US 5,107,566 AGranted

Directed discharge blower chute and method

OwnerRoy J. Schmidinventor

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Abstract

An outlet chute (10) for a blower device to guide the expulsion of leaves, grass or other debris, having an inlet portion (26) and a bifurcated outlet portion (28) including a first outlet duct (30) and a second outlet duct (32) which direct debris in opposing lateral directions. A deflector vane (34) is disposed within bifurcated outlet portion (28) to deflect expelled debris to one of the first outlet duct and second outlet duct. The first outlet duct (30) allows for the expulsion of debris in substantially the same direction in which it leaves the blower housing and is configured to expel the debris closer to the ground than second outlet duct (32), which expels debris with less thrust and at higher elevation. A method of using a blower device equipped with the chute includes making a series of parallel passes with each pass in a direction opposite to that of its adjacent passes.

Claims13

Dependent claims

A bi-directional debris chute for use in combination with a ground blower device having a horizontal rotating impeller which expels blown debris through an outlet port, the debris chute comprising:

an inlet portion connectible to the outlet port of the blower device for receiving debris therefrom;
a bifurcated outlet portion in flow communication with the inlet portion for discharging blown debris from the debris chute, the bifurcated outlet portion comprising a first outlet duct terminating in a first discharge end and a second outlet duct terminating in a second discharge end, the first and second discharge ends facing in laterally opposite directions to respectively discharge blown debris to laterally opposite sides of the debris chute, the first and second outlet ducts being dimensioned and configured so that the first outlet duct imposes a greater pressure drop upon the blown debris than does the second outlet duct whereby, at a given output level of the impeller, blown debris is discharged with greater force from the second outlet duct than from the first outlet duct;
and
an adjustable deflector vane mounted in the debris chute and movable between a first position in which the first outlet duct is open and the second outlet duct is blocked, and a second position in which the first outlet duct is blocked and the second outlet duct is open, for selectively discharging the blown debris from only one of the first and second outlet ducts.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.