vibration to the lure but also a sort of steering, as will be seen below. The lipped lure&#39;s animation will be actuated by a vibrator  50 , which in turn has a circuit board  51  with a first micromotor  52  and a second micromotor  53  mounted thereon. Each of first micromotor  52  and second micromotor  53  has a weighted armature  65  and  56 , respectively, extending therefrom to impart vibratory motion to the fishing lure by turning in a conventional manner. An arrangement of circuitry referred to as a programmable controller  57  is also mounted on circuit board  51  and is arranged to control the operation of first micromotor  52  and second micromotor  53 . Batteries  54  are in communication with circuit board  51  to provide power to both programmable controllers  57  and micromotors  52  and  53 . Any of a number of batteries will suffice to operate the animator so long as the current provided to the apparatus renders the apparatus operative as described and claimed herein. Programmable controller  57  is logically arranged to actuate one or both of micromotors  52  and  53  to control the operation of the micromotors. 
   Referring to  FIG. 6 , first weighted armature  55  and second weighted armature  56  are arranged in opposition to each other so that as either one or both of first micromotor  52  and second micromotor  53  are actuated by programmable controller  57 , the rotation of first weighted armature  55  and second weighted armature  56  impart a torque that causes a slight pitch or roll from side to side as pulses of current are sent to the micromotors. The operation of each micromotor will cause each respective weighted armature to turn in a clockwise direction as observed from the shaft end of the motor as programmable controller  67  sends pulses of current to each of the micromotors through a transistor. The clockwise torque of each micromotor and weighted armature arrangement causes rotational motion that, in turn, causes the vibrator to vibrate through translated rotational torque. The steering-type function of this second embodiment of the invention is discussed below relating to  FIGS. 8 ,  9 , and  10 . 
   Referring to  FIG. 7 , a generic fishing lure  70  is shown, with a lure body  71  having a cavity  72  therein sufficient to house vibrator  50  as constructed in the manner previously described. Lure  70  has one or more hooks  73  attached thereto, as well as a conventional lip  74 , which supports a line tie eyelet  75  in a known manner. The construction of vibrator  50  is as described hereinabove relating to  FIGS. 5 and 6 , but in  FIG. 7  it can be seen that a pair of electrical wires  76  depend downward from circuit board  51  to a pair of contacts  77  which are separated by a small distance from each other. Wires  76  and contacts  77  form a part of the circuit of vibrator  50  that will act as a switch, such that when lure  70  is cast into the water, the water itself closes this switch between contacts  77 , thus activating the entire circuit as well as vibrator  50 . 
   Referring to  FIG. 8 , lure  70  is shown with vibrator  50  installed in an unactuated state. Lure  70  is made in a conventional manner to employ lip  74  to cause lure  70  to dive to a certain depth and maintain such depth during retrieval of lure  70 . Retrieval generally occurs along retrieval line  80 , which points in the direction of the fisherman. 
   Referring to  FIG. 9 , as lure  70  moves through the water, vibrator  50  is actuated in a manner described above relating to  FIG. 7  so that first micromotor  52  begins to rotate first weighted armature  55 , causing lure  70  to slightly roll in response to the translated torque imparted by first micromotor  52 &#39;s operation. As lure  70  rolls, lip  74  pitches in that direction, directing a slight change in the direction of forward motion of lure  70  from a direction along retrieval line  80  and in a new direction along first altered retrieval line  90  as lure  70  is being retrieved. This alteration in line of retrieval is momentary; lure  70  will always tend to travel along retrieval line  80  unless vibrator  50  causes a different motion as described. 
   Referring to  FIG. 10 , programmable controller  57  next sends a pulse of current to second micromotor  53 , rotating second weighted armature  56  and causing vibrator  50  to impart to lure  70  a slight roll to the right. As lure  70  rolls, lip  74  pitches, directing a slight change in the direction of forward motion of lure  70  from a direction along retrieval line  80  and in a new direction along second altered retrieval line  100  as lure  70  is being retrieved. This alteration in line of retrieval is momentary; lure  70  will always tend to travel along retrieval line  80  unless vibrator  50  causes a different motion as described. 
   Further referring to  FIG. 10 , rolling and drifting to the left and the right effectively cause lure  70  to continually change direction as lure  70  is being retrieved, imparting further lifelike action to lure  70 . The circuitry of programmable controller  57  directs first micromotor  52  and second micromotor  53  to operate in any of a number of ways to cause lure  70  to wag from side to side to imitate live bait. This is accomplished in the second embodiment of the invention by a software routine that starts automatically upon closing of the circuit by the water interacting with contacts  77  in which programmable controller  57  runs a software routine that sends current pulses to one or both motors intermittently, turning the respective weighted armatures to produce torques that cause lure  70  to roll slightly in response. Arranging the micromotors in opposite directions from each other allows lure  70  to wag from side to side, since the micromotors turn in opposite directions from each other. In addition to the wagging motion, this controlled operation of the micromotors delivers vibration energy throughout lure body  71  and into the surrounding water, and the vibrations are detected by and begin to attract fish. While the system of the invention may be employed in lures that do not incorporate lip  74 , the system of the invention works best in lures that have a diving lip or blade such as lip  74 . However, if vibrator  50  is installed in a lure that does not have lip  74 , vibrator  50  may still animate the lure, but the movements of the lure will generally not be as great as a lure having lip  74 . Moreover, it is generally not essential for vibrator  50  to have both of first micromotor  52  and second micromotor  53  in order to cause the animation herein described. A single micromotor may animate the lure sufficiently in some cases. In any event, the user of lure  70  would cast lure  70  into the water and begin a steady retrieval, with the water acting as a switch activating vibrator  50  to animate lure  70 . 
   Numerous software routines may be programmed into the circuitry of the intra-lure animator of the invention to operate the animator. For example, software may direct the animator to actuate in pulses of shorter duration to save battery life or to attract different species of fish. A basic software routine that is used in a preferred embodiment of the invention has the following logic. When a lure equipped with the animator of the invention is cast into the water, the water-exposed contacts contact the water, closing the circuit. Closing of the circuit energizes and initializes the processor. The processor then controls the animator to cause the animator to go into a vibration mode for a certain duration. At the end of the animator&#39;s vibration mode, the lure puts itself into a sleep mode awaiting further actuation from the fisherman. If the animator is reeled back out of the water before the vibration mode runs for its duration, the circuit is broken and goes into a sleep mode until the lure is re-cast into the water, at which time the actuation and animation begins anew. 
   In an alternative version of the first embodiment of the invention, a remote actuation mechanism such as mercury or ball vibration switch, any other g-force-actuated switch, or any conventional remote control-type device is mounted on circuit board  51  to be triggered by a short, jerk-type motion. Wires  76  and contacts  77  work as a switch to be closed by water in the same manner as that described above. By electrically connecting the remote actuation mechanism to ground and to a circuit input in such a manner as that described above relating to  FIG. 3 , the remote actuation mechanism will activate microchip  31  to being a vibration routine. In this manner, vibrator  50  is totally enclosed within lure  70 , and a twitching-type action of the fisherman would cause the remote actuation mechanism to activate vibrator  50 , which will operate for a specific duration such as thirty seconds. Similarly, a second twitch can initiate a stop command to programmable controller  57 , wherein the remote actuation mechanism causes the vibration routine to stop. During the times that vibrator  50  is not running, programmable controller  57  will go into a power-saving mode until the user twitches lure  70  again to activate the mercury or ball vibration switch. This alternative version of the first embodiment of the invention allow for the use of vibrator  50  with both lipped and lipless lures as well as lipped or bladed diving lures. 
   Thus, although there have been described particular embodiments of the present invention of a new and useful Intra-Fishing Lure Animator Apparatus, it is not intended that such references be construed as limitations upon the scope of this invention except as set forth in the following claims.