Steam iron with pump mechanism

Abstract

The invention is directed to a piston pump for a steam iron, including a pump housing (10) provided in a housing bore (12) for receiving an axially movable piston (14), said piston (14) combining with the housing bore (13) to form a pressure generating chamber (13) connected with at least two outlets (16, 18) for at least two liquid consuming devices and with an inlet (20), said piston (14) further including a distributor bore (28) in which a distributor element (26) is rotatably mounted which includes at least one conduit (30, 32) with an inlet port (34, 36), through which conduit, in dependence upon the rotary position of the distributor element (26), one of the liquid consuming devices is supplied with pumped liquid through a connecting conduit (44) communicating with the pressure generating chamber (13). To provide a piston pump sealing tightly and being producible to more lenient manufacturing tolerances, it is proposed providing the distributor element (26) with a separate conduit (30, 32) having each an inlet port (34, 36) for each liquid consuming device, and providing a seal (40) which seals the inlet ports (34, 36) relative to each other and is adapted to be acted upon by a compressive force to effect a seal.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.