Abstract:
Disclosed is a drawer divider system for dividing a drawer in a tool chest or the like into a plurality of compartments. The divider elements comprise one-piece plastic strips having integrally formed resilient arms at both ends for engaging the opposed sidewalls of the drawer. The divider is provided with a plurality of upwardly facing recesses in the form of inverted sawteeth along its length so that the recesses of adjacently positioned dividers may support articles therein.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     1. Field of the Invention 
     The present invention relates to the organization of the contents of drawers. The invention particularly relates to a drawer divider system including insertable, integrally formed drawer dividers for dividing a drawer into a plurality of compartments. 
     2. Description of the Prior Art 
     It is often desirable that drawers in storage chests, particularly in tool boxes, be capable of subdivision into a plurality of compartments for segregating various articles stored therein. Many systems have been devised for this purpose, including systems utilizing insertable elongate strips held in place between a pair of opposed sidewalls of the drawer. Most such systems of the prior art require multiple components for forming each drawer divider, or require specially formed elements in or adjacent the walls of the drawer to receive the dividers. To date, no commercially available drawer divider system overcomes the noted disadvantages of the prior art. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention provides a novel and commercially attractive drawer divider system that can be economically manufactured and have a useful life of years. 
     Broadly, the drawer divider of the invention is formed as a thin elongate upstanding strip, preferably of plastic material, and integrally formed resilient arms at both ends of the strip for engaging the opposed sidewalls of a drawer. 
     In accordance with one aspect of the invention, there is provided a drawer divider system including a drawer having opposed sidewalls and at least one elongate drawer divider for dividing the drawer into a plurality of compartments. Each drawer divider comprises a main body portion comprising a relatively thin elongate strip member having a length approximating the distance between the opposed sidewalls of the drawer, with the body portion strip member being substantially vertically upstanding in its operational orientation, and at least one sidewall engaging portion integrally formed at an end of the body portion. The sidewall engaging portion comprises a pair of resilient arms integrally joined together at the body portion end and flaring outwardly from the body portion to sidewall engaging tips. The resiliency of the arms permits the arms to exert sufficient force at the points of engagemen with the sidewalls to securely hold the drawer divider therebetween. 
     The strip member may be provided with a plurality of upwardly facing recesses along the length thereof so that the recesses of adjacently positioned drawer dividers may support articles therein. Preferably, the recesses have an inverted sawtooth configuration. 
     The base of the strip member may be provided with a flange to prevent bowing of the divider along its length. The rigidity of the strip member may be further enhanced by including elongate beads formed at the junctures of the flanges and the main body portion. 
     The present invention offers numerous advantages over drawer divider systems of the prior art. For example, in accordance with the present invention, the elongate drawer divider elements have a simple, one-piece construction, preferably injection molded. Since the divider is in one piece and there are no special receiving compartments, or the like, on the drawer sidewall faces, there is no problem with small auxiliary components being lost or improperly assembled. The divider elements may be used for years and should have a useful life at least as great as that of the storage chest in conjunction with which it is used. These and many other advantages of the invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     The invention will be more fully understood from the following detailed description thereof taken in connection with the accompanying drawings, in which 
     FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a drawer including four identical drawer dividers positioned therein, with the two dividers at the left of the drawer performing the auxiliary tool holding function; 
     FIG. 2 is an enlarged top plan view of the two centermost dividers shown in FIG. 1, with portions of the drawer and dividers broken away to facilitate illustration; 
     FIG. 3 is a perspective view of a drawer divider of the invention; 
     FIG. 4 is a sectional view of the drawer divider taken substantially along the line 4--4 in FIG. 3; 
     FIG. 5 is a side elevation view of the drawer divider shown in FIGS. 3 and 4; 
     FIG. 6 is a top plan view of the drawer divider shown in FIGS. 3, 4 and 5. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     While the present invention will be described hereinafter with particular reference to the accompanying drawings, it is to be understood at the outset of the description which follows that it is contemplated that the present invention may be varied in specific detail while still achieving the desirable characteristics and features of the present invention. Accordingly, the description is to be understood as a broad enabling teaching directed to persons skilled in the applicable arts, and is not to be understood as restrictive. 
     Referring to the drawings, and more particularly to FIGS. 1 and 2, there is shown a drawer divider system comprising a drawer 10 and four drawer dividers 20 subdividing the drawer into multiple compartments. 
     Drawer 10 includes a bottom wall 11 and two pairs of opposed sidewalls, pairs 12, 14 and 16, 18. Drawer dividers 20 engage sidewall pair 12, 14 and are insertable and removable therefrom in a manner to be described in more detail below. 
     The details of the structure of drawer dividers 20 will now be described with reference to FIGS. 3-6. Divider 20 includes a main body portion 22 which takes the form of a relatively thin, elongate strip member having a length approximating the distance between the opposed sidewalls 12, 14. As shown, the strip member is substantially vertically upstanding in the operational orientation of the drawer divider. In order to provide lengthwise rigidity to prevent bowing of the main body portion 22, a flange 24 is provided at the base of the main body portion. As best shown in FIG. 4, the lengthwise rigidity is best achieved by providing a radius 26 where flange 24 joins body portion 22. 
     In the particular embodiment illustrated in the drawings, the main body portion is provided with a plurality of recesses in the form of inverted sawteeth 30, the structure and function of which will be described in more detail below. 
     In the preferred embodiment, each end of drawer divider 20 includes an integrally formed sidewall engaging portion 32 comprising a pair of outwardly flaring, resilient arms 34, 36 integrally joined together and integrally joined to a body portion end at a juncture line 40. As best shown in FIG. 6, the sidewall engaging portions are collectively V-shaped and terminate in tips 42, 44 for engaging the opposed drawer sidewalls in the manner shown in FIGS. 1 and 2. Arm tips 42, 44 are substantially vertically upstanding surfaces and, in the illustrated embodiment, each tip is formed with an enlarged substantially circular cross section and has an adjacent recess 52. As shown in FIG. 2, the circular cross section and recess 52 cooperate to facilitate the gripping action of the tips 42, 44 to the engaged sidewall. 
     While divider 20 has been described as having resilient arms at both ends thereof, it will be appreciated that the arms at one end may be formed so that they are not resilient or do not cooperate in creating the holding force for maintaining the divider in place. 
     Drawer divider 20 is preferably formed from thermoplastic material by injection molding, with a preferred plastic material being polypropylene. The plastics forming operation lends a resiliency or deformability to the arms 34, 36 of the sidewall engaging portions. As best shown in FIG. 2, the arms 34, 36 are adapted to deflect to increase the V-angle therebetween and to exert sufficient force at the points of engagement with the sidewalls to securely hold the dividers therebetween. The deformation at the sidewall engaging portions occurs along the length of the arms 34, 36 and also as a pivoting or hinging action at juncture 40. 
     When the dividers are inserted substantially perpendicular to the opposed sidewalls, as illustrated by the divider 20 shown in the right-hand portion of FIG. 2, the resiliency of the two pairs of arms 34, 36 allows the dividers to accommodate substantial tolerances in the drawer widths. Such variance in the distance between drawer sidewalls may be introduced in the manufacturing of the drawer or may exist due to deformation of the drawer from use. 
     In accordance with the particular embodiment of the invention illustrated in the drawings, a drawer divider 20 is provided for insertion into drawers having opposed sidewalls spaced by 10.750 inches. Excellent results have been achieved by forming the main body portion with a length of 10.250 inches, with the overall length of the divider, including arms 34, 36, being approximately 10.937 inches. This results in an overall linear deformation of 0.187 inches, when the divider is used with a nominally sized drawer. However, it has been found that the drawer divider will securely remain in position at substantially right angles to the opposed sidewalls with drawer widths in the range of approximately 10.625 inches to 10.925 inches. It will be understood, however, that with drawer widths somewhat less than 10.625 inches, the drawer divider may be secured in place by positioning it slightly off of the shown perpendicular alignment. 
     The auxiliary tool-holding function of the invention will now be described in detail, with reference initially to FIGS. 1 and 2. In some instances it is desirable to store elongate articles in a spaced, substantially parallel mode such as represented by wrenches 60, 62 in FIG. 1. In accordance with the present invention, this tool-holding function may be accomplished by placing the tool bodies in the inverted sawtooth configurations in two adjacent drawer dividers. 
     As best shown in FIG. 5, the tool-holding recesses in the illustrated embodiment include front and rear faces 70, 72 respectively. Front face 70 is disposed at an angle A from vertical with rear face 72 at an angle B from vertical. In a preferred embodiment, angle A is approximately 5° and angle B is approximately 30°, thereby defining an included angle of approximately 35°. The relatively steep angle B permits tools to lean rearwardly and rest against rear face 72. 
     Referrin synchronously with the display scan. The preferred embodiment further draws out the blink data from the table memory by using each bit of the plural pictures as the logic condition so that a specific graphic pattern will blink according to the blink data from the table memory. This causes the entire display system to easily perform blinking at a speed faster than any of the conventional devices. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     FIG. 1 is a simplified block diagram of a graphic display device as a preferred embodiment of the present invention; 
     FIG. 2 is a detailed block diagram showing the essential part of the device of FIG. 1; and 
     FIGS. 3 and 4 respectively show the configurations peripheral to the table memory, showing the blink control operation. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     FIG. 1 is a simplified block diagram of a graphic data processing device, in which, reference number 10 denotes a CPU that is connected to data bus 20. The CPU 10 is subject to the control of programs of a program memory 11 that stores the program memory. Reference number 12 is a data memory also connected to the data bus 20, while a variety of buffers and flags, subject to the control of the CPU 10, are present in the data memory. The data bus 20 is connected to the graphic display control unit 13 (GDC) and the logic/table circuit 15 for causing the graphic patterns to blink. The GDC 13 is composed, for example, of mPD220 (Nippon Electric Company) being well known in the industry, and it causes graphic data from the CPU 10 via data bus 20 to be developed into designated graphic dot patterns before these patterns are stored in the display memory 14. The display memory 14 comprises 4 units of memory, i.e., DM0, DM1, DM2, and DM3, each correponds to pictures to be shown, while each of these memory units stores dot patterns independently, i.e., based on a specific control of the CPU 10, each can be simultaneously accessed by the GDC 13 synchronously with the raster scan of the CRT 16, enabling the GDC 13 to read the need dot data from memory units. 
     Basically, the logic table circuit 15 is of a structure as shown in FIG. 2 the logic table circuit memorizes a variety of data related to colors and graphic blinking that are input via data bus 20 under the CPU control to the table according to various logic conditions. It also selects the designated table according to the dot data logic read out of four pictures of the display memory 14 synchronously with the raster scan of the CRT 16, and so it identifies whether colors and the blinking are present, or not. 
     CRT 16 comprises, for example, a 14 inch screen containing 768×550 dots, which are subject to a raster scan performed by horizontal (H-sync) and vertical (V-sync) synchronizing signals fed from the GDC 13. 
     Although not shown in the drawings, a keyboard unit and a variety of terminal units are connected to the data bus 20 via interface units. A concrete example of the logic/table circuit 15 shown in FIG. 2 is described below. Reference number 34 is a table memory, which can be accessed by address data from latch circuit 33. Color data based on the three primary colors and the blink data are memorized in one location that is accessed by the address data. In a preferred embodiment, a total of 16 locations are provided by four address bits, thus making it possible to display 16 colors and also specify either the presence or absence of the blinking according to the 16 graphic patterns. 
     Data in each location is provided with addresses by said latch circuit 33, while each data is memorized in memory via data bus 20 under the control of the CPU 10. Dot data DMO through DM3 is fed from the display memory to said latch circuit 33 via an other latch circuit 30 and a selector 32. In other words, 4-bit dot data simultaneously read out of DM0 through DM3 of the display memory 14 shown in FIG. 1 is sent to the latch circuit 30 via selector 32. Reference number 35 is a latch circuit, 36 is the blink pulse generator, 37 denotes a gate and 38 is the display driver circuit. Next, the blink process operation is described below. The description relates to the case in which, as shown in FIG. 3, a square graphic pattern is displayed in red (R) on the CRT 16 and a blue (B) circle being displayed in said square pattern and the blue circle is subject to blinking. In this case, under the control of the CPU 10, of the four units DM0 through DM3 of the display memory 14, DM0 will memorize a square graphic pattern and DM1 will memorize a circular graphic pattern. In the present description, only the cases of DM0 and DM1 are cited for convenience. 
     During the display operation, synchronously with the raster scan, GDC 13 simultaneously reads the data of DM0 through DM3 of said display memory 14. Data read out of DMO through DM3 are combined, that is, a 4-bit piece of data is created with one bit corresponding to display data at each of the memory units, before being sent to the driver circuit 38 of the CRT 16. 4-bit data from DM0 through DM3 is sent to the latch circuit 33. When the raster scan pulse is at the position of display memory 14 (DM0 to DM3) corresponding to the point denoted by &#34;a&#34; in FIG. 3, data &#34;00XX&#34; is fed to the latch circuit 33, and as a result, by using this data as an address, a location of the table memory 34 is selected. Each location of said table memory 34 contains data denoting the tonal range of red (R), green (G), and blue (B) each composed of 3-bits and a bit denoting either the presence or absence of the blinking (BR). Therefore, when the CRT performs a raster scan against said position &#34;a&#34;, since neither DM0 nor DM1 contains any graphic pattern at that position, the first location of the table memory 34 is selected. In this case, although the data of the first location of the data memory 34 is sent out, substantially, no control is effected. When the raster scan pulse is at the position &#34;b&#34;, a graphic pattern exists in DM0 of data memory 14, Cand so a data &#34;10XX&#34; is fed to the latch circuit 33. This data selects the second location of the table memory 34 and causes the red (R) tonal data to go out so that a red dot will be displayed. During this period, since the blink bit remains &#34;0&#34;, no blinking operation is performed. When the raster scan pulse is at the position &#34;c&#34;, since graphic patterns are present in DM0 and DM1 of the data memory 14, data &#34;11XX&#34; is fed to the latch circuit 33. This data selects the 4th location of the table memory 34, causing the blue (B) tonal data to go out and simultaneously activates gate 37 by using blink bit &#34;1&#34;. 
     As a result, gate 37 opens while the binary bit &#34;1&#34; is being output from the blink pulse generator 36, thus resetting the latch circuit 35. When said generator 36 outputs &#34;0&#34;, data from the latch circuit 35 is sent to the driver circuit 38, thus dots can be displayed in any desired colors. In this way, when the blink bit is &#34;1&#34;, latch circuit 35 can be either set or reset according to the cyle of the blink pulse, thus permitting dots to blink. As a result, a red square picture pattern and a blue circular pattern in the red square pattern are displayed in the display screen of CRT 16 in blinking. Another embodiment of the present invention is described below. 
     The relationship between the graphic pattern memory into DM0 through DM3 of the display memory and the table memory may be composed as shown in FIG. 4 as the logic condition. Composition of the table memory 34 of FIG. 4 (A) denotes such a case in which only the triangle pattern blinks. Composition of the table memory 34 of FIG. 4 (B) denotes such a case in which only the rectangular pattern blinks. Composition of the table memory 34 of FIG. 4 (C) denotes such a case in which only the square pattern blinks.