Juice-extractor also serving as a grinder

A juice-extractor also serving as a grinder suitable for extracting juice from water-containing materials, such as vegetables, fruits, soybeans, and for grinding dry material into powder, such as coffee beans, green beans, nuts. In addition to elements similar to that of a juice-extractor, such as the funnel, the top cover, the lower grinding disc, the meshes-containing filter, the residue collector, the juice flow guider, and the base, the grinder also includes a bag made of air-pervious fabric and a rotational retainer having a closed side wall. When the juice-extractor is to serve as a grinder to grind a dry material into powder, the air-pervious bag is used to replace the residue collector and the rotaional retainer is used to replace the meshes-containing filter, so that powder produced from the grinding can be directly sent into the bag instead of the juice flow guider.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
The juice-extractor has been a popular family appliance for many years. A 
housewife may use the juice-extractor to extract juice from various kinds 
of vegetable and fruit and use the extracted juice to make many home-made 
foods, such as bean milk, sugarcane juice, carrot juice. However, such 
conventional juice-extractor can only be used to grind or extract juice 
from materials containing water. In case of grinding a dry material, water 
must be added to permit safe grinding operation. That is, the conventional 
juice-extractor can not be used to grind a material in a completely dry 
condition, such as to grind coffee beans to obtain powdered coffee. 
Some people who enjoy coffee might request a coffee seller to grind coffee 
beans for them and store the fresh coffee powder at home for their own 
use. However, the ground coffee tends to easily lose it good smell and 
taste and even become deteriorated after being stored for a period of 
time. The deteriorated coffee surely has bad influence on the drinker's 
health. To avoid the risk of deteriorated coffee, some people might prefer 
to buy a coffee grinder to grind the coffee beans at home at any time they 
want to enjoy a cup of fresh coffee. An additional coffee grinder will, of 
course, increase the family expenditure and occupy extra space to store 
it. 
Therefore, it is desirable to improve the conventional juice-extractor 
which is very popular among general families so that the juice-extractor 
can also be used to grind coffee beans and other dry material simply by 
adding a few elements which are suitable for collecting powder obtained 
from gound dry material. 
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
The present invention relates to a juice-extractor which can also serve as 
a grinder when a rotational retainer and a cloth bag are used to 
respectively replace a filter and a residue collector which are used in a 
conventional juice-extractor. When the present invention serves as a 
grinder, it can be used to grind dry material. Powder obtained from the 
ground material can be collected in the cloth bag tightened to one side of 
a top cover of the grinder. What is to be noted is the cloth bag is made 
of air-pervious material and therefore allows good air convection in the 
grinder during the grinding. Good air convection shall facilitate 
collection of the powder into the bag. After the grinding is completed, 
the cloth bag can be easily removed from the top cover to take out the 
powder.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
The present invention relates to a juice-extractor also serving as a 
grinder. Since the present invention adopts a structure of a conventional 
juice-extractor as its basic structure, the structure of the conventional 
juice-extractor and the operation thereof is first described herein. For 
convenience purpose, in the description of the structures of the 
conventional juice-extractor and of the present invention, like elements 
will be denoted by the same reference numerals. However, it is understood 
that various changes in the shape, size, and arrangements of such elements 
may be achieved by those who are skilled in the art without departing from 
the spirit of the invention or the scope of the subjoined claims. 
Please now refer to FIGS. 3 and 4 in which a conventional juice-extrator 
forming the basis of the present invention is shown. The juice-extractor 
includes, from top to bottom, a funnel 1, a top cover 2, an upper grinding 
disc 21 attached to a bottom surface of the top cover 2, a lower grinding 
disc 3 disposed below and cooperating with the upper grinding disc 21, a 
filter 4 having a central hole and holding the lower grinding disc 3 
therein, and a bottom disc 6. The lower grinding disc 3, the filter 4, and 
the bottom disc 6 all are disposed in a juice flow guider 7 and are 
fixedly mounted onto a shaft 81 of a base 8 by means of a screw cap 82. 
The funnel 1 accepts material to be ground and has a lower mouth 12 which 
is inserted into a central opening 22 of the top cover 2. A push tab 11 is 
provided near a bottom of the funnel 1 above the lower mouth 12 to control 
a flow of the material to be sent into the juice-extractor for grinding. 
The top cover 2 includes an extension 25 laterally projected from one side 
of the top cover 2. A residue collector 5 is disposed below the extension 
25 for collecting residues separated from the extracted juice. Retaining 
means 23 are provided at two sides of the top cover 2 at predetermined 
positions. 
The filter 4 is provided at its side wall with meshes 41, so that juice 
extracted from the ground material can be filtered by and flow through the 
meshes 41 into the juice flow guider 7 and finally flows out the 
juice-extractor from an outlet 71 of the juice flow guider 7. 
A motor (not shown) is mounted inside the base 8 to rotate the shaft 81 of 
the base 8. The rotating shaft 81 further brings the lower grinding disc 
3, etc. to rotate. To enable all the elements of the juice-extractor to 
firmly associate with one another, a fixing bar 83 having two inward 
projected retaining heads is pivotally connected to the base 8, so that 
the fixing bar 83 can be turned upward to firmly bind all elements 
together with the retaining heads 83 caught in the retaining means 23 on 
the top cover 2. 
When using the above described juice-extractor to obtain some kind of 
juice, put some water-containing material in the funnel 1 and turn on the 
motor in the base 8. After the water-containing material is ground in the 
juice-extractor, juice produced from the ground material is discharged 
from the outlet 71 of the juice flow guider 7. Residues produced from the 
ground material and separated from the juice by the filter 4 is discharged 
from the extension 25 of the top cover 2 under a centrifugal force 
produced by the rotating shaft 81 of the base 8. The discharged resuidues 
are collected in the residue collector 5. Juice flowing out of the 
juice-extractor via the outlet 71 of the juice flow guider 7 can be 
directly served or be stored for later use. 
What is to be noted is the above described juice-extractor can only be used 
to grind water-containing material to extract juice from the material, and 
it can not be used to grind a dry material into powder. To overcome this 
drawback, the present invention provides a juice-extractor which can also 
serve as a grinder for dry material as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2. 
The present invention has similar structure as that of the above described 
conventional juice-extractor. However, two vertical grooves 24 are 
provided on two sides of the top cover 2 at where the top cover 2 projects 
to form the extension 25. A bag 9 made of air-pervious cloth and having an 
elastic band 91 sewed to an opening of the bag is additionally provided 
for directly engaging into the two grooves 24 and tightening around the 
extension 25, so that the bag 9 firmly attaches to and hangs from the 
extension 25. Meanwhile, a rotational retainer 10 with closed side wall is 
used to replace the meshes-containing filter 4 to dispose below the lower 
grinding disc 3. 
When using the present invention to grind a dry material, such as coffee 
beans and green beans, simply pour the dry material into the funnel 1, 
allowing the dry material to continuously flows into the present invention 
for grinding. Since the rotational retainer 10 has closed side wall 
without any mesh or hole, the dry material having been ground into powder 
will be sent directly into the bag 9 due to a centrifugal force produced 
when the motor 8 is started. And since the bag 9 is made of air-pervious 
fabric, it allows good air convection in the present invention during a 
grinding operation, and therefore permits resultant powder to be 
continuously and smoothly collected into the bag 9. 
It is to be understood that the bag 9 can also be made of other material 
depending on the actual need, as long as the material is air-pervious 
while it can effectively hold the powder without any leakage. 
FIGS. 5, 6A and 6B illustrate a second embodiment of the filter 4' and the 
rotational retainer 10'. Wherein, the rotational retainer 10' has only a 
side wall without a bottom. Protuberances 101 are provided at a bottom 
side of a flange extending around an upper circumferential edge of the 
retainer 10'. And, receiving holes 42 having a profile of a figure "8" are 
provided at a top side of a flange extending around an upper 
circumferential edge of the filter 4' to correspond to the protuberances 
101 on the rotational retainer 10'. The receiving hole 42 each includes a 
larger and a smaller circular opening with a narrowed neck portion formed 
between the two circular openings. The rotational retainer 10' is nested 
in the filter 4' with the protuberances 101 downward extending into the 
larger circular openings of the receiving holes 42. Then, the rotational 
retainer 10' is rotated in a direction as indicated by the arrows in FIG. 
6A, so that the protuberances 101 are forced to slide into the smaller 
circular openings of the receiving holes 42. Since the protuberance 101 
each has an outer diameter the same as an internal diameter of the smaller 
circular opening and is pressed against the smaller circular opening by 
the narrowed neck portion, the rotational retainer 10' can be firmly 
attached to the filter 4' without easily becoming loose from the filter 
4'. 
Since the present invention has a structure fully compatible with that of 
the conventional juice-extractor, a consumer already having a conventional 
juice-extractor may purchase only the additional rotational retainer 10 
and bag 9 for use with the old juice-extractor. 
With the above arrangements, the present invention provides improvements to 
the conventional juice-extractor for water-containing material so that the 
juice-extractor can also serve as a grinder for dry material.