BACKGROUND ART Small hand dryers e. g. for personal use are extremely well known and these dryers find innumerable applications. For instance, hand dryers are found in bathroom, hair dryers are extremely popular, and air blowers (not necessarily for drying purposes) are found in aircraft, railway carriages, buses and the like.

Commercial air dryers are well known and are usually large in size and project quite some distance into the bathroom. These dryers have a quite complicated arrangement of motors, heaters and ducting.

OBJECT OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the invention to provide a dryer which has the potential to be cheaper to manufacture, and may be smaller than conventional dryers. The present invention is also directed to a dryer which can possess greater ease and range of directional control, and which can be more conveniently located due to its essentially more compact design.

In one form, the invention resides in an air dryer comprising a ball type body which is pivotally supported within a supporting flange which is adapted to be fastened to a support, the body being substantially hollow and having an air inlet at a rear portion of the body, and an air outlet at a front portion of the body, a drive motor mounted inside the body, a fan inside the body and which is driven by the motor and which sucks air through the inlet and blows the air through the outlet.

Suitably, the body has an outer wall which is substantially spherical, and the flange has an inner wall which is partially spherical to allow the body to rotate relative to the inner wall.

Suitably, the dryer contains air heating means in the body. The

heating means may be adjacent the outlet, and may comprise a heating element which can be electrically energized.

The inlet and the outlet may be in alignment, and the motor can have a drive shaft which is in line with the inlet and outlet, with the fan being attached to the drive shaft.

Suitably, the flange has an extending pin which slides along a slot, or groove in the outer wall of the body to allow the body to pivot relative to the flange The fan may be of the type having a front intake area and a rear discharge area, a hub containing the rotational axis of the fan, a plurality of blades extending about the hub, at least some of the blades being in an overlapping relationship to define a passageway between adjacent overlapping blades, the passageway having a step down in volume between the inlet area and the outlet area. Suitably, the fan may be similar to that described in are US patent 5620306.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS An embodiment of the invention will be described with reference to the following draws in which Figure 1 is a front view of a dryer according to an embodiment of the invention.

Figure 2 is a view of the dryer of Figure 1 where the body has been pivoted downwardly.

Figure 3 is a section view of dryer of Figure 1.

Figure 4 is a section view of Figure 3 in a pivoted up position.

Figure 5 is a section view of the dryer of Figure 3 in a pivoted down position.

Figure 6 is an isometric view of the dryer of Figure 3.

Figure 7 illustrates a flexible extension tube attached to the outlet of the fan.

Referring to the figures and initially to Figures 1 and 2, there is illustrated an air dryer 10, comprising a ball type body 11 which is pivotally supported within a surround supporting flange 12. Flange 12 is adapted to be

fastened to a support such as a wall or ceiling.

Better illustrated in Figures 3 to 5, body 11 is substantially hollow and has a rear air inlet 13 and forward air outlet 14. Inside the body is a drive motor 15 which drives a drive shaft 16 onto which is mounted a fan 17.

A large part of the outer wall of body 11 is spherical. The inside dimensions however, need not be spherical. Flange 12 has an inside wall 18 which conforms to the outer radius or curvature of body 11 with enough clearance to allow the body to manoeuvre within the flange.

Flange 12, has an outer wall 19 which is spaced from inner wall 18 and the spacing between the two walls is fitted with a mesh or grill 20, to allow air to pass through the grill and into the rear inlet 15 (this being better illustrated with reference to figures 3 to 5).

Flange 12 entirely surrounds body 11 and the inner and the outer wall are separated by struts 21.

In use, the dryer can be wall mounted in which case a circular hole is made in the wall the hole being large enough to accommodate the dryer up to a notch 36 in outer wall 19. The dryer can be attached to the wall by any type of suitable attachment means (for instance fasteners). Air can then flow into the inlet of the dryer by passing through grill 20 from the front of the wall to the rear of the wall.

It should be appreciated that it is not always necessary for air to flow from the front of the dryer, past dryer and into inlet 13. In many instances, air can be simply sucked through inlet 13 from the inside of the wall without air having to pass through the grill. In this arrangement, the grill may not be necessary and may be replaced by a smooth flange.

If the flange is attached to a wall, it can be seen (especially from Figure 3) that about half the dryer sits behind the wall and therefore the profile of the dryer in front of the wall is low. This means that the dryer does not unduly extend from the front of the wall to create a collision hazard.

Body 11 is hollow to accommodate the motor and fan. Referring to Figure 3, body 11 has a forward portion 22, and a rear portion 23. When the dryer is in horizontal orientation illustrated in Figure 3, forward portion 22 sits

forward of flange 12 and rear portion 23 sits rearwardly of flange 12. When the dryer is tilted upwardly as illustrated in Figure 4 or downwardly as illustrated in Figure 5, the forward and the rear portions 22,23 will slide past flange 12.

Forward portion 22 has thickened wall area to accommodate a groove 33 (se below), while rear portion 23, remains relatively thin walled.

The outer surface of body 11 is spherical about the travel area where the outer body travels past flange 12.

Inlet 13 is provided with a filter mesh or grill 24 through which air can pass into the interior of body 11. Inside the body is an electric motor 15 which is supported by a strut 25 which extends through the inside of the body and is fastened to diametrically opposite portions of the inside wall of body 11.

Motor 15 has a drive shaft 16 which is in linear alignment with the aligned inlet 13 and outlet 14. Motor 15 is a small electric motor which can be powered from an outside source of electric power.

Fan 17 is attached to shaft 16. Fan 17 has a part spherical hub 26 fitted with a tapering inlet cone 27. Attached to hub 26 is a plurality of fan blades 28. Fan blades 28 have curved outer edges 29 which sweep against the inside wall of rear portion 23 of body 11. Blades 28 overlap each other to form a passage was and which passageways have a step down in volume to pressurize the air as it passes through the fan. This type of fan is described in US patent 5,620,306.

Behind hub 26 is a tapered exit cone portion 30 which is hollow to accommodate motor 15. Hub 26 is also partially hollow to accommodate part of motor 15. Cone portion 30 facilitates passage of air through the body and through outlet 14. A protective air outlet grill 37 is fitted inwardly of outlet 14.

A heating means in the form of a spiral heating element 31 is positioned about cone portion 30 and can be energized to heat air as it passes through the dryer. The element is supported by insulating material 38.

Referring to figures 1 and 2, body 11 is held within flange 12 by a pin 32 which slides along a groove or slot 33 formed in the thickened portion 22

of outer wall of body 11. Body 11 can be pushed upwardly or downwardly which results in pin 7 riding along the groove 33. Pin 7 is positioned in the dead centre of flange which also allows body 11 to move to the left and right relative to the flange, as well as up and down.

Groove 33 has a length to allow the body to pivot or move relative to the flange, but the amount of movement will be limited by the end walls of the groove. The groove has a length such that the body cannot be moved so far as to twist electrical wires or to make electrical wires accessible.

The air dryer can be placed near sinks to dry hands or may be used in a kitchen to dry cutlery of crockery thereby offering a more hygienic drying action than using tea towels.

Outlet 14 is substantially circular and a flexible hollow is extension tube 35 (see Figure 7) can be pushed in or other wise fixed to outlet 14 and can be used to direct air to a position remote from the dryer. The tube maybe long enough to reach into a shower recess for body drying instead of using a conventional towel, or tube can be modified to function as a hair dryer.

The air dryer has mostly annular shaped parts which can make it less expensive to manufacture then conventional dryers.

The dryer can be placed to a large extent inside a wall, providing a lower profile to the dryer, and air can be obtained from the inside of the wall or from the outside of wall.

It is found that the disease causing microorganisms sometimes accumulate inside air dryers in bathrooms and can be passed onto subsequent users. The dryer according to the invention can take air from inside the wall cavity or from elsewhere other than inside the bathroom, and can contribute to a lowering of disease transmission.

Automatic functions may be added to the dryer, such as sensors, to detect proximity of hands or other areas such that the dryer can switch on or off automatically.

The dryer may be less noisy due to the fact that it is a spherical device and therefore has a much more rigid surface structure than conventional dryers with flat surface areas which can resonate.

The whole surface of the dryer need not be spherical. There may be other outside surface shapes forming a portion of the surface for any functional or aesthetic reason.

The dryer can be used in situations where compactness is required such as trains, aircraft, buses and/or to provide a more hygienic means of drying than conventional towels.

It should be appreciated that various other changes or modifications maybe made to the embodiment without departing from the spirit or scope that the invention is claimed.