Lock for a flap or door

Abstract

The aim of the invention is to design a door lock or flap lock which can be easily and reliably opened with little effort. Said aim is achieved by a door lock or flap lock comprising a locking mechanism that consists of a latch and at least one pawl for locking the latch. The lock further comprises a triggering lever which, upon being actuated allows the locked locking mechanism to be unlocked. The lock also comprises a spring for moving the pawl in the direction of the locking position. When the triggering lever is actuated, the triggering lever rests against the spring to push the spring away from the pawl and decrease or cancel the spring force. Using the triggering lever, functions, the number of parts can be kept to a minimum. Advantageously, the lock therefore is not complex to produce and is compact and lightweight.

Claims

1. A lock for a door or flap comprising: a locking mechanism having a locked state and an unlocked state, the locking mechanism comprising: a rotary latch; at least one pawl for locking the rotary latch, the pawl being pivotable between a locking position in which the pawl acts against the rotary latch and an unlocking position in which the pawl disengages from the rotary latch; a spring that rests against the pawl to bias the pawl in the locking position; and a triggering lever that is pivotable to rest against the spring and push the spring away from the pawl enabling the rotary latch to initiate a torque into the pawl to pivot the pawl toward the unlocking position for moving the locking mechanism from the locked state to the unlocked state.

2. The lock according to claim 1, wherein the pawl and the triggering lever are rotatably mounted on a common axis.

3. The lock according to claim 1, wherein the spring can rest against a lever arm of the pawl for moving the pawl in the direction of the locking position and/or against a lever arm of the triggering lever to reduce or cancel out the spring force acting on the pawl.

4. The lock according to claim 3, wherein the lever arm of the pawl and the lever arm of the triggering lever are arranged above each other in the locked state of the locking mechanism.

5. The lock according to claim 1, wherein the rotary latch can initiate an opening moment in the pawl in order to move the pawl out of its locking position.

6. The lock according to claim 1 further comprising a tappet arranged on the triggering lever that can also move the pawl out of the locking position after a delay.

7. The lock according to claim 1 further comprising a blocking lever having a blocking position in which the blocking lever blocks the pawl to prevent the pawl from moving out of the locking position.

8. The lock according to claim 7, wherein the triggering lever can move the blocking lever out of the blocking position.

9. The lock according to claim 7 further comprising a spring for moving the blocking lever into the blocking position.

10. The lock according to claim 1 further comprising a spring for moving the rotary latch into an opening position.

11. The lock according to claim 1, wherein the triggering lever contains three lever arms.

12. The lock according to claim 1, wherein the pawl contains two lever arms.

13. The lock according to claim 1 further comprising a blocking lever with two lever arms.

Description

(1) The figures show the following

(2) FIG. 1: a locking mechanism at the start of the opening operation;

(3) FIG. 2: a rear aspect of a locking mechanism of FIG. 1;

(4) FIG. 1 shows a locking mechanism comprising a rotary latch 1, a pawl 2, a blocking lever 3 and a triggering lever 4. The rotary latch 1 can be pivoted around its axis 5. The pawl 2 and the triggering lever 4 can be pivoted around their common axis 6. The blocking lever 3 can be pivoted around its axis 7.

(5) FIG. 1 shows the start of the opening operation. By pivoting the triggering lever 4 in counterclockwise direction, the blocking lever 3 has already been moved out of its blocking position. The pawl 2 also locks rotary latch 1 with its lever arm 8. The rotary latch 1, initiating an opening moment in the pawl 2, thus ensures that the pawl 2 is pivoted out of its shown locking position and, in case of FIG. 1, by pivoting around axis 6 in counterclockwise direction. In case of this mechanism failing, the tappet 9, extending upwards from the lever arm 10 of the triggering lever 4, finally makes contact with the side of the lever arm 11 of the pawl 2 by further pivoting of the triggering lever 4 in counterclockwise direction, moving said pawl also in counterclockwise direction. As a result of this additional mechanism, the lever arm 8 can be at least partially moved out of its locking position where required if this operation as part of the initiation of an adequately high torque into pawl 2 has initially failed.

(6) As long as the triggering lever 4 is not actuated, i.e. in case of FIG. 1 has not been pivoted in counterclockwise direction, a spring arm 12 of a leg spring 13 rests against the lever arm 11 of the pawl 2, allowing the pawl 2 to be pivoted in clockwise direction into its locking position. By activating the triggering lever 4, i.e. pivoting it in counterclockwise direction, the lever arm 10 of the triggering lever 4 finally rests against the spring arm 12, pushing it away from lever arm 11 of the pawl 2. The leg spring 13 then no longer exerts any force on lever arm 11 of the pawl 2. The spring force with which the pawl 2 can be moved in the locking position, is therefore no longer applied. Consequently only a small torque needs to be initiated by the rotary latch 1 into the pawl 2 in order to pivot lever arm 8 out of its locking position.

(7) In order to be able to initiate an opening moment in the pawl 2 at any time when the pawl is in its locking position shown in FIG. 1, the rotary latch 1 is pushed in the direction of the opening position by a pretensioned leg spring with its spring arm 14 shown in FIG. 1. As a result of the spring, the rotary latch can be pivoted around its axis 5 by spring arm 14, shown in FIG. 1, in counterclockwise direction towards its open position.

(8) To activate the triggering lever, i.e. to pivot it in case of FIG. 1 in counterclockwise direction, an actuation of a handle is suitably transferred to the lever 15 of the triggering lever 4, by means of, for instance a Bowden cable, a rod or a rod mechanism.

(9) A stop 16 limits the pivoting movements of the lever arms 10 and 11 and of the pawl 2 or of the triggering lever 4 in clockwise direction. The triggering lever 4 and pawl 2 can consequently not be moved further than a predefined end position. As a result, the pawl 2 can be moved in up to its locking position but not any further. The clockwise pivoting of the triggering lever 4 is also suitably restricted so that a short actuation travel of a handle suffices to unlock or open the locking mechanism. A stop 17 retains on one hand the spring leg 18 that is part of a leg spring that is able to pivot the blocking lever 3 into its blocking position in counterclockwise direction. The stop 17 restricts the pivoting of blocking lever 3 in counterclockwise direction so that the blocking lever 3 cannot be pivoted further than its blocking position. In particular, the pivoting of the lever arm 25 of the triggering lever 3 is restricted. A stop 19 retains the spring arm 14 and serves optionally as a stop for the rotary latch 1 in order to suitably restrict a pivoting movement of the rotary latch 1 in clockwise direction.

(10) Where the locking mechanism shown in FIG. 1 is installed, the rotary latch 1 is arranged at the top. This corresponds to a 90 rotation of FIG. 1 in counterclockwise direction.

(11) FIG. 2 shows a rear view of the locking mechanism of FIG. 1. The figure shows a bolt 20, projecting in the direction of the blocking lever arm 21 of the triggering lever 3 and serving as a tappet for this blocking lever arm 21. Upon activation of the triggering lever 4 the lever arm 22 finally engages with the respective projecting bolt 20, pivoting it and also the blocking lever 3 in such a way that it leaves its blocking position.

(12) In the figures an optional and preferably plastic infeed buffer 26 for the locking bolt 27 is provided in order to prevent creaking noises. A plastic cover 28 of the rotary latch dampens any noise generated during opening and closing. The rotary latch can contain a protruding bolt 29 that can be used to lock the locking mechanisms in the intermediate position, when the locking mechanism includes a intermediate closed pawl on a plane above the pawl 2 shown in FIG. 1.

(13) When turned by 90 in clockwise direction, FIG. 2 shows the installation situation.

REFERENCE LIST

(14) 1: Rotary latch 2: Pawl 3: Blocking lever 4: Triggering lever 5: Pawl axis 6: Common axis of pawl and triggering lever 7: Blocking lever axis 8: Locking lever arm of pawl 9: Triggering lever tappet 10: Lever arm of triggering lever 11: Lever arm of pawl 12: Spring arm 13: Leg spring 14: Spring arm 15: Actuating lever arm of triggering lever 16: Stop for pawl and triggering lever 17: Stop for blocking lever 18: Spring arm 19: Stop 20: Bolt 21: Blocking lever arm 22: Unlocking lever arm of triggering lever 23: Leg spring for blocking lever 24: Leg spring for rotary latch 25: Lever arm for blocking lever 26: Infeed buffer for locking bolt 27: Locking bolt, lock holder 28: Plastic coating 29: Protruding bolt of rotary latch