Device for damping the movement of movable furniture parts in their closing region

A device for damping the movement of movable furniture parts to their closed position provides for a housing which can be fastened to a fixed wall part or carcass part, in which housing a lever is pivotably held or a plunger is slidably guided, with said lever or plunger being pivoted or slid to its closing region by the movable furniture part, thus by way of at least a two-stage gear mechanism with a speed increasing ratio impinging on a rotation damper or on the piston of a damping cylinder.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to a device for damping the movement of movable furniture parts in their closing region, preferably for damping the closing movement of doors, flaps or drawers.

Devices of this type are used for decelerating movable furniture parts, for example doors, flaps or drawers, during vigorous movement into their closed position so as to reduce noise when they come to rest against carcass parts of items of furniture or fixed parts, and so as to reduce impact loads. In known devices of this type, the damping devices which are used for damping or decelerating the furniture parts are impinged upon along only a relatively small path in the closing region of the movable furniture parts so that they are only able to provide a correspondingly modest damping or deceleration action.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is thus the object of the invention to create a device of the type mentioned in the introduction which causes strong deceleration and damping also during the relatively small closing movement of the furniture parts.

According to the invention, this object is met by a housing which can be fastened to a fixed wall part or carcass part, in which housing a lever is pivotably held or a plunger is slidably guided, with said lever or plunger being pivoted or slid to its closing region by the movable furniture part, thus by way of at least two-stage gear means with a speed increasing ratio impinging on a rotation damper or on the piston of a damping cylinder. By means of the gear means provided according to the invention, the relatively small closing movement of the movable furniture parts, which movement can be a pivotal movement or a translatory movement, is reduced such that said movement results in an increased rotation of the damping member of the rotation damper or an increased movement of the piston of a damping cylinder.

One embodiment of the invention provides for the lever, which is held in the housing, to carry a toothed segment concentrically to its bearing axis, with said toothed segment intermeshing with a pinion which is held in the housing, which pinion interacts with a toothed wheel which is attached to the front-end journal of the rotation damper. In this way, with the use of a two-stage gear arrangement, it is possible to transmit from the damping lever a much increased rotary angle, when compared to the pivot angle of said damping lever, to the rotor of the rotation damper, which rotor causes damping.

A preferred embodiment provides for the pinion to comprise two toothed segments, of which one segment of smaller radius intermeshes with the toothed segment of the lever, while the toothed segment of the pinion of larger radius intermeshes with the toothed wheel of the rotor of the rotation damper.

A further preferred embodiment provides for the lever which is used for damping to be attached to a journal which is the front-end journal of a second rotation damper which is held in the housing. With this embodiment, the damping effect can be further increased. However, the second rotation damper can be done without, if, due to the given speed ratio, the damping effect of the first rotation damper is sufficient.

Expediently, the lever is impinged upon in the opening direction by a spring, so that after moving the movable furniture part into the opening position, the spring pivots the damping lever into its standby position. In order to achieve as fast a movement as possible of the damping lever when it moves into its standby position, the rotation damper or dampers offers/offer less resistance in the opening direction than in the closing direction.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

FIG. 1shows the upper left corner region of a cabinet whose door1, which is in the opening position, is connected to a side wall3of the cabinet by means of the usual double swinging-arm hinges2. Immediately below the cover wall4of the cabinet, the damping device5is attached as shown, with the damping lever6of said damping device5protruding beyond the opening side of the cabinet carcass such that it provides dampening and deceleration action on the door1only in the closing region of the door1. The housing of the damping device5comprises two housing halves7,8which in the attachment plane comprise wing-like extended parts9,10. The extended parts9,10comprise attachment boreholes through which the attachment screws11reach for connection to the cabinet wall3.

As shown inFIG. 3, the housing half8forms the installation component of the damping device. The installation component8comprises two blind boreholes12,13in which the housings of the rotation dampers14,15are inserted and held in a torsionally rigid manner. The rotation dampers14,15are of the usual known design and are thus not described in detail. The housings of the rotation dampers are covered by covers which accommodate the journals16,17of the rotors of the rotation dampers. The journal17of the rotation damper15carries the damping lever6in a torsionally rigid manner. The journal16of the rotation damper14carries a toothed wheel18in a torsionally rigid manner. Between the rotation dampers14,15, on a journal19of the installation component8, a pinion20is held so as to be freely rotatable, with said pinion20comprising two toothed segments which are opposed to each other, of which segments the toothed segment21is of a smaller radius while the toothed segment22is of a larger radius. The toothed segment22intermeshes with the toothed wheel18of the rotation damper14. The toothed segment21of smaller radius intermeshes with a tooth segment23which is arranged on the damping lever6concentrically to the pivot axis. The damping lever6comprises a recess25which partially encompasses the bearing borehole24of the damping lever6in which recess25a limb spring26is held. For the purpose of being held in place, as shown inFIG. 3, the upper end of the limb spring26engages a slot27in the upper end region of the recess25. The lower region of the recess25comprises a wide part, as shown, which wide part is engaged by an abutment28after the housing has been closed by placing the housing part7onto the installation component8, wherein said abutment28is attached to the upper side wall of the housing cover7as shown inFIG. 2. This bridge-shaped abutment28is used for supporting the other limb of the limb spring26so that in the opening position of the door the damping lever6is swivelled from its pivoted-in position into its pivoted-out standby position.

On diagonally opposed regions, the housing part7comprises attachment journals29which during joining and closing the housing engage boreholes30of the installation component8. To ensure a more gentle action on the inside of the cupboard door1, the damping lever6comprises a widened activation part31.