FIELD OF INVENTION
This invention relates to a light weight collapsible plastic pallet box, specifically, but without implying any limitation thereto, a rectangular box for storage and transportation of solid materials whether in unpackaged form including powders or in any packaged form, wherein the box has ease of reusability, stack ability and is leak-proof.
PRIOR ART
Plastic containers in various forms are known in the art for storage and transportation of variety of goods in unpackaged form or in packaged form. These plastic containers have generally the limitation that either their capacity is less than 1m3 or are not collapsible for the purposes of reusability or lack the stack ability feature necessary for the purposes of transportation or are very heavy for manual handling. Lightweight boxes of corrugated fibre board or hardboard, having capacity more than 1m3 are known in the art but such containers are susceptible to adsorption of moisture and are also vulnerable to external damage caused to the box during handling or transportation.
A collapsible plastic box reported in the art as per US Patent No. 5,395,002 comprises a base and four side walls, with one pair of side walls higher than other pair, abutting sides being inter connected by hooks, the base having eight supporting legs of which four are provided in the corners of base, and four are provided in the middle of the side edges of the base, the box having an opening with a door, through which contents of box or a sack (by piercing it) in the box, can be emptied.
A disadvantage of the above box is that the walls of the box are interlocked each other by hook shaped beads provided at the either side of the each wall which makes the assembly more time consuming as the beads have to be properly aligned and fix.
Another disadvantage of the above box is that the walls of the box just rest in the slot in the base and the walls are not interlocked to each other.
Still another disadvantage of the above box is that the erection and collapsing of the box is difficult as it requires alignments of the beads which requires two persons for the alignment and interlocking the two adjoining walls.
OBJECTS OF PRESENT INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to provide a lightweight collapsible plastic pallet box for storage and transportation of packaged or unpackaged material including fine powders.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a collapsible plastic pallet box, which has an ease of stackability for the purposes of transportation and storage in warehouses.
Further object of the present invention is to provide a collapsible plastic pallet box, which has ribbed wall construction which gives maximum strength to the box and minimises the weight of the box.
Still further object of the present invention is to provide a collapsible plastic pallet box wherein base plate is designed in such a way that it aids in lifting with forklift.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a collapsible plastic pallet box wherein the base of the box has no holes for the purposes of fixing feet to the box but has a novel arrangement comprising base having protrusions to which the feet of the box having projections, can be locked thereby making the base of the box as also the entire box as leak proof and suitable for transportation of any solid materials including powders.
Further object of the present invention is to provide a collapsible plastic pallet box, which can be made to have capacity more than 1m3 by taking the dimensions of base/sidewalls accordingly.
STATEMENT OF INVENTION
According to this invention, there is provided a light-weight collapsible pallet box of injection mouldable plastic having ribbed structure and comprising: two pairs of identical walls having ribbed structure; a base provided with three rows of protrusions with each row having three protrusions, hinges provided above the first row of ribs provided to the base, a tight-fitting lid having ribbed structure and three nestings wherein the three feet of the similar box stacked over it, would reside in stable condition; three feet with each foot having three projections which fit into the protrusions of the base and get locked with locking holes provided on the said protrusions; one of the wall having interlocking protrusions and spring latches which lock into the slots on the one end of the adjoining
wall and hinge pins of the walls fitting into the slots in the base and curved corners of wall residing at curved corners of the base. Similar locking mechanism as mentioned above, is also provided on the opposite wall, for only one pair of walls.
According to this invention, the lightweight collapsible plastic pallet box is, specifically, but without imply any limitation thereto, a rectangular box which can have capacity more than 1m3. This capacity is achieved by making the length, breadth and height of the box to be each of dimension higher than 1m. In one of the embodiment of the present invention, by way of an example, length of the box is taken as 1200mm, breadth is taken to be 1000mm and height to be 1150mm. The three nestings provided on the lid, where three feet of another similar box placed over it, reside , enhance the stack ability feature of the box and makes stacking of the boxes stable against jerks during transportation. As distinct from the normal practice of fixing feet to the base of the box, the box of the present invention has feet attached to it by a novel design. The base has three rows of protrusions, with each row having three protrusions. Each of the three feet of the box has three projections which can be locked into the protrusions of the base. This feature of providing protrusions to the base where detachable feet can be locked, makes the base of the box leak-proof and thus makes it suitable for transportation of any solid material whether in packaged form or in a unpackaged form, including fine powders.
DESCRIPTION OF FIGURES
The above and other features of the invention will now be more particularly described with reference to the accompanying drawings. It is to be understood that the accompanying drawings illustrate an embodiment of the invention and these drawings are
not intended to be taken restrictively to imply any limitation on the scope of the invention. The principles and features of this invention may be employed in various and numerous embodiments without departing from the scope of the invention.
In the accompanying drawings: -
Fig. 1:- shows the rectangular box of the present invention in closed condition.
Fig. 1 (a): - shows the exploded view of the box;
Fig.2:- shows a section of the base of the box;
Fig. 3: - shows the interlocking between walls;
Fig.4:- shows the locking mechanism between walls;
Fig. 5: - shows the construction of wall (1)
Fig.6:- shows the details of locking elements provided on wall (1) namely
hinge pin, inter-lock protrusion and spring latch
Fig.7:- shows the box in folded condition.
DESCRIPTION OF INVENTION w.r.t DRAWINGS
Referring to Fig.l, the light weight collapsible plastic pallet box of the present invention is preferably a rectangular box with length, breadth, height, each being 1 metre or more in dimension, in order that the box may have capacity of more than 1m3. The box has a base (5) and four sidewalls (1,2,3,4) with two pairs of opposite walls (1,3) and (2,4) being identical in dimensions. The base (5) is designed such that it aids in lifting with fork lift and acts as a pallet. The lid (6) for covering the box, has three nestings (7,20,21) which facilitate stacking, when a similar box is stacked over it, whether in erect or collapsed
condition, in such a way that each of three feet resides in a nesting which makes the box stable enough to not to fall down with jerks during transportation. The base (5) has three rows of protrusions, with each row having three protrusions like (8,9,10). Three detachable feet (11,12,13), with each foot having three projections, like (16,17,18) (shown clearly in fig.l(a) ), can be manually locked into the base of the box(5) by manually pushing the projection like (16,17,18) of each of three feet, into the three rows of protrusions like (8,9,10) of base (5). When three projections of a foot are pushed inside three protrusions in a row, it gets locked by locking holes, two of which are on front sides like (22,23) and two are on right side (not shown) of each protrusions. The feet are so designed to permit stacking of the box in the erect as well as in collapsed condition (fig.4). The design feature of the box providing protrusions to base to which feets of the box can be locked instead of locking the feet directly to the base, makes the base of box as leak-proof. Side wall (1) and sidewall (3) has a pair of locking push buttons like (14,15) by which two adjoining walls, after insertion into the base, can be connected to each other in the erected condition. The whole box is designed in ribbed wall construction to give it maximum strength and at the same time making the box as lightweight.
Referring to Fig.2, each sidewall is articulated to the base (5) by means of hinges (19). Each sidewall can be folded inward and also can be removed, by simply pulling it upward in closed condition. The base (5) has number of cutouts(24), for example nineteen in number in bottom row as per one embodiment. Over this row of cutouts, these are hinges (19) at the middle and two corner supports (25,26) having cut-out structure, for example 4 cut-outs on each side of the said hinges, as per one embodiment of the present invention.
Referring to Fig. 3 and Fig. 4, the interlocking between the walls is achieved by inserting the protrusion (29) on wall (1) into the slot (30) on wall (2). In doing so, the latch (31) (Fig.4) on wall (1) locks with slot (32) on wall (2). Similar mechanism exists for other pair of adjoining walls (3) and walls (4).
Referring to Fig. 5 which shows the detailed construction of wall (1), the entire wall as also the other walls, have ribbed construction to provide strength to it make it lightweight. When the wall is articulated to the hinges (19) (Fig.l), the hinge pins (33) and (34) fit into the slots (27) and (28) (Fig.l) provided in the base (5) of the box. The curved ends (35) and (36) of the wall reside on the curved ends like (37) of the base.
Referring to Fig.6, there are three locking elements provided on wall (1). The first element is the pair of hinge pins like (34) shown in detail in fig.6(c), which are provided at both the bottom ends of the wall, which fit into slots like (27) in the base. The second locking element is the interlock protrusion (29) shown in detail in fig 6(b), which fit into the slot (30) provided on the adjoining wall (2). Besides the above two locking elements, the third locking element shown in fig.6 (d), is a pair of spring latch (31,39). The spring latch (31) gets locked into the slot (32) provided on the adjoining end of wall (2). Similarly the latch (39) gets locked into the slot (not shown) provided on the adjoining end of wall (4). Another pair of spring latch is provided on wall (3). The one of such spring latch on wall(3) gets locked into the slot provided on the other end of wall (2) while the second spring latch provided on wall (3) gets locked into the slot provided on the other end of wall (4).
Referring to Fig. 7 shows how the box can be folded for the purposes of stacking empty boxes. It may be noted that, if necessary, the box can be easily dismantled. Each of the side can be detached from the base, by unlocking the walls by pressing the locking levers like (14) and (15) and pulling up separately each of the wall. Similarly each of three feet (11,12,13) can be detached by pulling out the projections like (16,17,18) from the protrusions like (8,9,10). The dismantling of the box may be necessary for saving storage space in the warehouse where each part can be separately stacked in a position to save the storage space.
It is to be noted that the collapsible plastic box of the present invention is susceptible to modifications, changes and adaptations by those skilled in the art. Such variant embodiments are intended to be within the scope of the present invention which is further set forth under the following claims:-

WE CLAIM:
1. A light weight collapsible pallet box of injection mouldable plastic having ribbed structure and comprising:
- Two pairs of identical walls (1,3) and (2,4) having ribbed structure;
- a base (5) provided with three rows of protrusions with each row
having three protrusions like (8,9,10) and hinges (19) provided above the
row of ribs (24) of the base;
- a tight-fitting lid (6) having ribbed structure and three nestings (7,20,21)
provided therein wherein the three feet of the similar box stacked over it,
would reside in stable condition;
- three detachable feet (11,12,13) of the box, with each foot having three
projections like (16,17,18) which fit into the protrusions like (8,9,10) and
get locked with the help of two pairs of locking holes like (22,23)
provided on two sides of said protrusions;
- Wall (1) having inter locking mechanisms, with push buttons (14,15),
spring latches (31,39) which lock into the slot like slot (32) on wall (2%w
interlock protrusion (29) which locks into the slot (30) on wall 2 and hinge
pins (33,34) fitting into the slot (27,28) in the base and curved corners
(35,36) of wall residing at curved corners like (37) of the base and mechanism similar to wall (1) being provided on wall (3);
2. A light weight, collapsible pallet box as claimed in claim 1 wherein length,
breadth and height of the assembled box are 1m or above so that box has
capacity around 1m3.
3. A light weight, collapsible pallet box as substantially described and illustrated
herein.