Portable lamp with conformable base

• US 6,318,878 B1
• Filed: 03/31/1999
• Issued: 11/20/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Jerold W. Dorfman
• Original Assignee: Jerold W. Dorfman
• Inventors: Dorfman, Jerold W.
• Primary Examiner(s): O'Shea, Sandra
• Assistant Examiner(s): NEILS, PEGGY A
• Application Number:
  US09/282,167
• Time in Patent Office: 965 Days
• Field of Search: 362/98, 362/183, 362/184, 362/140, 362/148
• US Class Current: 362/189
• CPC Class Codes: F21L 2/00 Systems of electric lighting devices systems employing both electric and non-electric light sources or exchangeable light sources F21L27/00

Abstract

A portable reading lamp having an attached conformable base is provided. The conformable base comprises a sealed bag of granular displaceable material which enables the lamp to be easily mounted on most surfaces, including the user'"'"'s body, by conforming to the profile of the underlying surface. The conformable bag is arranged to receive and releaseably retain an attached lamp assembly operably embedded into the displaceable material and adjusted in such a way that the light beam produced by the lamp is acceptably stable and has a sufficiently narrow span of illumination to achieve an acceptable level of illumination while being restricted to the reading material.

Claims

1. A portable reading lamp comprising:

a lamp assembly;

a housing assembly containing said lamp assembly and having a base;

a depending conformable bag having a peripheral opening releasably attached to the base of said housing assembly;

said conformable bag containing loose and freely displaceable granular material of a quantity sufficient to adjustably retain the lamp assembly in any of a plurality of seated orientations on the displaced granular material, said quantity also being sufficient to permit adjustment of the lamp assembly from a first seated orientation to a second seated orientation without repositioning the conformable bag.

2. The portable reading lamp recited in claim 1, wherein said bag is a sealed hollow bag containing a quantity of displaceable granular material occupying 30-80% of the total volume of the bag.

3. The portable reading lamp recited in claim 2, wherein the displaceable granular material occupying 40-50% of the total volume of the bag.

4. The portable reading lamp recited in claim 2, wherein the displaceable material is rice.

5. The portable reading lamp recited in claim 1, further comprising:

a clamping member mounted to the housing assembly, establishing a plurality of points of attachment for the bag and wherein at every point of attachment of the conformable bag assembly is clamped between said clamping member and said housing assembly.

6. The portable reading lamp recited in claim 4, wherein the conformable bag assembly includes a bag having a single opening and the clamping member is a flange arranged to clamp a perimeter of said opening to said housing assembly.

7. The portable reading lamp recited in claim 1, wherein the housing assembly has an interior and further comprises:

a power supply disposed within the interior, the power supply being electrically connected to the lamp assembly for supplying electric power to said lamp assembly.

8. The portable reading lamp recited in claim 7, wherein the power supply provides more than one value of voltage, each value of voltage causing said lamp assembly to produce a corresponding different level of illumination.

9. The portable reading lamp recited in claim 7, wherein the power supply includes at least one battery for supplying electric power to said lamp assembly.

10. The portable reading lamp recited in claim 7, wherein the power supply includes an electrical attachment to an external source of electric power.

11. The portable reading lamp recited in claim 9, further including a one-way current limiting device electrically connected to said at least one battery for protecting said battery while the power supply is electrically connected to said external source of electric power.

12. The portable reading lamp of claim 9, wherein the one-way current limiting device is a diode.

13. The portable reading lamp in claim 2, wherein said displaceable material is rice.

14. The portable reading lamp recited in claim 1, wherein said second seated orientation is an upwardly tilted orientation.