Patent Publication Number: US-2010115717-A1

Title: Sole cleaning machine

Description:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     This application is a continuation of International Application PCT/EP2008/003440 filed on Apr. 29, 2008 designating the United States, and which claims priority from German patent application number 10 2007 021 090.8 filed on May 3, 2007, both fully incorporated herein by reference. 
    
    
     TECHNICAL FIELD 
     The invention relates to a cleaning machine for the soles of shoes, and more particularly, to a cleaning machine for the sole of shoes in particular for personnel locks (entries) in hygienic exclusion areas (clean rooms and the like) that utilizes a wiping grid composed of grate bars as well as a trough, which is arranged below the wiping grid and inside of which two rotatably driven roller brushes are supported that reach between the grate bars of the wiping grid by means of the top circumferential areas thereof. Further included is a wetting apparatus in the area of the trough in order to apply water and liquid cleaners for the cleaning of soles as well as a liquid discharging device in the bottom area of the trough. 
     BACKGROUND INFORMATION 
     Such walk-over sole cleaning machines as described above must be cleaned periodically. A differentiation should be made between a main or fundamental cleaning of the entire machine and an interim cleaning of the functional elements of the machine only. The cleaning measures are required to meet the hygienic requirements of such areas as clean rooms. The interim cleaning has the additional purpose of ensuring the adequate operational function of the machine. The respective cleaning procedures are performed periodically. The following deals with the interim cleaning that occurs between the main cleaning events. Here, in a known manner using a cleaning device such as a high or low pressure cleaner, rinse water as well as a typically used cleaning foam is applied to the roller brushes and to the inside of the trough. A suitable exposure time must be specified for the cleaning foam, before the roller brushes and the inside of the trough can be rinsed. Because such activities are carried out manually, there are uncertainties regarding the correct cleaning procedure. In addition, manual cleaning takes longer to carryout, which results in the machine being out of service longer. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     It is an objective of the invention to create a sole cleaning machine with the features listed above that carries out a cleaning of the inside of the trough and of the roller brushes automatically. 
     This objective is achieved with a sole cleaning machine with the features stated above in that additionally, in the area of the trough a cleaning device is arranged for the roller brushes and the inside of the trough, and additionally a control device is arranged that controls both the operation of the cleaning device and of the wetting apparatus. 
     Significant for the invention is that cleaning of the roller brushes and of the inside of the trough is done automatically. To this end, it is possible to take the degree of soiling into account and cleaning can also be done time-controlled or clocked. If needed, the control device for the cleaning device can also be activated manually in order to manually run the cleaning cycle. 
     In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the control device is programmable, with the cleaning cycles being especially freely programmable. Such a cleaning cycle comprises a first rinse-off cycle using water, a foam application phase using an intensive, foaming cleaning agent, a soaking phase for the foaming cleaning agent and finally a rinsing phase again using water. The duration can be set individually for each phase. Preferably, the roller brushes are rotated during automatic cleaning, in the rinse-off phase, the foam application phase and the rinsing phase, which significantly increases the cleaning efficiency by exposing the entirety of the roller to the particular phase being carried out. 
     In one particular embodiment of the invention, a connection of the cleaning device to a foam system is provided, which controls the addition of water to the cleaning agent and foams the mixture using air. The foam application provides particularly good wetting of the surfaces of the roller brushes and of the inside of the trough to be cleaned, which significantly improves the effect of the cleaning agent. 
     Other liquid cleaning agents or rinse only agents such as water can be employed in place of the foaming cleaning agents as well. In such cases, the foaming process using air is omitted and the desired cleaning effect is achieved through the addition of chemical additives to the respective cleaning agent. 
     To allow for a trouble-free cleaning procedure, an additional embodiment of the invention provides an acoustic and/or optical signal enunciator that indicates the automatic cleaning process is running and provides an indication that the walk-over sole cleaning machine should not be used as intended during the cleaning cycle. 
     Additional advantageous design features of the invention become apparent from the claims. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       Below, the invention is explained in greater detail using an exemplary embodiment based on a drawing of which 
         FIG. 1  shows a perspective view of a walk-over sole cleaning machine, and 
         FIG. 2  shows a schematic cross-section of the sole cleaning device of  FIG. 1 . 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
     In detail, in  FIG. 1  one can see an underframe in the form of a housing  1  that encloses a trough  2 . The trough  2  has a rectangular shape and two roller brushes  3  are located in the trough  2 , whereby the rotational axes of said roller brushes are oriented parallel to each other and extend in the longitudinal direction of the trough  2 . The top side of the trough  2  is covered with a wiping grid  4  that exhibits grate bars  5 , which are parallel to each other and extend in perpendicular direction of the trough  2 . The wiping grid  4  can be pivoted upward. To this end, it is hinged at one of its longitudinal sides to a wall  10  integrated in the housing  1  using hinge/bearings  6 . 
     On the upper side of the grate bars  5  of the wiping grid  4 , a bar  9  that protrudes towards the top is arranged along the longitudinal center of the wiping grid  4 , said bar serving as a walking guide that separates the respective areas of the wiping grid that are to be walked on with the right and the left shoe, respectively. 
     As can be seen in  FIG. 2  in detail, the two brush rollers  3  are each arranged in the center underneath each of the two areas of the wiping grid  4  that are separated by the bar  9  above. With their top areas  3 . 1 , the two brush rollers  3  protrude upward beyond the top side of the wiping grid  4 . Accordingly, the bristles of the brush rollers  3  reach through the grate bars  5  of the wiping grid  4 , for which reason the grate bars are arranged at a sufficient distance from each other. Thus, the bristles run through the top area  3 . 1  of the brush roller  3  in two areas of the wiping grid  4  that run longitudinally parallel to each other, where the pedestrians place the right and left soles or undersides of their shoes, respectively, on the wiping grid  4 . These longitudinally extending areas of the wiping grid  4  are defined at the wiping grid  4  on both longitudinal sides by the bar  9  and by side frames  11 . 
     Both roller brushes  3  are driven counter-rotationally such that their upper circumferential areas  3 . 1  that define the upper top areas of the brush rollers  3  move towards each other, that is, each in the direction toward the center bar  9 , as shown by the arrows B. 
     During operation, the brush rollers  3  are sprayed using a liquid sole cleaning agent and water, which is accomplished by a wetting apparatus  7 ,  8 . Two lines in the form of tubes  7  and  8  that are separate from each other are provided for this purpose, with one pair of the tubes  7 ,  8  being assigned to each roller brush. The pairs of tubes  7 ,  8  are located at the sides of the brush rollers  3  that face away from each other in the top area of the trough  2 . The tubes  7 ,  8  are each provided with nozzle openings, the blast direction of which points toward the respective roller brush  3 . Because the tubes  7 ,  8  are arranged above the horizontal diametric plane “E” that extends through the brush rollers  3 , which are at the same level, the two brush rollers  3  are sprayed across a circumferential area that moves upward, i.e., ascending. The path of the bristle rollers from this spraying or wetting area to the working area, where the bristles of the brush rollers  3  brush the undersides of the shoes to be cleaned, is appropriately short. The covered arc length from the spray area to the work area of the bristle rollers corresponds to an angle of rotation of the brush roller  3  of about 70°. 
     The liquid cleaning agent is applied via the first, upper tube  7 . The respective lower, second tube  8  is intended for spraying the brush rollers  3  with water. Both tubes  7 ,  8  are arranged vertically above each other with little distance between them. A discharge device/collection area  15  is provided in the trough  2  in order to collect and discharge the liquids that entered the trough  2 . 
     In a preferred embodiment, the tubes  7 ,  8  are arranged at the wiping grid  4  and are fastened to it. The tubes  7 ,  8  extend along the longitudinal sides of the wiping grid  4  at the transitional area between the upward-angled side frames  11  and the horizontal plane of the grate bars  5 . 
     In this case, a single tube with nozzle openings can be used for the wetting apparatus in place of the two tubes  7 ,  8  if such a single tube is fed alternatingly with rinse water and with the cleaning agent/water mixture. 
     The special feature of the described sole cleaning machine is that it cleans itself in a fully-automatic cleaning process. This is the interim cleaning process mentioned above. A cleaning device  12  that exhibits nozzle fittings  13  that are integrated in the side walls  10  of the housing  1  is used for this purpose. These nozzle fittings  13  are, therefore, at a greater distance from the roller brushes  3  than the tubes  7 ,  8  that form the wetting apparatus. This is advantageous in this respect because the nozzle fittings  13  are populated with nozzles  14  that blast liquid at an angle towards the roller brushes such that the arms of said angle extend tangentially to the associated roller brush  3  such that each of the roller brushes  3  is sprayed in its entirety from the adjacent nozzle fitting  13 . During spraying or rinsing, the roller brushes  3  are driven rotationally, which not only sprays and rinses the roller brushes  3  more intensively but also spreads the water and the cleaning agent better overall in the inside of the trough  2 . Preferably, the cleaning agent is a liquid, foam-generating agent which is fed to the nozzle fittings  13  via a foaming system connected to the nozzle fittings  13  (not shown in the drawing) as is well known in the art. One or more containers  20 , connected to the wetting apparatus  7 ,  8  and/or the cleaning nozzles  13  may be provided which contain water, foaming agents, cleaning agents or the like. 
     In the same manner as the tubes  7 ,  8 , the nozzle fittings  13  extend parallel to the roller brush  3  closest to them or the rotational axes A of the roller brushes  3  and are located at a level that approximately corresponds to the level of the wiping grid  4 . In this manner, the wiping grid  4  is also included in the cleaning process when in its lowered position. 
     Basically, the wetting apparatus  7 ,  8  and the cleaning device  12  can be combined if the associated control device can ensure that the nozzles blasting in the direction of the roller brushes  3  are each supplied with water and the suitable cleaning agent and also with the respective, different amounts of liquid. In this manner, the wetting apparatus can also act as the cleaning device or the cleaning device as the wetting apparatus. Also different nozzles can be provided in one common nozzle fitting such as the nozzle fitting  13  or at the tubes  7 ,  8 , said nozzles being used on the one hand for the wetting process and on the other and for the cleaning process. 
     A control device  22  is provided. The control device  22  is preferably coupled between the source of water, cleaning fluid or foaming agent and the wetting apparatus  7 ,  8  and/or the cleaning nozzles  13  as appropriate. Using typical microprocessor based programmable devices as well as appropriate valves and the like, control device  22  is programmable to independently control the wetting and cleaning process. The wetting process which is utilized when a user steps on to the grate  4  may be controlled by means of an actuation button  24  while the automated periodic cleaning of the entire device may be programmed automatically to run at periodic intervals such as, for example, every evening at midnight when no one may be using the system. Alternatively, a user may initiate the cleaning cycle by depressing one or more actuation buttons on the control device  22 . 
     Accordingly, the present invention provides a novel shoes sole cleaning machine which not only cleans the soles of the user steps on the machine but also, which automatically cleans itself periodically or manually. 
     Modifications and substitutions by one of the ordinary skill in the art are considered to be within the scope of the present invention, which is not to be limited except by the following claims.