Safety bow for a children's chair

The present invention relates to a child arch safety arch, such as chairs in which the seat has a vertical opening at the front, preferably with potential vertical and horizontal seat adjustment. Further, the invention relates to the use of a safety bow on children's chairs.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION It is well known that for children who are at the age when they can sit independently (about 6-7 months) until the age when they can safely control sitting in a child chair without falling out (about 2 years), it is necessary to have safety equipment that will prevent them from falling out of the high chair.

Blocks such as arches and crossbars, preferably combined with a vertical element or bar on a child 's chair, are often used for this purpose. Preferably, the entire seat of the chair can be modulated in shape as a seat with an integrated transverse arch and a belt bar. The disadvantage of a chair with a modulated shape is that it can happen that they are not appropriate for the size and age of the child. Often, such physical blockages are combined with seat belts to ensure that children do not fall out of the chair. However, the physical block can only be used when the child is quite small so that he cannot get up and get out of the chair, or to provide additional physical support that the belts cannot unfasten on their own.

As of SE 451 530, the safety arch is known as a child seat equipment that can be mounted on conventional strap chairs. The safety arch has two horizontal ends for connection to the corresponding horizontal upper surface present on the side elements of the seat. The side elements are hollow and have openings on the upper surface which serve as screws which are placed from below and in the receiving openings on the lower side of the ends of the arch. Also, the bow contains a central element with a pin at the lower end, which is used for placing in the openings on the children's chair.

52051Β Furthermore, from EP 1 388 311 a protective ring is known as a child seat equipment which can be mounted on conventional chairs. The protective ring has two horizontal ends, which are connected to the rear of the seat, as well as a separate central support rod, whose lower end has threads for fastening in the threaded hole on the seat of the child chair and a upper end which is attached to the safety ring with a plug.

[0006] In later years, developments have taken place, and in this regard different countries and regions have enacted their own safety regulations for equipment used for children, such as child seats. This must be taken into account when designing new child seats, but it can be difficult to adapt chairs that have been produced for a long time before the adoption of the above safety regulations. It is especially difficult to report such changes in order to adjust the elements on the chairs that have been sold for many years, without performing physical interventions on the chairs. There are already thousands of such chairs in homes.

Such is the case, for example, with the Tripp Trapp® children's chair, designed in 1972 and patented in 1976, which is still a popular children's chair in many countries.

The chair is designed so that it can be adjusted to the child's body size, and therefore has a seat plate and a foot plate that can be moved to different heights, as they slide on guides placed in the side elements and are locked by attaching spacers between side elements. The seat plate can, furthermore, be adjusted in depth in the sense that the plate can be pushed backwards, thus enabling the child using the chair to have an appropriate length of seat below the thigh.

It has proved difficult to adapt existing seats to the new requirements, in particular with a view to retaining the above original functions of the chair.In order to achieve this the safety arch connection, for example, must be suitable to follow the seat position and in terms of height and depth.

52051 00 In addition to attaching the safety bow to the above chairs, it may be mentioned that it would be desirable to mount seat belts for children that can be used in parallel with the safety bow.

A further object is to provide binding means for the above accessories so that owners of older chairs can improve their chairs. In addition, the goal is to avoid physical interventions, such as making holes or applying screws that would leave ugly marks on the chair and be visible when the need to use child belts or a safety bow ceases. Such interventions could lead to the risk of the user making changes in the wrong way, thus jeopardizing security. It is therefore an object of the invention to attach the accessories in an intuitive and simplest way possible while maintaining safety without the need for tools.

Furthermore, the safety bow should be of a simple design reasonable for production, and care should be taken that the safety bow is used only for a limited period of time, compared to the useful life of the chair.

DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION In order to achieve the stated objectives, the applicant has developed a safety arc that solves the above-mentioned problems.

The present invention therefore relates to a safety arch used on children's chairs with a seat plate, a backrest and preferably side elements, wherein the backrest or side elements have at least one opening, preferably a horizontal opening, and the safety bow has the properties as in claim 1.

Hereinafter, the invention will be described in detail with reference to the foregoing embodiments and the accompanying drawings, none of which are intended to limit the scope of the invention defined only by the appended claims.

52051 Β

Brief Description of the Drawings [0016]

Figure 1 shows a front view of a safety arch in accordance with the present invention.

Figure 2 shows a side view of the safety arch from Figure 1.

Figure 3 shows a drawing for installing a safety arch when attaching to a child seat.

Figure 4 shows the safety bow from Figure 3 installed on the child seat.

Figure 5 shows a side view of a second safety arch in accordance with the invention installed on a child seat in two different positions, horizontal and vertical.

Figure 6 shows an alternative installation of the safety arch from Figure 6.

Figure 7 shows a front view of the safety arch from Figure 6.

Figure 8 shows a detail of the safety arch from Figure 6.

Detailed Description As can be seen in Figure 1, the safety arch 40 is a one-piece three-legged arch, which forms a curved transverse element 41, as well as a vertical belt element 42.

The curved transverse member 41 has two ends 43 with first and second fixing members 44 for attachment to the back of the chair or the side members of the chair. Similarly, the end of the belt element 42 has a third fixing element 46, in this embodiment it is a click of a button, for fixing the holder to the seat plate.

As can be seen in Figure 2, the transverse element 41 also comprises a vertical wrapping ring 47 in this embodiment with a protruding edge on the upper side 48 with which it forms a substantially horizontal surface. The transition between the hoop 47 and the protruding edge 48 is curved for the sake of providing comfort to the child and provides good support for the forearms. The construction also provides a transverse element with additional rigidity and strength, as well as torsional stability.

With regard to safety regulations in certain countries, it may be advantageous for the hoop 47 on the transverse element to have a variable width so that it can be deeper in the parts

52051 Β where it is desirable to limit the mobility of the child or to reduce the size or shape of the opening defined by the seat plate 2 and the arch 40, as shown in Figure 3. In this embodiment, the hoop 47 has an increased width, the surface facing downwards and in side elements with extensions49 on each side of the surface between the ends 43 and the belt strip 42.

Figure 3 further shows how the safety bow is mounted on a child seat. As can be seen in Figure 2, the connecting elements comprise wings facing upwards 44 bent backwards with respect to the cut ends 43, and Figure 3 shows how these wings 44 are hooked between the upper cross member 3 and the lower cross member 4 of the backrest for the back of the chair 1. The bow 40 is then rotated forwards downwards so that the wings 44 are pressed forward towards the upper end until the element 46 at the end of the belt element 42 is connected to the corresponding connecting element on the seat plate 2. In this embodiment, the connecting element on the seat plate 2 is a groove at the end 12 on the holder 10, fixed to the seat plate 2 as shown in Figures 3 and 4. The waist element 42 is somewhat flexible, so it allows the size of the seat plate to be adjusted in depth depending on the age of the child. Depending on the stiffness of the curved transverse element 41, and / or the manner in which the first and second fixing elements 44 are arranged, the safety arch can also be adjusted to different positions in terms of height, such as 2-3 positions, seat plates by sloping up or down.

Since the belt member 42 must absorb loads on the transverse arch 41, it may be desirable for the safety arch 40 to also have child seat assembly surfaces 1 that absorb said loads. Depending on the quality and flexibility of the safety arch 40, it may be desirable, for example, that the ends 43 of the transverse element 41 also comprise stop elements 45 in the form of stop stops (brakes) directed downwards and bent forwards relative to the ends 43 such as shown in Figure 2. The stop elements 45 are then pressed back against the upper front edge of the lower transverse element 4 of the backrest of the chair 1, as shown in Figure 3. In this way, the safety arch 40 is fully tightened when fastened (locked) to the seat 2, in addition it is prevented from moving horizontally backwards, while at the same time avoiding loosening between the chair and the safety arch. At the same time, part of the load on the safety bow is absorbed.

52051Β In both the previous and the following embodiment, the chair 1 has a backrest, which consists of two horizontal parallel transverse elements 3 and 4 which form a pull-out opening with a defined height. However, the opening may also consist of two separate openings in the backrest or on the side elements of the chair, as is the case, for example, with two parallel grooves with a defined height and preferably a defined width. The openings do not even have to be adapted for passage, but for example indentations can be made with an edge or rail that allows locking by hooking the connecting elements 44 in the manner shown. The ends 43 of the safety arch can, if possible, rest independently on the back of the chair or side elements in order to lock the safety arch and prevent it from moving backwards.

Figure 5 shows an alternative embodiment of the present invention where the ends 43 of the cross member 41 take on a different shape of the connecting elements 50 towards the opening (s) between the cross members 3 and 4 of the chair 1. In this embodiment, the connecting elements 50 also include protrusion extensions. at the ends 43 (from the previous figures) directed backwards which can pass through the opening (openings) on the backrest 3, 4. The end of the connecting element 50 is completed with an important part which is raised and directed upwards so that the safety arch must be hooked to the opening (s) in the manner described above. However, the connecting elements 50 are dimensioned with more material to absorb higher loads compared to the elements 44. Therefore, there is no need to introduce additional stop elements 45 in front of the ends 43.

In addition to the raised portion 51, the connecting member 50 may further consist of an additional transverse rail 52 on the upper portion, as better shown in Figure 7, which allows the transverse element to be attached in another additional width-depth position, and it is closer to the backrest as shown in Figure 5. The above position may be interesting for the youngest children using a chair. In connection with the increase of the horizontal opening bounded by the curved transverse element 41 of the safety arch and the backrest, it will be convenient to lower the seat plate 2 as the child grows over time by replacing the transverse rail 52 with the raised part 51. positions in terms of the height of the seat plate 2, the connecting element 46 has several locking positions. The connecting element 46 has several clicks in a row, side by side, as shown in detail in Figure 8.

52051 00 As shown in Figure 7, the end of the belt strap 42 has a lower click buckle directed upwards 51 as in the previous embodiment, but a second click buckle directed downwards 52 is placed above this click buckle thus preventing the belt the strip 42 moves downwards independently, instead of being served by the stop edge shown in Figures 1-4. By releasing the second click buckle 52, the belt bar 42 can still be moved down into the groove 12, and the third click of the upward buckle 53 will lock the belt bar in a deeper position in the groove 12, and then further downward movement will therefore be prevented. using the fourth click button 54.

The waistband 42 may further have a number of additional click buckles thereby increasing the adjustment possibilities, but this number is somewhat limited to avoid that the length of the part remaining protruding below the seat plate does not interfere when using a safety arch in the internal position.

Figure 6 shows an alternative mounting on a child seat where the safety arch 40 is used with a direct fastening to the belt strip 42 by means of a connecting element 46 in the groove in the seat plate itself 2. On the original Tripp Trapp® chair there is, for example, such a groove for attaching another type of belt. The seat plate 2 can be moved in a horizontal direction to adjust in depth to both the safety arch and the child. In general, attaching the belt strap 42 by means of the handle 10, as shown in Figure 5, will provide more space for the child to move the legs since the belt strap is attached to the outside of the seat plate, while the space in the embodiment according to Figure 6 is somewhat more limited. .

The safety bow can be made of any suitable material, such as metal, wood, plastic or other synthetic material or composite material. It is preferred that the safety arch be made of a semi-rigid material which has no support but has sufficient flexibility to be able to adjust the depth of the seat, preferably made of plastic.

The advantage of the safety arch according to the present invention is that it can be used on an existing chair, such as a Tripp Trapp® chair or other chair, without making physical changes to any part of the chair, ie the need to apply fastening elements, such as screws. The safety arch is simply attached to the rear edge only with the help of existing components, and to the front edge with the help of an existing groove or handle on the seat plate. Security

52051 Β The arch can accompany the adjustment of the chair, both vertically and horizontally to a certain extent, such as the adjustment of the height and / or depth of the seat panel, without interfering with any of the functions of the chair. The safety bow can be easily removed at the end of use or can be transferred to another suitable chair when it is no longer needed. The adjustment options provided by the safety arch cover the adjustment segments of the seat plate, which is of interest for use in babies and young children.

Another advantage of the safety arch according to the present invention is that all fastening elements required for fixing to the child seat can be integrated into the safety arch, as shown in Figure 6, without the need for additional loose parts or without the need to uses tools.