Safety Toe Trip For Crib Drop Sides

Abstract

A safety crip drop side having a safety latch held by resilient means requiring a certain number of pounds of pressure on a foot pedal to release it. The foot pedal is located at an end of the crib out of the reach of the occupant and being of a nature which is not susceptible to accidental operation by an animal, or another infant.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Crib drop sides have been made for many years with different kinds of trip locks which are actuated to allow the crib sides to drop to a lower location. In the past it has been a consideration not only to provide for ease of operation of these trip locks but also cost has been important. Recently however greater safety has become the prime consideration so that the trip lock will not be accidentally operated as by an animal or by another infant or even accidentally by the nurse or mother. One of the suggestions for providing for such safety is to require a certain amount of pressure to be utilized before the trip can be actuated, it being believed that a required pressure of 10 or 11 pounds will prevent operation accidentally because of the effort involved in operating the latch; and it is the object of the present invention to provide such a device with a foot pedal located at one end of the crib only and having resilient strength applied thereto in the nature required so that the pedal cannot be operated accidentally.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A more or less conventional crib has a stabilizer bar which runs across the front of the crib from one corner post to the other. A pair of guides are secured thereto and each guide has a pivoted latch thereon. A rod or bar is connected to a bell crank by a sliding connection and the bell crank in turn is operated by a pedal at one end of the crib preferably pivotally mounted on a corner post. The latches are pivoted to the rod or bar and swing between latching and releasing positions relative to gate shoes on the crib drop side. Light resilient means is provided to resist motion of the rod in one direction, and heavy resilient means restricts the bell crank against actuation by the pedal, so that the latches will not release unless the required amount of pressure is applied to the pedal.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a view in elevation illustrating the rear side of the stabilizer bar showing the present invention;

FIG. 2 is an enlarged section on line 2--2 in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 illustrates a gate shoe; and

FIG. 4 shows a detail of the pedal construction.

PREFERRED EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION

Referring to FIG. 1 the reference numerals 10 and 12 indicate crib corner posts at the opposite ends of the crib. A pair of brackets 14, 14 are mounted on the inside facing aspects of these corner posts and on and between them is riveted an angle iron stabilizer bar 16. The construction to be described is applied to the inner aspects of the vertical flange of the angle iron by a pair of attached flat guides 18, 18 provided with inverted V-notches 20, 20.

A bar 22 is located at the inside aspects of the guides 18, 18 and a light spring 24 is attached to one end of this bar, the other end of the spring being attached to the vertical flange of the angle iron. At the opposite end of the bar 22 there is attached a rod 26 by the simple means of applying a bend or hook to an aperture as at 28. The other end of the rod 26 is similarly applied to a flange 29 on a bell crank 30 by a bend 31 in rod 26. The bell crank 30 is pivoted to bracket 14 at 32, and arm 34 of the bell crank is connected to a vertical rod 36 having an inturned end 38 at its lower end.

The inturned end 38 of rod 36 is entered into the flange 40 of a pedal 42, the pedal 42 being located in a generally horizontal relationship and extends inwardly with relation to the corner post 12 as by a pivot 44 and washer 46 as shown in FIG. 3.

The rod 26 can move to the left in FIG. 1, relative to bell crank 30 but it cannot move to the right when the bend 31 abuts the flange 28. Therefore heavy spring 25 connected to the arm 30 of the bell crank has no effect on the bar 22 but relatively strongly resists depression of the pedal 42.

A pair of like latches indicated at 48 and 50 are pivotally mounted as at 52 and 54 respectively on the respective guides 18. Each hook is provided with a bight as at 56, 58 and being pivotally mounted as at 52, 54 in order to latch the rods 60, 62 on a pair of gate shoes 64, see FIG. 3. Each gate shoe 64 comprises a flat plate mounted on the lower rail 66 of the drop side and has a bent portion 68 extending forwardly and having fixed thereto the respective pin 60 or 62 in position to enter and drop from the V-shaped notches 20 in the guides 18. The latches are pivotally connected with respect to bar 22 by bent out flanges 70 rockably mounted in holes in the bar, and are held assembled by fasteners 72. When the pedal is stepped on and the rod 26 and bar 22 consequently move to the left, the latches swing to the right releasing the pins 60 and 62 and allowing the crib drop side to drop.

The light spring 24 acts to move the latches clockwisely to latching position, and little force is needed to accomplish this per se; but to move the pedal down to unlatch the latches requires a greater force, e.g., 18 pounds pull, due to heavy spring 25. When the drop side is raised, the pins 60, 62 strike cam edges 74 on the latches and move them counterclockwisely so that the pins are trapped in the bights 56 and 58, due to the pressure of light spring 24, which may have about e.g., a 4 pound pull. A flange 78 on each catch stops the clockwise motion of the catches when the drop side is down.

The heads 61 on the ends of pins 60 and 62 prevent the drop side from disengaging from the lock and accidentally causing the drop side to fall.

Claims

I claim:

1. A safety latch construction for a crib having a drop side, said crib including a stabilizer bar,

a movable latch on the stabilizer bar and means to be latched thereby on the drop side, resilient means associated with said latch and tending to maintain the same in latching condition with respect to said means,

and a foot pedal, said foot pedal having an operative connection with respect to said latch to move it to release said means, and a second resilient means for said foot pedal tending to maintain the same in a position wherein the latch is in its latching position, said second resilient means being isolated fron the latch, wherein the connection between the movable latch and the pedal comprises an elongated longitudinally movable bar and a pivoted connection between the bar and the pedal.

2. The safety latch construction of claim 1 wherein the second resilient means is relatively strong with respect to the first named resilient means.

3. The safety latch construction of claim 1 wherein said connection is slidable, the second named resilient means having no effect on said bar and therefore no effect on the latch.

4. The safety latch construction of claim 1 wherein said pedal is located at one end of the stabilizer bar.

5. The safety latch construction of claim 4 wherein said crib includes a corner post, said pedal being pivotally mounted on said corner post and extending inwardly thereof with respect to the crib.

6. The safety latch construction of claim 1 wherein the latch is pivoted, and a pivot connection between the latch and the bar, the pivot connection being offset with respect to the pivot for the latch.

7. The safety latch construction of claim 6 wherein said latch includes a bight for the reception of the means to be latched on the drop side.

8. The safety latch construction of claim 1 including a guide on the stabilizer, means pivoting the latch to the guide, the guide including a downwardly open V-shaped notch, and said latch having a cam surface thereon at the lower edge thereof, said means to be latched upon rising of the drop side engaging said cam edge moving the latch aside, the first named resilient means causing said latch to snap in under said means to be latched in the V-notch.

9. A safety latch for a crib having a drop side, said crib including a pair of corner posts and a stabilizer bar secured between the two corner posts,

a reciprocal bar on the stabilizer bar, a spring to restrain motion of the bar in one direction at one end of said bar, a latch pivoted to the stabilizer bar and to the reciprocal bar on offset axes, the latch having a bight,

a bell crank at the opposite end of said bar connected with respect to said bar, a pedal attached to a leg of the bell crank, said lever being pivotally mounted on one of said corner posts and effective to draw the bar against the action of the spring when depressed, through the bell crank,

a gate shoe on the drop side, said gate shoe having means thereon for engagement and latching by the bight of said latch when the drop side is raised whereby the drop side is latched in its uppermost position, depression of said pedal drawing said reciprocal bar against the action of the spring and moving the latch to release the gate shoe means and allow the drop side to descend.