Source: http://patents.com/us-9844492.html
Timestamp: 2018-07-21 17:07:09
Document Index: 249582023

Matched Legal Cases: ['Application No. 2015', 'art 151', 'art 152', 'art 151', 'art 121', 'art 151', 'art 121', 'art 152', 'art 151', 'art 152', 'art 152', 'art 152', 'art 152', 'art 1623', 'art 152', 'art 1623', 'art 152', 'art 1623', 'art 1624', 'arts 162', 'art 11', 'arts 195', 'art 191', 'art 193', 'arts 1722', 'arts 2321', 'art 2', 'art 2', 'art 2', 'art 2', 'art 2', 'art) 1723', 'art) 195', 'art 1723', 'art 1723', 'art 195', 'art 1723', 'art 2', 'art 19', 'art 19', 'art 2', 'art 1723', 'art 195', 'art 19', 'art 1723', 'art 195', 'art 19', 'art 19', 'art 19', 'art 195', 'art 19', 'art 1723', 'art 2']

US Patent # 9,844,492. Medicine feeding unit - Patents.com
United States Patent 9,844,492
Takahama , et al. December 19, 2017
A medicine feeding unit configured to feed solid medicines, the unit including: a medicine feeder having a driven shaft and a support having a driving shaft that is connected with the driven shaft. The driven shaft has a driven shaft body and a driven engagement member. The driving shaft has a driving shaft body and a driving engagement member. The driven engagement member is biased in a direction approaching the driving engagement member. The unit further includes a rotation preventing part configured to allow the driven engagement member to rotate in a mounted state in which the medicine feeder is mounted on the support and to prevent the driven engagement member from rotating in a detached state in which the medicine feeder is detached from the support.
Family ID: 1000003014623
14/917,693
PCT/JP2014/074503
WO2015/041231
US 20160213572 A1 Jul 28, 2016
Sep 20, 2013 [JP] 2013-195850
Current CPC Class: A61J 7/0076 (20130101); B65D 83/0409 (20130101); B65B 35/08 (20130101)
Current International Class: G07F 11/00 (20060101); B65D 83/04 (20060101); B65B 35/08 (20060101); A61J 7/00 (20060101)
Field of Search: ;221/80
9132060 September 2015 Omura et al.
2014/0203036 July 2014 Bae et al.
2016/0213572 July 2016 Tahahama
09240603 Sep 1997 JP
WO 2012077788 Jun 2012 WO
Singapore Office Action re: SG 11201601896P dated Dec. 27, 2016. cited by applicant .
Office Action dated Sep. 8, 2017 regarding related Japanese Patent Application No. 2015-537935 (including English-language translation). cited by applicant.
1. A medicine feeding unit configured to feed solid medicines, the unit comprising: a medicine feeder comprising a medicine container configured to contain medicines and a driven shaft provided rotatably to the medicine container, the medicine feeder being configured to feed the medicines from the medicine container by the driven shaft being rotationally driven; and a support comprising a rotary drive source and a driving shaft that is connected coaxially with the driven shaft and that is rotationally driven by the rotary drive source, the support being configured to detachably support the medicine feeder, wherein the driven shaft comprises a driven shaft body and a driven engagement member that is movable in an axial direction relative to the driven shaft body, the driving shaft comprises a driving shaft body and a driving engagement member that is fixed to the driving shaft body and that is engaged with the driven engagement member, the driven engagement member is biased in an approaching direction approaching the driving engagement member, the medicine feeding unit further comprises a rotation preventing part configured to allow the driven engagement member to rotate in a mounted state in which the medicine feeder is mounted on the support and to prevent the driven engagement member from rotating in a detached state in which the medicine feeder is detached from the support, the rotation preventing part comprises a movable locking part provided in the driven engagement member, and a fixed locking part that is provided in the medicine feeder and that locks the movable locking part, so that the fixed locking part locks the movable locking part in the detached state, and the fixed locking part is spaced apart from the movable locking part in the mounted state by the driven engagement member which is moved in a separating direction opposite to the approaching direction from a position of the driven engagement member when the medicine feeder is held in the detached state, the support guides the medicine feeder to slide in a direction intersecting the axial direction of the driving shaft, the medicine feeding unit further comprises a retraction mechanism comprising a pressing part that is provided in the medicine feeder and that is capable of pressing the driven engagement member, the retraction mechanism being configured to retract the driven engagement member by pressing the driven engagement member using the pressing part in a separating direction opposite to the approaching direction against the biasing force in the approaching direction when the medicine feeder is guided to slide with respect to the support, and the fixed locking part is provided in the pressing part of the retraction mechanism.
2. The medicine feeding unit according to claim 1, wherein the pressing part is biased in the approaching direction.
3. The medicine feeding unit according to claim 1, wherein the retraction mechanism further comprises an operation unit provided in the medicine feeder, the operation unit being configured to be pressed by an operator to cause the pressing part to press the driven engagement member in the separating direction.
4. The medicine feeding unit according to claim 1, wherein the retraction mechanism further comprises a guiding part provided in the support, wherein, when the medicine feeder is attached to the support by an operator, the guide part guides the pressing part in the separating direction so that the pressing part presses the driven engagement member in the separating direction.
This application is the United States national phase of International Application No. PCT/JP2014/074503 tiled Sep. 17, 2014, and claims priority to Japanese Patent Application No. JP 2013-195850 tiled Sep. 20, 2013, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated in their entirety by reference.
The present invention relates to a medicine feeding unit for solid medicines.
As a medicine feeding unit, a "medicine feeder" disclosed in Patent Literature 1, for example, can be mentioned. This medicine feeding unit is basically provided with a medicine container that contains solid medicines (which is described as a "container" in Patent Literature 1, and the terms in the parentheses in the "Background" are the names of the members according to Patent Literature 1), and a substantially cylindrical rotor that is rotatably located in the medicine container. The medicine container is detachably attached to a support (drive unit). The rotor rotates about the vertical axis. As the rotor rotates, medicines can be sequentially ejected from a medicine outlet provided in the medicine container. The ejected medicines are fed, for example, to a packaging device.
In the configuration disclosed in Patent Literature 1, when the medicine container is mounted on the support, the fitting member of the medicine container is fitted to the fitting member of the support. This fitting allows a driving force to be transmitted from the support to the medicine container.
However, in the invention according to Patent Literature 1, the fitting member of the medicine container (container) is allowed to rotate freely when the medicine container is detached from the support (drive unit). Therefore, the fitting member on the medicine container side rotates due to vibration or the like. Then, the rotor rotates and medicines may be dropped from the medicine container, which is a problem.
Patent Literature 1: JP 2012-120719 A
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a medicine feeding unit capable of suppressing the drop of medicines from the medicine container when the medicine container is detached from the support.
The present invention is a medicine feeding unit configured to feed solid medicines, the unit including: a medicine feeder having a medicine container configured to contain the medicines and a driven shaft provided rotatably to the medicine container, the medicine feeder being configured to feed the medicines from the medicine container by the driven shaft being rotationally driven; and a support having a rotary drive source and a driving shaft that is connected coaxially with the driven shaft and that is rotationally driven by the rotary drive source, the support being configured to detachably support the medicine feeder, wherein the driven shaft has a driven shaft body and a driven engagement member that is movable in an axial direction relative to the driven shaft body, the driving shaft has a driving shaft body and a driving engagement member that is fixed to the driving shaft body and that is engaged with the driven engagement member, the driven engagement member is biased in an approaching direction approaching the driving engagement member, and the medicine feeding unit further includes a rotation preventing part configured to allow the driven engagement member to rotate in a mounted state in which the medicine feeder is mounted on the support and to prevent the driven engagement member from rotating in a detached state in which the medicine feeder is detached from the support.
Further, the rotation preventing part can have a movable locking part provided in the driven engagement member, and a fixed locking part that is provided in the medicine feeder and that is arranged to be spaced apart from the movable locking part in the mounted state and to lock the movable locking part in the detached state.
Further, the configuration may be such that the support guides the medicine feeder to slide in a direction intersecting the axial direction of the driving shaft, the medicine feeding unit further includes a retraction mechanism having a pressing part that is provided in the medicine feeder and that is capable of pressing the driven engagement member, the retraction mechanism being configured to retract the driven engagement member by pressing it using the pressing part in a separating direction opposite to the approaching direction against the biasing force in the approaching direction when the medicine feeder is guided to slide with respect to the support, the movable locking part is provided on an end face of the driven engagement member, and the fixed locking part is provided in the pressing part of the retraction mechanism.
Further, the pressing part can be biased in the approaching direction.
As shown in FIG. 1 to FIG. 3, the medicine feeding unit includes the tablet cassette 1 serving as a medicine feeder configured to feed tablets M having an elongated shape, and a support base 2 serving as a support constituting a part of the body of the medicine feeding unit.
The "elongated shape" of the tablets M indicates a shape in which, as compared with a sectional dimension (minor axis dimension) in a first direction, a sectional dimension (major axis dimension) in a second direction intersecting the first direction is larger. It is typified by the shape of capsules (in which the sectional shape is oblong). However, the tablets M to be contained in the medicine container la are not limited to capsules, and include elongated tablets without using capsules. Further, in the case where the action of "moving over", which will be described below, is not needed, circular tablets also can be contained in the medicine container 1a.
The partition body 15 includes a base part 151 and a flexible part 152.
The base part 151 is a portion attached to the cylindrical part 121. The inner surface of the base part 151 is formed to be curved to substantially the same curvature as that of the inner surface of the cylindrical part 121. The flexible part 152 is a portion in contact with the tablets M, is formed extending in the front direction from the base part 151, and is composed of a brush made of a plurality of soft synthetic resins arranged in parallel. Therefore, the flexible part 152 has flexibility. The degree of the flexibility may be such that abrasions, cracks, or the like do not occur in the tablets M moving with the rotation of the rotor 16 within the medicine container 1a, and a partition can be formed between the upper and lower parts so that only one tablet M can be positioned in the temporary medicine container 164 of the rotor 16. Accordingly, embodiments of the flexible part 152 are not limited to a brush as in this embodiment, and may be, for example, a plate body made of soft and rigid resin, which can be appropriately modified.
The "moving over" action is described with reference to FIG. 9A to FIG. 9G. In each figure of FIG. 9, the rotor 16 is moving (rotating) from the right to the left of the figure. First, as shown in FIG. 9A, a part of the tablet M occasionally enters the temporary medicine container 164. Then, when the tablet M in the aforementioned state comes into contact with the flexible part 152 of the partition body 15 (FIG. 9B), the tablet M that is moving to the left of the figure together with the rotor 16 gets under the flexible part 152 and is caught between the flat part 1623 of the rotor 16 and the flexible part 152 (FIG. 9C). With the rotation of the rotor 16, the caught tablet M slides on the flat part 1623 by being pushed by the flexible part 152 from above (FIG. 9D). With reference to the flat part 1623, the sliding direction is to the right of the figure. The sliding tablet M is brought into a state of being right up in the figure by riding over the slope part 1624 (FIG. 9E and FIG. 9F). With such a state, the rotor 16 further rotates, and the tablet M strides over two adjacent blocking parts 162 (FIG. 9G). Then, the tablet M moves over the temporary medicine container 164 without falling into the temporary medicine container 164 located below the striding position.
In this way, the rotation preventing part in an unengaged state is constituted by the projecting portions 1724 and the hook projections 113. The rotation preventing part in an unengaged state allows the rotation of the driven engagement block 172 in an engaged state in which the driven engagement block 172 is engaged with the driving engagement blocks 232 in a mounted state in which the tablet cassette 1 is mounted on the support base 2. On the other hand, it prevents the rotation of the driven engagement block 172 in an abutting state in which the driven engagement block 172 abuts the driving engagement blocks 232 without being engaged. The projecting portions 1724 are movable locking parts provided in the driven engagement block 172 (more specifically, in the outer circumferential portion of the driven engagement block 172). The hook projections 113 are fixed locking parts provided in the bottom part 11 of the medicine container 1a (more specifically, in the inner circumferential portion of the bottom recess 112), which are arranged apart from the projecting portions 1724 in the engaged state and are arranged to lock the projecting portions 1724 in the abutting state.
In this embodiment, the claw parts 195 are parts of the arm 19. Accordingly, there is no need to separately provide a stopper for preventing the rotation of the driven shaft 17, and thus the number of parts constituting the tablet cassette 1 can be reduced.
The push-up surfaces 196 function as parts of a retraction mechanism for moving the driven shaft 17 in the axial direction so as not to interfere with the driving shaft 23 of the support base 2 when the tablet cassette 1 is slid. In this embodiment, the retraction mechanism moves the driven engagement block 172 of the driven shaft 17 in a separating direction opposite to the approaching direction, against the biasing force in the approaching direction by the bias spring 173. The push-up surfaces 196 are surfaces for pushing the driven engagement block 172 that is a part of the driven shaft 17 in the separating direction, and the push-up surfaces 196 can push the driven engagement block 172 of the driven shaft 17 upwardly, as shown in FIG. 6.
On the sliding surface 21, two projecting walls 25 are formed extending parallel to each other in the front-back direction. As the upper end face of each projecting wall 25, a guiding slope 251 that is a guiding part for the arm 19 is formed on the front side, which is transformed into a horizontal upper face 252 that is horizontal from the middle. Further, the projecting wall 25 has a rear end face 253 that is a substantially vertical face. The guiding slopes 251 and the horizontal upper faces 252 function as parts of the retraction mechanism for moving the driven shaft 17 in the axial direction so as not to interfere with the driving shaft 23 of the support base 2 when sliding the tablet cassette 1.
When pulling out the tablet cassette 1, a user or the like grasps the grip 18, and moves the operation unit 197 to the front side. This allows the horizontal part 191 of the arm 19 to rotate about the hinge part 193 clockwise.
Therefore, the driven engagement block 172 can be pushed upwardly by the push-up surfaces 196, and the slide regulators 194 can be moved above the extended positions of the horizontal upper faces 252 of the projecting walls 25. Thus, the tablet cassette 1 can be pulled out by releasing the engagement between the driven side engaging parts 1722 and the driving side engaging parts 2321 and releasing the fitted state between the hooking surfaces 1942 of the slide regulators 194 and the rear end faces 253 of the projecting walls 25.
Finally, the configuration and action of this embodiment will be summarized. This embodiment is a medicine feeding unit configured to feed tablets (solid medicines) M, the unit including a tablet cassette (medicine feeder) 1 having a medicine container 1a configured to contain the tablets M and a driven shaft 17 provided rotatably to the medicine container 1a, the tablet cassette 1 being configured to feed the tablets M from the the medicine container 1a by the driven shaft 17 being rotationally driven; a support base part (support) 2 having a motor (rotary drive source) 22 and a driving shaft 23 that is connected coaxially with the driven shaft 17 and that is rotationally driven by the motor 22, the support base part 2 being configured to detachably support the tablet cassette 1, wherein the driven shaft 17 has a driven shaft body 171 and a driven engagement block (driven engagement member) 172 that is movable in the axial direction relative to the driven shaft body 171, the driving shaft 23 has a driving shaft body 231 and a driving engagement block (driving engagement member) 232 that is fixed to the driving shaft body 231 and that is engaged with the driven engagement block 172, and the driven engagement block 172 is biased in an approaching direction approaching the driving engagement block 232, and the medicine feeding unit further includes a rotation preventing part configured to allow the driven engagement block 172 to rotate in a mounted state in which the tablet cassette 1 is mounted on the support base part 2 and to prevent the driven engagement block 172 from rotating in a detached state in which the tablet cassette 1 is detached from the support base part 2.
According to the aforementioned configuration, the rotation of the driven engagement block 172 is allowed in the mounted state in which the tablet cassette 1 is mounted on the support base part 2. Accordingly, the driving force of the motor 22 is transmitted to the driven shaft 17, so that the tablets M can be fed from the medicine container 1a. When the tablets M should not be ejected, the tablets M are not ejected from the medicine container 1a by stopping the motor 22. On the other hand, the rotation of the driven engagement block 172 is prevented by the rotation preventing part in the detached state in which the tablet cassette 1 is detached from the support base part 2. This can suppress ejection of the tablets M from the medicine container 1a when the tablets M should not be ejected.
Further, the rotation preventing part can have a plate part (movable locking part) 1723 provided in the driven engagement block 172, and a claw part (fixed locking part) 195 that is provided in the tablet cassette 1 and that is arranged to be spaced apart from the plate part 1723 in the mounted state and to lock the plate part 1723 in the detached state.
According to the aforementioned configuration, the claw part 195 locks the plate part 1723, so that the rotation of the driven engagement block 172 can be prevented.
Further, the configuration may be such that the support base part 2 guides the tablet cassette 1 to slide in a direction intersecting the axial direction of the driving shaft 23, the medicine feeding unit further includes a retraction mechanism having a pressing part 19a that is provided in the tablet cassette 1 and that is capable of pressing the driven engagement block 172, the retraction mechanism being configured to retract the driven engagement block 172 by pressing it using the pressing part 19a in a separating direction opposite to the approaching direction against the biasing force in the approaching direction when the tablet cassette 1 is guided to slide with respect to the support base part 2, the plate part 1723 is provided on an end face of the driven engagement block 172, and the claw part 195 is provided in the pressing part 19a of the retraction mechanism.
According to the aforementioned configuration, the plate part 1723 provided on the end face of the driven engagement block 172 can be locked by the claw part 195 provided in the pressing part 19a of the retraction mechanism.
Further, the pressing part 19a can be biased in the approaching direction.
According to the aforementioned configuration, since the pressing part 19a is biased in the approaching direction, the claw part 195 provided in the pressing part 19a can be reliably spaced apart from the plate part 1723 in the mounted state in which the tablet cassette 1 is mounted on the support base part 2.
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