Sperian Hearing Protection, LLC

Howard Leight Industries, LLC

Honeywell International Inc.

Bacou-Dalloz USA Safety, Inc.

Bacou-Balloz USA Safety, Inc.

Honeywell Safety Products USA, Inc.

Jim Tiemens

Stephen D Gilder

Howard S Leight

John Allen Jenkins, Jr

David B Mulvey

Larry Sanders

Raul Cortez

An earbud () for carrying sound from a source () to a person's ear canal, includes a soft foam body () and a sleeve () of stiffer material lying within the body. The body is molded around the sleeve and is chemically bonded to the sleeve without an adhesive between them. The earbud is molded around the sleeve by placing the sleeve on a mandrel pin () within a mold cavity () placing foamable material in the mold and closing the mold. The mold has shoulders with one mold shoulder () that abuts one end () of the sleeve and another mold shoulder () that lies within 0.1 millimeter of the other sleeve end (), to prevent foaming material from leaking into the space () between the mandrel pin and the sleeve passage.

Earbud and method of manufacture

Earplug

An earbud () for carrying sound from a source () to a person's ear canal, includes a soft foam body () and a sleeve () of stiffer material lying within the body. The body is molded around the sleeve and is chemically bonded to the sleeve without an adhesive between them. The earbud is molded around the sleeve by placing the sleeve on a mandrel pin () within a mold cavity (), placing foamable material in the mold and closing the mold. The mold has shoulders with one mold shoulder () that abuts one end () of the sleeve and another mold shoulder () that lies within 0.1 millimeter of the other sleeve end (), to prevent foaming material from leaking into the space () between the mandrel pin and the sleeve passage.

Embodiments disclose a non-roll foam EarTip that may provide for fingertip press-in insertion, improved comfort, simplicity of use, flatter attenuation and/or improved hygienic properties, by way of non-exclusive example. A hollow foam body typically encompasses a shorter stem of more rigid material, and in some embodiments the foam body has a tighter skin on the inner and outer surfaces. In some embodiment, the EarTip is an earplug formed of polyurethane foam with a dense skin on the inner and outer surfaces of the hollow body, and having a plurality of splines in the cavity.

Non-roll foam eartip

An earpiece of flexible foam construction which incorporates recycled pulverized polyurethane foam (RPPF). RPPF constituting 5% to 30% of the improved foam has been found to be useful. The novel and unique nature of RPPF allows for the replacement of a higher cost component with a lower cost component while maintaining or improving physical properties, such as sound attenuation, sound control, comfort and fit.

Foam ear plug or earpiece utilizing recycled pulverized polyurethane foam

An earplug () with a body front portion () for insertion into a person's ear canal, has a pocket () to increase comfort and is constructed to enhance noise attenuation. The pocket, which allows easier compression of the body front portion for increased comfort, has a plurality of baffles () that attenuate sound better than a pocket without baffles. The pocket with baffles is formed by a core pin () that lies in an injection mold () and that forms the pocket, the core pin having a plurality of slots () that form the baffles. The pocket includes a rear portion () that forms a wide passage, and the earplug includes a blocker portion () that partially or completely closes off the rear pocket passage.

Baffled earplug

Earplugs with soft foam bodies and with stiffeners in the bodies, are molded by suspending the stiffener in the body mold cavity using a pin () that extends into a passage () at the rear of the body. Each stiffener is tapered in diameter, with a rear end () of greatest diameter.

Earplug with molded-in stiffener

An earplug includes a body of soft elastomeric material such as a soft resilient foam for insertion in the ear canal, and a stiffener of more rigid material than the body. The stiffener is in the form of a tube rather than a solid rod, so while the stiffener is resistant to column-like collapse, it is easily radially compressed to facilitate compression of the body as it enters the ear canal. The stiffener tube can be filled with soft resilient foam material, to block the passage of sound through the tube. The tubular stiffener can have a slot extending parallel to the length of the stiffener, to allow soft foam material to flow into the tube to fill it, as the foam material that surrounds the tube is molded. Such molding can be accomplished by extruding foam material while the tubular stiffener passes with the extruded foam through the extrusion head.

Earplug with stiffener

An earplug arrangement enables low cost manufacture and storage of earplugs and convenient dispensing of individual earplugs. The earplugs are formed from an extrusion of a maximum diameter of about 12 mm and with narrow locations spaced apart by about 1 to 5 cm to separate the extrusion into a chain of at least ten earplugs, where the last earplug of the chain of earplugs formed by the extrusion can be cut from the rest of the chain for insertion into a person's ear canal. The chain of earplugs is stored in a plurality of loops in a container, as in a plurality of loops wrapped about a cylinder. The extrusion can include a stiffening core of stiff first material and an extruded covering of a soft resilient foam second material surrounding the core, the thickness of the second material being less than half as great at the narrowed locations as at maximum diameter locations while the core is of uniform cross-section along the entire length of the extrusion.

Multiple earplug arrangement

An earplug is provided, of a type that includes a soft shell (12) and an insertion stem (16), which facilitates pullout of the earplug from the ear canal and which has an increased ability to block noise. The earplug includes a body or shell of soft elastomeric material with a forward portion (20) constructed to enter the ear canal and a rearward portion (22) which flares in a rearward direction. A stem (16) of more rigid material than the shell, extends along most of the length of a passage (14) formed within the shell. The shell passage has a neck part (42) at the rear of the shell forward portion. The stem has a forward flange (32) lying in interference fit within the passage at a location forward of the passage neck part, and the stem has a rearward flange (34) that lies in interference fit with the flared rear portion of the shell.

Growing community of inventors

Laguna Niguel, CA, United States of America

Jim Tiemens