US 6,269,568 B1Granted

Decoration with a variable billboard

AssigneeSingle-Tree Art Industry Co., Ltd.

InventorSzu Wei Lo

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Abstract

A decoration with a variable billboard including a decorative hollow base seat in which an energy reserving device is disposed. The energy reserving device includes a coil spring and a handle disposed at the center of the coil spring. The handle extends out of the base seat. A billboard is disposed on a top face of the base seat. Multiple parallel triangular columns are rotatably disposed in a frame of the billboard. A mandrel of each triangular column extends into the base seat. A driven gear is disposed at a bottom end of the mandrel. Each face of the triangular column is printed with a predetermined picture. The coil spring drives an intermittently rotating mechanism to operate and make a click drive a ratchet to intermittently rotate through 120 degrees. The ratchet is coaxially disposed with a driving gear for driving a driven gear of the billboard, so that the multiple triangular columns of the billboard are synchronously driven to intermittently rotate face by face so as to variably present three kinds of predetermined pictures printed on the billboard.

Claims11

Dependent claims

A variable billboard apparatus comprising:

(a) a decorative housing having a substantially hollow base seat;
(b) a billboard assembly disposed on said base seat, said billboard assembly including a frame and a plurality of substantially parallel elongate columns pivotally coupled thereto, each said column having a triangular sectional contour defined by a plurality of indicia bearing faces, each said column having first and second mandrels extending from axially opposed ends thereof, said first mandrel pivotally engaging said frame, said second mandrel having a driven gear portion formed thereon;
(c) an intermittently rotating mechanism disposed in said base seat, said intermittently rotating mechanism including:
(1) a ratchet rotatable through at least approximately 120 degrees;
(2) a driving gear coaxially coupled to said ratchet, said driving gear engaging at least one said driven gear of said billboard assembly for pivoting at least one said column responsive to said ratchet rotation;
and,
(3) a click engaging said ratchet;
and,
(d) an energy reserving device coupled to said rotating mechanism for selectively actuating said rotation of said ratchet.

6 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.