Dispenser for church communion cups
AssigneeWilfred E. Greenlee
InventorWilfred E. Greenlee
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A communion cup dispenser made in accordance with the present disclosure includes a number of tubes that hold the cups prior to the dispensing operation. A dispensing mechanism releases one layer of forty cups into an empty communion tray per one cycle of the handle. The dispenser has a feature named a shaker. This shaker is used in the event that one or more cups do not fall using the force of gravity alone. The inside diameter surface of shaker exit holes bump the cup or cups and cause them to fall. The shaker is used occasionally. The cup dispenser has a cup prelocator which is placed on top of the communion tray to assist the cups during their fall into the tray. The tube assembly dispensing mechanisms plus plates that provide a passage for the falling cups are held together by a frame.
Claims12
A dispenser for transferring communion cups from a plurality of hard tubes through a dispensing mechanism and exit holes in a series of plates into the receptacle holes in the communion cups tray comprising:
- a support frame;
- a tube assembly secured to said support frame for storing cups;
- a plate named a floater interposed between the said plurality of hard tubes and dispensing mechanism that cause the cups to self align themselves preventing an interference from while under the forces of gravity to fall through the next exit holes;
- a dispensing mechanism powered by a handle operated by hand that is interposed between said plurality of hard tubes and said series of plates, under the force of gravity, causes the cups to fall into receptacle cup positioning holes in the communion tray;
- moving the handle to the opposite stop causes a layer of cups to fall to an intermediate level and stop on the webbing between exit holes of what is named a trap door, preparing the dispensing mechanism for the next cup dispensing cycle.
A dispenser as recited in any one of the previous claims has a cup divider plate consisting of forty cup exit holes slides back and forth a short distance;
- this action is powered by a linkage and works in conjunction with the next mating plate which also has forty cup exit holes;
- the linkage action causes the forty cup exit holes in the said divider plate to be eccentric with the forty cup exit holes in the above said mating part dividing the lowest and next to the lowest layer of forty cups between the area of the cups lip-to-lip distance of each column of stored cups;
- this action causes the exit openings to diminish in size so the cups cannot exit;
- this action holds all the forty columns of cups to become static permitting the lowest layer of cups to dispense toward the communion tray from the force of gravity.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.