Patent Publication Number: US-2009235806-A1

Title: Structure of drum pedal

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     (a) Technical Field of the Invention 
     The present invention relates to an improved structure of a drum pedal, which comprises a shaft for rotating a mallet and carrying a rotary member at a desired inclination so that when the shaft is rotated, the rotary member is brought to a location facing an erected plate support, and with magnets mounted to opposing surfaces of the plate support and the rotary member and having a desired arrangement of the magnetic poles thereof, after the pedal is depressed, an expelling force is induced to provide assistance for realizing automatic and efficient returning of the pedal. 
     (b) Description of the Prior Art 
     For the percussion of a conventional base drum, in the arrangement of a complete set of instruments, the percussion of the drum head is often realized by a pedal that is in operative coupling with a mallet that is arranged in a lower front location with respect to the base drum. As shown in  FIG. 5  of the attached drawings, the pedal has a pedal body  30  that is pivoted to a base  31  at a central location above the base  31 . Two erected posts  32  are arranged at one end of the base  31  for supporting a shaft  33 . The shaft carries a mallet  34  for percussion in such a way that the mallet  34  assumes a desired angle with respect to the pedal body  30 . A retainer of the mallet  34  is coupled to an end of the pedal body  30  by a flexible member  35  so that the depression of the pedal body  10  drives the rotation of the mallet  34  for percussion. To provide automatic returning of the pedal and the mallet  34  after percussion in order to allow for successive percussion operation, a positioning member  36  is mounted to an outer end of the shaft  33  in proximity of one of the posts  32  and is connected to the base  31  by a spring  37  so that after the rotation of the positioning member  36  with the shaft  33 , the spring  37  generates a returning force for the positioning member  36 , which simultaneously brings the pedal  30  and the mallet  34  back the original positions before percussion. Although in such a resilient returning mechanism, the assistance provided by the spring force can effectively realize the desired returning operation, yet the reciprocal motion of the spring  37  can vary with the treading force acting on the pedal, leading to imprecise returning due to inconsistence of the spring force. Further, the reciprocal motion of the spring  37  may cause noise due to the impact between metal parts and such a noise interferes with the music performance, especially when a microphone is placed in proximity of the drum in a regular stage layout, which leads to significant trouble of sound interference. The noise caused by the spring  37  is often of high frequency and is thus more noticeable in slow or bass rhythm. Such a problem is apparently not alleviated by the currently existing designs of pedal. Thus, it is desired to improve such a situation that undesired sound effect may be caused by the pedal  30  at the time when no percussion occurs. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The primary purpose of the present invention is to provide an improvement of the drum pedal assembly that is operated with expelling forces induced between magnetic poles of magnets that are respectively mounted to an erected plate support and a rotary member opposing the plate support to have identical poles opposing each other so as to ensure assistance of returning provided by magnetic expelling force at the time when approaching is effected by rotation motion and to eliminate noise caused by impact between metal parts in the returning course, and the structure and assembling are simplified and of practicability and totally overcome the noise problem occurring in the currently existing drum pedals. 
     An objective of the present invention is to provide a drum pedal wherein a rotary member is mounted to a rotary shaft and magnet pads are mounted to the rotary member and an opposing erected plate support. With the assistance realized by the magnetic expelling force, automatic returning of the mallet and pedal can be effected after percussion. Further, due to the assistance provided by the magnetic force, no incorrect action or noise during the returning process may occur, leading to excellent result of percussion performance and an economic value of easy assembling of the whole construction. 
     The foregoing object and summary provide only a brief introduction to the present invention. To fully appreciate these and other objects of the present invention as well as the invention itself, all of which will become apparent to those skilled in the art, the following detailed description of the invention and the claims should be read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. Throughout the specification and drawings identical reference numerals refer to identical or similar parts. 
     Many other advantages and features of the present invention will become manifest to those versed in the art upon making reference to the detailed description and the accompanying sheets of drawings in which a preferred structural embodiment incorporating the principles of the present invention is shown by way of illustrative example. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  is a perspective view of a drum pedal constructed in accordance with the present invention; 
         FIG. 2  is a side elevational view of the drum pedal of the present invention before percussion; 
         FIG. 3  is a side elevational view of the drum pedal of the present invention after percussion; 
         FIG. 4  is a side elevational view of the drum pedal of the present invention illustrating a different arrangement of magnet pads; 
         FIG. 5  is a perspective view illustrating a conventional drum pedal assembly. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
     The following descriptions are of exemplary embodiments only, and are not intended to limit the scope, applicability or configuration of the invention in any way. Rather, the following description provides a convenient illustration for implementing exemplary embodiments of the invention. Various changes to the described embodiments may be made in the function and arrangement of the elements described without departing from the scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims. 
     With reference to the drawings and in particular to  FIGS. 1-4 , the present invention provides an improved structure of drum pedal assembly for percussion. The drum pedal of the present invention comprises a pedal body  10 , which is of a polygonal configuration resembling the shape of a sole for being trod and depressed by a sole. An underside of the pedal body  10  is pivoted to a base  11  to allow the pedal body  10  to make up and down reciprocal rotational motion. On an end of a top surface of the base  11  that is close to a moving end of the pedal body  10 , two spaced posts  12  are arranged on opposite sides of the base  11  for mounting a rotary shaft  13 . An intermediate section of the shaft  13  that is exactly corresponding to and above the pedal body  10  carries a mallet retainer  21  that functions to mount a mallet  20 . The mallet retainer  21  is connected, at one side thereof, by a flexible member  14  to the moving end of the pedal body  10  so that the mallet  20  can be driven by the depression of the pedal body  10  to move, realizing the operation control of rotation for percussion of drum. On the shaft  13  outside one of the posts  12 , a set of rotary members  15 , which are arranged at inclination angles that are close to the inclination of the arrangement of the mallet  20 , are mounted and located on upper and lower sides thereof. A front face of each rotary member  15  is provided with a magnet pad  16 . At a further side location in front of the rotary members  15  by a suitable distance, upper and lower plate supports  17 ,  171  are respectively mounted to the base  11  and the post  12 . Alternatively, the two plate supports  17 ,  171  can be combined as a unitary, erected plate that can be mounted to the base  11  or can be formed as a rearward extending integral projection from the post  12 . On the plate supports  17 ,  171 , magnet pads  18 ,  181  are mounted at locations substantially opposing the magnet pads  16  of the rotary members  15  so that in the percussion of the drum when the pedal body  10  is depressed or downward trod, with the shaft  13  being driven by the flexible member  14  to rotate in a given direction, the mallet  20  is rotated forward to realize the operation of percussion of the drum to give off sounds. The rotary member  15  on one side of the shaft  13  is also rotated in unison therewith in the forward direction. When shaft  13  is rotated to the percussion position of the mallet  20 , since the magnet pads  16 ,  18  that are respectively mounted to opposing surfaces of the rotary member  15  and the plate support  17  are arranged to have opposite polarities, a repulsive separation force is induced, so that when the depression or treading force acting on the pedal body  10  is released or removed, due to the action of the magnetic expelling force, the rotary member  15  is forced away the proximate, approaching position, causing the shaft  13  to rotate in a backward direction. This, together with assistance provided by the backward swinging of the mallet  20  due to the gravitational force thereof and the coupling with the flexible member  14 , efficiently and effectively move the mallet  20  and the pedal body  10  back to the original positions before the percussion. By further assistance for positioning by the magnetic force induced between the magnet pad  16  of the lower-side rotary member  15  and the magnet pad  18  of the lower plate support  171 , the operation control of returning of the mallet  20  can be efficient with assured positioning. The operation and control of the reciprocal motion of the pedal body  10  in accordance with the present invention is completely realized with magnetic expelling/attractive force(s) and does not need any physical contact or engagement between parts and thus, no noise will be generated either before or after percussion of drum to ensure perfect performance of drums or excellent sound effect of music performance. 
     In accordance with the present invention, the operation of the mallet  20  is assisted by magnetic expelling/attractive force(s), and the reciprocal motion of the pedal body  10  can be of a safe and soundless returning without any delay in return caused by mechanical coupling or noise caused by impact of parts, thereby realizing the practical effectiveness of efficiency and assuredness of returning operation. The whole structure is simple and can be of any desired modification of assembling by changing the assembling length of the mallet  20  and the actual magnitude of the magnetic forces induced by the magnets. It is also convenient to selectively mount, at opposite angular positions on the upper and lower sides of the shaft  13 , a single location or different locations of the upper and lower sides, a magnetic force based returning mechanism. Such a magnetic force based returning mechanism can be made separately and easily mounted with bolts  19 . The present invention also allows easy replacement/assembling on the currently existing pedal body  10  to realize soundless effect and is thus most suitable for high class music performances. The present invention provides a practical structure of high-quality, soundless pedal assembly, which is novel and of rich practical values. 
     To conclude, the drum pedal assembly in accordance with the present invention uses the magnetic interaction between magnet pads to realize control of returning of mallet, so that simply with the magnetic force acting on the shaft, the returning rotation of the shaft can be simply controlled after the pedal is trod, providing a soundless design. 
     It will be understood that each of the elements described above, or two or more together may also find a useful application in other types of methods differing from the type described above. 
     While certain novel features of this invention have been shown and described and are pointed out in the annexed claim, it is not intended to be limited to the details above, since it will be understood that various omissions, modifications, substitutions and changes in the forms and details of the device illustrated and in its operation can be made by those skilled in the art without departing in any way from the spirit of the present invention.