Water receiving type water purifying equipment for water bucket
Technical Field
The invention relates to the technical field of water purification, in particular to water receiving type water purifying equipment for a water bucket.
Background
The automatic water purifier is one integrated device with two functions of automatic water making and automatic water outlet and is designed for community resident to provide drinking water. Tap water is pressurized by a water pump and passes through a plurality of filters, including an activated carbon filter, a PP cotton filter element, an RO membrane and the like, so that purified water which can be directly drunk is produced and stored in a purified water tank.
In the prior art, a water purifying device is researched, for example, a water purifying system and a mineral mineralizing water purifier are disclosed in Chinese patent publication No. CN 222454692U. The water purifying system comprises a filter element, a water tank and a communicating pipe, wherein the filter element comprises a shell and a first mineralized filtering material, and the first mineralized filtering material is arranged in the shell. The water tank is provided with a water inlet and a water outlet, the water inlet and outlet are used for supplying water to adjust the water level in the tank. The communicating pipe is communicated with the filter element and the water tank, so that the water level in the filter element is lifted along with the water level of the water tank, and the height of the water flow for soaking the first mineralized filter material is changed.
The water purifier convenient for replacing the filter element comprises a water purifier shell, a water pump, a water pipe, a plurality of pipe joints, a filter element, a shell cover and a limiting component, wherein the water pump is arranged on one side of the inside of the water purifier shell, the water pipe is connected to the top of the water pump, the pipe joints are arranged on the water pipe, the filter element is arranged at the bottoms of the pipe joints, the shell cover is arranged on the outer side of the water purifier shell, and the limiting component is arranged at the bottom of the filter element and is used for limiting and installing the filter element and the pipe joints.
In many water purifying devices in the prior art including the above patent, concentrated water after washing RO membranes is directly discharged through a drain pipe, and the water resource waste condition is serious. Part of water purifying equipment collects concentrated water in the concentrated water tank and then is used for flushing the inner wall of the water bucket, so that the effect of secondary utilization of the concentrated water is achieved. However, the concentrated water containing a large amount of impurities generated in the back flushing process of the RO membrane by the equipment also enters the concentrated water tank to pollute the concentrated water in the concentrated water tank, so that the inner wall of the water barrel is polluted. Based on this, how to avoid mixing of the concentrated water containing impurities with the ordinary concentrated water after washing the RO membrane is a problem that the skilled person needs to solve.
Disclosure of Invention
The invention aims to provide a water receiving type water purifying device for a water bucket, which aims to solve the defects in the prior art.
In order to achieve the purpose, the water receiving type water purifying device of the bucket comprises a shell, a water receiving bin is arranged in the shell, a slot is formed in the bottom of the water receiving bin, an RO membrane filter, a pure water tank and a concentrated water tank are arranged in the shell, a concentrated water outlet of the RO membrane filter is communicated with a concentrated water pipe, the tail end of the concentrated water pipe is communicated with a first drain pipe and a second drain pipe through a first water valve, the first drain pipe is communicated with the concentrated water tank, and the second drain pipe is communicated with an external sewer pipe.
The pure water outlet of the RO membrane filter is communicated with a pure water pipe, the pure water pipe is communicated with a pure water tank, a pure water pump is arranged on the pure water pipe, and a one-way valve is arranged at the raw water inlet at the top of the RO membrane filter.
As a preferable technical scheme of the invention, the water-saving flushing device further comprises a flushing unit, wherein the flushing unit comprises a shell fixedly connected with the bottom plate of the water receiving bin, a flushing head and a sewage pipe communicated with the second drain pipe are arranged on the top opening of the shell, and the flushing unit further comprises a flushing water pump communicated with the flushing head.
As a preferable technical scheme of the invention, a flushing water pipe is arranged at the inlet of the flushing water pump, one end of the flushing water pipe is communicated with a first water suction pipe and a second water suction pipe through a second water valve, the first water suction pipe is communicated with a concentrated water tank, and the second water suction pipe is communicated with a pure water tank.
As a preferable technical scheme of the invention, the first water valve comprises a T-shaped three-way pipe, a spherical valve is rotatably arranged in the three-way pipe, an L-shaped channel is formed in the spherical valve, a sealing ring matched with the spherical valve is fixedly arranged in the three-way pipe, and a rotating shaft penetrating through the three-way pipe is fixedly arranged on the sphere.
As a preferable technical scheme of the invention, the rotating shaft vertically penetrates through the pure water pipe and is intersected with the axis of the pure water pipe, and the rotating shaft is sleeved with a semicircular plate positioned inside the pure water pipe.
As a preferable technical scheme of the invention, a rotating arm is fixedly arranged at one end of the rotating shaft, a round pin is rotatably arranged at the end part of the rotating arm, an arc-shaped guide rail matched with the round pin is fixedly arranged on the outer wall of the pure water pipe through a bracket, and a rubber ring is arranged at the contact position of the rotating shaft and the pure water pipe.
As a preferable technical scheme of the invention, the bottom surface of the pure water pipe is provided with a vertical groove, the inside of the pure water pipe is provided with an arc baffle plate in a sliding manner along the vertical direction, the outer surface of the arc baffle plate is attached to the inner surface of the pure water pipe, and the arc baffle plate corresponds to the position of the vertical groove.
As a preferable technical scheme of the invention, the lower surface of the arc-shaped baffle plate is a horizontal plane, and the outer surface of the arc-shaped baffle plate is fixedly connected with a foam block positioned in the pure water tank through a bracket.
As a preferable technical scheme of the invention, the semicircular plate is hollow and is in running fit with the rotating shaft, the surface of the rotating shaft is provided with an arc-shaped groove, and a first raised line is formed on the semicircular plate at a position corresponding to the arc-shaped groove.
As a preferable technical scheme of the invention, a second raised line is arranged on the semicircular plate in a sliding way along the radial direction of the rotating shaft, a wing plate extending to the outside of the semicircular plate is fixedly arranged on the second raised line, a bearing plate is fixedly arranged on the wing plate, and a groove corresponding to the second raised line is formed on the surface of the rotating shaft.
According to the technical scheme, the first water valve is arranged at the tail end of the concentrated water pipe, in a normal water selling mode, concentrated water flowing through the concentrated water pipe flows into the concentrated water tank through the first water drain pipe after passing through the first water valve, the concentrated water is used for flushing the water barrel, recycling is achieved, in a back flushing mode, the concentrated water flowing through the concentrated water pipe contains a large amount of impurities falling off from the RO membrane, the concentrated water is directly drained through the second water drain pipe after passing through the first water valve, recycling is not conducted, and the situation that the concentrated water containing impurities after flushing the RO membrane is mixed with common concentrated water is avoided.
According to the invention, through the action of different water flow directions in the pure water pipe, the direction of the first water valve to the concentrated water is automatically adjusted, and in the back flushing process, maintenance personnel can realize the effect of directly discharging the concentrated water in the back flushing process by only opening the pure water pump without independently adjusting the first water valve.
Drawings
In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the present application or the technical solutions in the prior art, the drawings required for the embodiments will be briefly described below, and it is apparent that the drawings in the following description are only some embodiments described in the present application, and other drawings may be obtained according to these drawings for a person having ordinary skill in the art.
Fig. 1 is a schematic view showing the external appearance of a water receiving type water purifying apparatus for a water tub in example 1;
fig. 2 is a schematic view of the internal part of the water path of the water receiving type water purifying apparatus of the bucket in embodiment 1;
FIG. 3 is a front view of the RO membrane filter of example 1;
FIG. 4 is a perspective view of the RO membrane filter of example 1 in an open state;
Fig. 5 is a first perspective view of the pure water pipe and the first water valve in embodiment 2;
FIG. 6 is a second perspective view of the clear water pipe and the first water valve of example 2;
FIG. 7 is a schematic perspective view of a pure water tank and a pure water pipe in example 3;
FIG. 8 is a schematic view showing a first working state of the pure water pipe, the rotary shaft and the semicircular plate in the embodiment 4;
FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram showing a second working state of the pure water pipe, the rotary shaft and the semicircular plate in the embodiment 4;
FIG. 10 is a schematic view showing a third working state of the pure water pipe, the rotary shaft and the semicircular plate in embodiment 4;
Reference numerals illustrate:
1. The device comprises a shell, 101, a water receiving bin, 102, a slot, 2, an RO membrane filter, 3, a pure water tank, 4, a concentrate tank, 5, a concentrate pipe, 6, a first water valve, 601, a three-way pipe, 602, a spherical valve, 603, a channel, 604, a sealing ring, 605, a rotating shaft, 606, an arc-shaped groove, 7, a first water drain pipe, 8, a second water drain pipe, 9, a pure water pipe, 10, a pure water pump, 11, a one-way valve, 12, a flushing unit, 1201, a shell, 1202, a flushing head, 1203, a sewage pipe, 1204, a flushing water pump, 1205, a flushing water pipe, 1206, a second water valve, 1207, a first water suction pipe, 1208, a second water suction pipe, 13, a semicircular plate, 14, a rotating arm, 15, a round pin, 16, an arc-shaped guide rail, 17, an arc-shaped baffle, 18, a foam block, 19, a first convex strip, 20, a second convex strip, 21 and a bearing plate.
Detailed Description
In order to make the technical scheme of the present invention better understood by those skilled in the art, the present invention will be further described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.
Example 1
As shown in fig. 1, the present embodiment provides a water receiving type water purifying apparatus for a water tub, which is used in communities to obtain purified water that can be directly cited by filtering tap water. The community residents take water from the water bucket through equipment, and the equipment adopts card-punching or coin-feed water taking. The device specifically comprises a shell 1, wherein rollers capable of braking are arranged at the bottom of the shell 1, a water receiving bin 101 is arranged in the shell 1, an electric lifting door is arranged in the water receiving bin 101, and a slot 102 is formed in the bottom of the water receiving bin 101. When no one takes water, the lifting door is in a closed state, so that the water receiving bin 101 is isolated from the outside, and the inside of the water receiving bin 101 is ensured to be clean. When the resident takes water, the resident presses the driving button after swiping a card or inserting coins, the lifting door descends and opens, the resident inserts the water bucket opening downwards into the slot 102, the equipment washes the inner wall of the water bucket firstly, then the resident inverts the water bucket to enable the water bucket opening to be upwards, then presses the water selling button, and the purified water outlet above the water receiving bin 101 starts to drain until the water bucket is full. After the resident finishes taking water, the end button is pressed, and the lifting door is lifted to be closed, so that one water taking action is completed.
It should be noted that, through market research, the use environment of some resident's home casks is relatively poor, for example the cask is placed on kitchen or balcony for a long time, and oil smoke or dust pollute the cask inner wall easily to pollute the quality of water in the cask, so this equipment can wash in the cask before every turn intaking.
As shown in fig. 2,3 and 4, an RO membrane filter 2, a pure water tank 3 and a concentrate tank 4 are arranged in the shell 1, pure water filtered by the RO membrane filter 2 is stored in the pure water tank 3, a water taking unit directly absorbs pure water from the pure water tank 3 and discharges the pure water through a pure water outlet, concentrate water generated when the RO membrane filter 2 works is stored in the concentrate tank 4, water for flushing the inner wall of a bucket is from the concentrate tank 4, a concentrate pipe 5 is communicated with a concentrate outlet of the RO membrane filter 2, the tail end of the concentrate pipe 5 is communicated with a first drain pipe 7 and a second drain pipe 8 through a first water valve 6, the first drain pipe 7 is communicated with the concentrate tank 4, and the second drain pipe 8 is communicated with an external sewer pipe. The pure water outlet of the RO membrane filter 2 is communicated with a pure water pipe 9, the pure water pipe 9 is communicated with a pure water tank 3, a pure water pump 10 is arranged on the pure water pipe 9, the pure water pump 10 is a two-way water pump, a one-way valve 11 is arranged at the raw water inlet at the top of the RO membrane filter 2, the one-way valve in the embodiment is a duckbill valve common in the field, and the one-way valve can be any other valve as long as the water flow can be ensured to enter the RO membrane filter 2 from the outside through the one-way valve 11, and the water in the RO membrane filter 2 can not flow out through the one-way valve 11. The front end of the RO membrane filter 2 is also provided with an activated carbon filter, a PP cotton filter and a booster pump, and the water pressure entering the RO membrane filter 2 is improved after the tap water is preliminarily filtered.
It should be noted that, fig. 2 is only a schematic water path diagram of the present apparatus, and how each pipeline is specifically arranged needs to be designed according to the actual situation of the apparatus. In the water selling process, pure water generated by the RO membrane filter 2 enters the pure water tank 3 through the pure water pipe 9 and is absorbed by the water taking unit from the pure water tank 3 synchronously through the pure water pump 10, concentrated water generated by the RO membrane filter 2 enters the first water discharging pipe 7 through the first water valve 6 and finally enters the concentrated water tank 4 through the concentrated water pipe 5, when maintenance personnel periodically maintain equipment, the equipment is kept in a water making state (namely, external tap water is not supplied to the equipment), the pure water pump 10 is turned on, the pure water pump 10 reversely absorbs water, namely, pure water in the pure water tank 3 flows back to the inside of the RO membrane filter 2 through the pure water pipe 9, back flushing is carried out on the RO membrane (the back flushing water pressure is not more than 0.2MPa, so that the RO membrane is prevented from being damaged, the back flushing time is not more than 15 s), impurities attached on the RO membrane are separated from the RO membrane, and the RO membrane is carried out of the RO membrane filter 2 by the water flow. The part of concentrated water containing more impurities enters the second drain pipe 8 through the concentrated water pipe 5 through the first water valve 6 and is directly discharged into a sewer pipe, so that the concentrated water is not recycled. In this way, this part of the concentrate containing more impurities is prevented from coming into contact with the concentrate in the concentrate tank 4.
As shown in fig. 2, the water receiving type water purifying device for a water bucket in the embodiment further comprises a flushing unit 12, wherein the flushing unit 12 comprises a housing 1201 fixedly connected with a bottom plate of the water receiving bin 101, a flushing head 1202 and a sewage pipe 1203 communicated with the second water drain pipe 8 are arranged on the housing 1201, the flushing unit 12 further comprises a flushing water pump 1204 communicated with the flushing head 1202, a flushing water pipe 1205 is arranged at an inlet of the flushing water pump 1204, one end of the flushing water pipe 1205 is communicated with a first water suction pipe 1207 and a second water suction pipe 1208 through a second water valve 1206, the first water suction pipe 1207 is communicated with the concentrated water tank 4, and the second water suction pipe 1208 is communicated with the pure water tank 3.
Specifically, when the resident presses the driving button, the flushing pump 1204 is started after the lifting door is opened, the concentrated water in the concentrated water tank 4 enters the flushing water pipe 1205 through the first water suction pipe 1207 and the second water valve 1206, and is sprayed out through the flushing head 1202 to flush the barrel, and the flushed sewage is collected in the shell 1201 and enters the second water discharge pipe 8 through the sewage pipe 1203, and finally is discharged into the sewer pipe. Note that the second water valve 1206 is an electronically controlled three-way valve or a manual three-way valve. When maintenance personnel regularly maintain the equipment, the second water valve 1206 is adjusted, the flushing water pump 1204 is started after the adjustment, pure water in the pure water tank 3 enters the flushing water pipe 1205 after passing through the second water suction pipe 1208 and passing through the second water valve 1206, and is sprayed out through the flushing head 1202 to flush a pure water outlet at the top of the water sump 101, and after flushing is finished, the second water valve 1206 is adjusted to be in an initial state. In summary, the flushing unit 12 in this embodiment can not only suck the concentrated water to flush the water tub, but also suck the pure water to flush the pure water outlet.
Example 2
When in actual use, maintenance personnel need to adjust the state of the first water valve 6 before back flushing the RO membrane filter 2, and the state of the first water valve 6 needs to be adjusted after back flushing is finished. The operation is more complicated, and if the maintenance personnel forgets to adjust back the state of the first water valve 6, the later concentrated water is always discharged through the second water discharge pipe 8 and cannot enter the concentrated water tank 4. In response to this problem, the present embodiment is designed as follows.
In the embodiment, as shown in fig. 5 and 6, the first water valve 6 comprises a T-shaped three-way pipe 601, a spherical valve 602 is rotatably installed in the three-way pipe 601, an L-shaped channel 603 is formed in the spherical valve 602, a sealing ring 604 matched with the spherical valve 602 is fixedly installed in the three-way pipe 601, the three-way pipe is of a common structure in the field, water flows through the channel 603, the spherical valve 602 rotates by 90 degrees to regulate the flow direction of water, the spherical valve 602 has a first state and a second state, the first water valve 6 is communicated with the concentrate pipe 5 and the first drain pipe 7 in the first state, the first water valve 6 is communicated with the second drain pipe 8 in the second state, a rotating shaft 605 penetrating through the three-way pipe 601 is fixedly installed on the spherical valve 602, the axis of the rotating shaft 605 coincides with the axis of the spherical valve 602, the rotating shaft 605 vertically penetrates through the concentrate pipe 9 and intersects with the axis of the pure water pipe 9, a semicircular plate 13 positioned in the interior of the pure water pipe 9 is sleeved on the rotating shaft 605, one end of the rotating shaft 605 is fixedly installed with a rotating arm 14, the rotating end of the rotating arm 14 is rotatably installed on the rotating shaft 605, the rotating arm 14 is fixedly installed on the end 15 of the rotating shaft 15 of the rotating arm 9 and is fixedly installed on the spherical valve 9 through the support 15 and matched with the spherical pipe 9 in the arc-shaped guide rail 16 to prevent water from contacting with the arc-shaped guide rail 16, and the arc-shaped guide rail 16 is matched with the spherical valve 602 through the arc-shaped guide rail 16.
Specifically, under the daily water selling state, pure water in the pure water pipe 9 flows forward, the pure water acts on the semicircular plate 13 to drive the semicircular plate 13, the rotating shaft 605, the rotating arm 14, the round pin 15 and the spherical valve 602 to rotate forward until the spherical valve 602 is adjusted to a first state, the first water valve 6 communicates the concentrated water pipe 5 with the first water drain pipe 7, normal concentrated water enters the concentrated water tank 4, during maintenance, the RO membrane filter 2 is backwashed, pure water in the pure water pipe 9 flows reversely, the pure water acts on the semicircular plate 13 to drive the semicircular plate 13, the rotating shaft 605, the rotating arm 14, the round pin 15 and the spherical valve 602 to rotate reversely until the spherical valve 602 is adjusted to a second state, the first water valve 6 communicates the concentrated water pipe 5 with the second water drain pipe 8, and concentrated water containing more impurities is directly discharged through the second water drain pipe 8. To sum up, in this embodiment, the first water valve 6 can realize automatic adjustment according to the flow direction of pure water in the pure water pipe 9, so that no operator is required to adjust during maintenance, on the one hand, the operation steps are simplified, and on the other hand, the situation that the maintenance personnel forget to adjust the state of the first water valve 6 to cause that later concentrated water is always discharged through the second water drain pipe 8 and cannot enter the concentrated water tank 4 is avoided.
Example 3
As shown in fig. 7, on the basis of the previous embodiment, a vertical groove 901 is formed in the bottom surface of the pure water pipe 9 in the present embodiment, an arc-shaped baffle 17 is slidably installed in the pure water pipe 9 along the vertical direction, the outer surface of the arc-shaped baffle 16 is attached to the inner surface of the pure water pipe 9, the arc-shaped baffle 17 corresponds to the position of the vertical groove 901, the lower surface of the arc-shaped baffle 17 is a horizontal plane, and a foam block 18 located in the pure water tank 3 is fixedly connected to the outer surface of the arc-shaped baffle 17 through a bracket. Under the condition that pure water is stored in the pure water tank 3, the foam blocks 18 always float on the water surface, so that the lower surface of the arc-shaped baffle 17 is always positioned about 1mm below the water surface. Thus, in the back flushing process of maintenance personnel, the arc-shaped baffle 17 plays a role in sealing a part of the vertical groove 901, so that the pure water pipe 9 can absorb water from the pure water tank 3, and a small amount of air above the water surface is mixed in the water to be sucked into the pure water pipe 9 together due to the fact that the lower surface of the arc-shaped baffle 17 is close to the water surface, and the air is mixed with the water in the pure water pipe 9 to form small bubbles. Pure water mixed with small bubbles enters the RO membrane filter 2, the bubbles are broken after contacting with the RO membrane, vibration is generated, impurities attached to the RO membrane are promoted to be separated from the RO membrane, and the backwashing effect is improved.
Example 4
As shown in fig. 8, 9 and 10, based on the previous embodiment, the semicircular plate 13 is hollow in this embodiment, so, when pure water mixed with bubbles contacts with the semicircular plate 13, the bubbles will be broken into smaller bubbles under the action of the hollow semicircular plate 13, so as to contact with the RO membrane with a larger area, and promote the impurities attached to the RO membrane to separate from the RO membrane, the semicircular plate 13 is in rotating fit with the rotating shaft 605, the semicircular plate 13 includes a sheet portion and an annular portion, the annular portion contacts with the rotating shaft 605, the surface of the rotating shaft 605 is provided with an arc groove 606, and the annular portion of the semicircular plate 13 forms a first protruding strip 19 fixedly connected with the arc groove 606 at a position corresponding to the arc groove 606. The annular part of the semicircular plate 13 is provided with a second raised line 20 in a sliding manner along the radial direction of the rotating shaft 605, the second raised line 20 is fixedly provided with a wing plate extending to the outside of the semicircular plate 13, the wing plate is fixedly provided with a bearing plate 21, and the surface of the rotating shaft 605 is provided with a groove corresponding to the second raised line 20.
FIG. 8 is a schematic view showing the state of the rotary shaft 605 and the semicircular plate 13 in the pure water pipe 9 during back flushing; the first water valve 6 is in the second state, the rotating shaft 605 is in the limit position in the second state, pure water flows on the semicircular plate 13 from bottom to top, so that the semicircular plate 13, the first raised strips 19 and the second raised strips 20 all have a counterclockwise rotating trend, the first raised strips 19 are tightly attached to one end of the arc-shaped groove 606, namely the rotating shaft 605 has a limit function on the semicircular plate 13, and the semicircular plate 13 is kept in the stable state shown in fig. 8; in the normal water selling state, pure water flows on the semicircular plate 13 and the bearing plate 21 from top to bottom, the semicircular plate 13, the first convex strip 19, the second convex strip 20 and the bearing plate 21 in the state of fig. 8 synchronously rotate clockwise to the state of fig. 9 under the action of water flow, in the process, the water flow acts on the bearing plate 21, the bearing plate 21 receives the acting force of water, so that the second convex strip 20 is kept in a state of being positioned in the groove, the semicircular plate 13 drives the rotating shaft 605 to rotate 90 degrees through the second convex strip 20 (as shown in fig. 9) to adjust the first water valve to the first state, in the process, the semicircular plate 13 and the rotating shaft 605 are kept relatively stationary without relative rotation, in the state of fig. 9, the pure water flowing from top to bottom continuously acts on the semicircular plate 13, the first convex strip 19, the second convex strip 20 and the bearing plate 21 have the tendency of rotating clockwise, but the rotating shaft 605 cannot be continuously in a limiting position, the water flow does not generate pressure towards the rotating shaft 605, and the acting force between the second convex strip 20 and the rotating shaft 605 makes the second convex strip 20 separate from the first convex strip 605 from the groove 13 and the second convex strip 605, the second protruding strip 20 and the bearing plate 21 can continue to rotate clockwise until the first protruding strip 19 is attached to the other end of the arc-shaped slot 606, i.e. the state shown in fig. 10, and in this process, the semicircular plate 13 and the rotating shaft 605 rotate relatively. In the state of fig. 10, the semicircular plate 13 does not hinder pure water, and pure water can smoothly flow to the pure water tank 3.
Note that, the semicircular plate 13 in the state of fig. 10 is not completely parallel to the direction of the water flow, but forms a certain angle with the direction of the water flow, so that, when back flushing is performed next time, pure water flowing from bottom to top can act on the semicircular plate 13 and push the semicircular plate 13 to rotate counterclockwise to the state shown in fig. 8. In addition, in order to ensure that the second protruding strips 20 can drive the rotating shaft 605 to rotate, 2-3 groups of second protruding strips 20 and the bearing plate 21 can be arranged on the semicircular plate 13 along the circumferential direction of the rotating shaft 605. And a rubber strip is arranged between the second raised strip 20 and the semicircular plate 13, the rubber strip is in a compressed state, when the water flow does not act on the bearing plate 21 to generate a force towards the inside of the rotating shaft 605, the rebound of the rubber strip can promote the separation of the second raised strip 20 from the groove on the surface of the rotating shaft 605, and further, the surface of the second raised strip 20 towards the rotating shaft 605 can be designed into an arc shape to further promote the separation of the second raised strip 20 from the groove on the surface of the rotating shaft 605.
While certain exemplary embodiments of the present invention have been described above by way of illustration only, it will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that modifications may be made to the described embodiments in various different ways without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Accordingly, the drawings and description are to be regarded as illustrative in nature and not as restrictive of the scope of the invention, which is defined by the appended claims.