Jam Free Parcel Delivery System

Last crawled date: 1 year, 10 months ago

My design for a 'Jam Free Parcel Delivery System' has the following characteristics:

1. A front drawer lip that prevents over-sized items from being forced into the drawer.
This meets directly with the sloped ceiling of each drawer to ensure that no package exceeding the maximum height of the drawer is forced into the compartment.

If the drawer is forced closed with an over-sized parcel, the front lip will act as a scraper bar pushing the parcel back out of the drawer with the sloped inner tray.

2. A glossy finish corrugated (roller-like) sloped drawer ceiling. If a package expands inside the drawer, for instance, a coat, the ceiling acts like a wedge with low friction, sloped towards the front of the drawer to allow opening with minimal force.

The ceiling sits on two fixed pins at the back of the cabinet and two release pins at the front of the cabinet.

3. The shape of the inside of the drawer along with the shape of the ceiling, forms a containment chamber with sloped sides ensuring that the items in the drawer doesn't interfere with the sliding mechanism of the drawer, thus preventing jamming.

4. Each drawer is fitted with high strength ball bearing slides for quiet and for smooth operation. The drawer slides permits minimal sag and is screwed onto the drawer from the inside with special screws to prevent third persons from removing the drawer or gain access to the adjacent (above/below) drawers or the items held in them.

5. Each drawer has a sensory actuator, so named for it's components, mounted on the rear wall behind each drawer. This unit senses the proximity of the drawer once it reaches the fully closed position, then activates the C lock to fully secure the drawer in place.

The locking system of the drawer solution is electronic with the electrical characteristics of 24VDC and maximum 1A. The length of the signal is under 300 ms. Molex Micro Fit 3.0 series connectors are used for connecting the lock.

The unit also has a spring loaded actuator and buffer that gives the drawer the soft close feature, as well as push the drawer out at least 50mm when the signal is given to open the drawer. The unit uses an infrared proximity sensor and receiver to detect the drawer distance for feedback and locking operations.

By packaging all these functionalities into one unit, the cost of production of the system is further reduced, boosts an increase in reliability, and offers ease of maintenance with simply servicing the unit or replacing it.

The unit is sized according to the drawer for scalability and can also be paired to the larger drawers for addition opening force and security.

6. The cabinet is made from laminated chipboard with pre-drilled holes in the sides and back to mount drawer slides, roof mounting pins, and the sensory actuators for the drawers. This mades the cabinet highly configurable to suit any particular need.

7. The upper two compartment both have a door style compartment for easy retrieval of parcel for the customer.

8. The drawer is made up of either sheet metal or plastic. The drawers can withstand up to 10 Kg of weight and can accept bigger parcels because of a larger storage compartment. Weight isn't of problem because each drawer solution is well under 5kg, making the entire system lightweight for easy transportation.