Matsushita Electric Works, Ltd.

Masao Tanahashi

Toshio Ikuta

Takeshi Shiba

Jyuzaemon Iwasaki

Kiyotaka Otsuka

Ryo Motohashi

Hidekazu Sueyoshi

Shin Hosokawa

Juzaemon Iwasaki

Claude Oudet

Daniel Prudham

Shuji Yamada

Yasuo Ibuki

Takafumi Hamabe

Yoshinobu Takegawa

Rokusaburo Kimura

Tadashi Hamada

Junji Imai

Toyokatsu Okamoto

Toshio Tanabe

Hajime Kojima

Hidetoshi Amaya

Masao Matsumoto

Kenzo Shirakawa

Takio Maekawa

Tetsuo Hamashima

Masakazu Kita

Manabu Kawara

Shiro Yada

Mika Asada

Humihiro Kumano

Syuji Miyagawa

Tekeshi Shiba

Kiyotaka Ootsuka

Reciprocating-type electric shaver

A dry shaver with a skin stretcher comprises a shaver body and a shaving head mounted on top of the shaver body. The shaving head comprises at least one cutter unit with a perforated outer cutter. An inner cutter is driven to move in hair shearing engagement with the outer cutter. The skin stretcher comprises a skin contact elongated along the periphery of the outer cutter and a base through which the skin contact is held on the shaving head. A macro displacement structure is provided to allow the skin contact to be movable within a macro displacement range relative to the shaver body. The skin contact is made from an elastic material capable of being elastically deformed within a micro displacement range relative to the base. With the combination of the macro and micro displacements of the skin contact, the skin contact can be kept in contact with the skin of a user in conformity with various contours of the skin. Thus, the skin stretcher can stretch a large portion of the skin even with an uneven skin surface, i.e., around the chin or the like to raise the hairs over a wide area prior to the shaving by the cutter unit, thereby assuring smooth and effective hair shaving at the cutter unit.

Dry shaver with a skin stretcher

Vibratory linear actuator and method of driving the same

A hand-held depilating device capable of masking the pain of plucking the hairs through psychological effect. The depilating device comprises housing adapted to be grasped by the hand of the user and a plucking head mounted on top of the housing for plucking the hairs from the skin. Stimulator is mounted on top of the housing adjacent to the plucking head for providing mechanical stimuli to the skin while the plucking head operates to pluck the hairs. The stimulator comprises a vibrator which provides vibrations to the skin as the mechanical stimuli which act on sense receptors other than nociceptors that respond to pain, thereby masking the pain caused by plucking the hairs or received at the nociceptors. That is, the mechanical stimuli caused by the vibrations can activate Meissner's corpuscle or Pacinian corpuscle to make indistinct to the pain as demonstrated by a gate-control theory in psychology. Thus, the mechanical stimuli applied separately from the plucking operation can excite the tactile or pressure sense receptors so as to activate the gate control path at posterior horn of the spinal cord immediately before or simultaneously with the plucking the hair, thereby blurring the pain being transmitted through the nerve. Alternately, roller with stimulus projections may be utilized to apply the mechanical stimuli for alleviation of the pain.

Hand-held depilating device

A linear oscillating motor capable of assuring a consistent and effective feedback control of keeping a constant oscillation amplitude with varying load conditions. The linear oscillating motor comprises an oscillator carrying a permanent magnet, and a stator with an electromagnet. The electromagnet is supplied with an electric power to develop an electromagnetic drive force of moving the oscillator in a linear direction relative to the stator. A spring is provided to apply a restoring force to the oscillator for providing a linear oscillating motion to the oscillator. A photo-sensor monitors the linear motion of the oscillator and outputs a signal to a reverse-point detector which determines right and left reverse points of the oscillator. A controller applies the electric power to the electromagnet at the drive points respectively defined subsequent in time to the reverse points and in a varying amount for keeping a constant oscillation amplitude of the oscillator. The photo-sensor outputs a train of pulses appearing each time the oscillator passes its oscillation center. The reverse-point detector determines the reverse points based upon a time period between the two preceding pulses. Since the photo-sensor can monitor an oscillation cycle of the oscillator without being affected by the magnetic field developed by the electromagnet for driving the oscillator, it provides a reliable basis for accurately determining the reverse points and therefore the drive points. Accordingly, the driving force can be applied at an optimum timing to make the feedback control accurately and reliably.

Linear oscillating motor

A reciprocatory dry shaver comprises a stationary cutter, a movable cutter, and a permanent-magnet linear motor having a stator and a reciprocator which is driven by an electric current to reciprocate relative to the stator. The reciprocator carries the movable cutter to reciprocate it in shearing engagement with the stationary cutter. A power circuit is included to provided an electric power to the motor. The shaver includes a detector which detects a displacement of the movable cutter and give an output indicative of the detected displacement of the movable cutter. Also included in the shaver is a controller which varies the electric power being fed to the motor in a feedback manner based upon the output from the speed detector in order to keep an oscillation amplitude of the movable cutter at constant. In this manner, the movable cutter can reciprocate without being jammed even when experiencing a heavy lead during the shaving, thereby avoiding undesired speed reduction of the movable cutter which would result in the lowering of the cutting efficiency. Thus, the reciprocatory dry shaver is capable of keeping a constant oscillation amplitude irrespective of a lead acting on a movable cutter to thereby assure a sharp cut even when the movable cutter experiences a heavy lead during the shaving.

Reciprocatory dry shaver

A reciprocatory dry shaver has a head from mounting three elongated cutter heads, one center cutter head and two outer cutter heads extending in parallel with each other. Each cutter head comprises a holder carrying a stationary cutter and a movable cutter driven to reciprocate in shearing engagement with the stationary cutter. The head frame is mounted on a shaver housing from which a reciprocating element projects to drive the movable cutter of each cutter head. The center and outer cutter heads are floatingly supported at individual longitudinal ends by associated center and outer spring members so that each cutter head is vertically movable relative to the head frame. The center spring members are formed in one of the head frame and the associated holder while the outer spring members are formed in the other of the head frame and the associated holders. Thus, the spring members for floatingly supporting the center and outer cutter heads can be effectively distributed to the head frame and the associated holders to enable compact arrangement for a system of floating supporting the three parallel cutter heads within a limited space.

A dry shaver comprises a head frame mounting at least one cutter head. The cutter head includes a holder carrying an outer foil and an inner cutter which is driven to move in shearing contact with the outer foil. A spring is provided to give a biasing force to bias the inner cutter against the outer foil so as to develop a contacting pressure therebetween. The shaver includes a floating support structure for floatingly supporting the holder to the head frame so that the cutter head can be depressed relative to the head frame. The floating support structure comprises an elastic member which gives an elastic force when the cutter head is displaced relative to the head frame such that cutter head receives a floating force which is a combination of the biasing force and the elastic force and which becomes greater as the cutter head is depressed further. The elastic member develops the elastic force which gives a non-linear relation between the displacement of the cutter head and a depression load applied thereto, and that the non-linear relation has a node of changing elastic constant for displacement of the holder such that the elastic constant is greater when the cutter head is depressed further beyond the node than otherwise. Since the elastic member is only responsible for changing the elastic constant as the cutter head is depressed, the cutter head can be given a light floating force initially and be given an moderately increasing floating force thereafter, yet without resorting to an undue increase in the contacting pressure between the outer foil and the inner cutter.

Dry shaver with floating cutter heads

A depilating device has a housing with a top opening and a plucking head with a longitudinal axis. The plucking head carries a series of pinching elements arranged in side-by-side relations to form therebetween gaps. At least one of the adjacent pinching elements is movable relative to the other so as to entrap and pinch the hairs between the adjacent pinching elements for plucking the hairs from the skin. A skin guide is disposed around the plucking head to be exposed at least partially beyond the pinching elements for sliding contact with the skin. The plucking head and the skin guide are floatingly supported to the housing by means of a common structure such that they are depressed together into the housing within a predetermined extent.

Depilating device with skin guide stretcher

A reciprocatory dry shaver has a head for mounting three elongated cutter heads, one center cutter head and two outer cutter heads extending in parallel with each other. Each cutter head comprises a holder carrying a stationary cutter and a movable cutter driven to reciprocate in shearing engagement with the stationary cutter. The head frame is mounted on a shaver housing from which a reciprocating element projects to drive the movable cutter of each cutter head. The center and outer cutter heads are floatingly supported at individual longitudinal ends by associated center and outer spring members so that each cutter head is vertically movable relative to the head frame. The center spring members are formed in one of either the head frame or the associated holder while the outer spring members are formed in the other of the head frame and the associated holders. Thus, the spring members for floatingly supporting the center and outer cutter heads can be effectively distributed to the head frame and the associated holders to enable a compact arrangement for a system of floating supporting the three parallel cutter heads within a limited space.

A depilating device removes hairs from the skin of a user and includes a carrier mounting a series of fixed and movable pinching plates arranged along an axial direction of the carrier in an alternating relation and in a closely adjacent relation to form small clearances between the adjacent movable and fixed pinching plates for entrapping hairs therebetween. The fixed pinching plates are kept fixed with respect to the axial direction of the carrier. The movable pinching plates are caused to be displaced in the axial direction relative to the adjacent fixed pinching plates in order to repeat clamping the hairs between the adjacent ones of the fixed and movable pinching plates and releasing the same, thereby plunking the hairs from the skin. The depilating device is characterized in that the fixed and movable pinching plates are arranged and displaced such that the two adjacent ones of the movable pinching plates are caused to shift in the opposite directions along the axis of the carrier against the common fixed pinching plates positioned between these two adjacent movable pinching plates to thereby apply counterbalancing clamping forces to the common one of the fixed pinching plates from the two adjacent movable pinching plates.

Depilating device

A rotary dry shaver includes an outer shearing foil supported on a head frame and an inner cutter holder having a center axis and carrying a plurality of inner blades in hair shearing engagement with the outer shearing foil. The inner cutter holder is operatively connected to a rotary drive shaft of an electric motor so as to be driven thereby to rotate about the center axis. The outer shearing foil is held movable in the direction of the center axis relative to the head frame, while the inner cutter holder is movable along the center axis relative to the rotary drive shaft so as to be floatingly supported thereby. The dry shaver is characterized in that the outer shearing foil is connected to the inner cutter holder by means of a pin extending along the center axis such that the outer shearing foil and the inner cutter holder are movable together along the center axis relative to the head frame as well as the rotary drive shaft. Whereby contact pressure between the inner blades and the outer shearing foil can be kept substantially at a constant level irrespective of the relative movement of the outer shearing foil to the head frame.

Rotary dry shaver

Growing community of inventors

Hikone, Japan

Masao Tanahashi