CLOTHES DRYING MACHINE Field of the Invention The present invention refers to a clothes drying machine and, more particularly, to a new constructive arrangement to be applied to a clothes drying machine for residential use and of the type presenting a front door above which is provided a front control panel.

Prior Art There are well known in the art the clothes drying machines of residential use, which are provided with a horizontal axis rotatable drum, and with a front door that gives access to the inside of the drum. These machines are generally designed to operate seated on the floor of the service areas of houses and apartments, and they are provided with a front wall upper portion, i. e., an upper forepart that is defined on the cabinet above the front door and to which is mounted the control panel of the machine.

Due to the reduction of the space available in the residences, it has been more adequate to install these clothes drying machines not beside the washing machines, but above the latter. In this elevated arrangement, the drying machines are affixed to the wall, either directly or by means of appropriate supports.

While adequately solving the problem of lack of floor area for seating the drying machine, said elevated assembly has one inconvenience resulting from the positioning of the control panel on the upper forepart of the cabinet. When a conventional drying machine is mounted elevated, its control panel is difficult to reach, most of the time being excessively high. By this reason, the known machines designed to have an elevated assembly are manufactured to present the

control panel mounted to the lower portion of the front wall of the cabinet, which is specifically designed for this type of assembly. Therefore, this constructive system of the prior art requires a specific manufacture for each of the two types of assembly, increasing the manufacturing costs and making the manufacturing process very little versatile. Furthermore, in case the user desires or needs to change the type of assembly, he will face the problem of the inadequate positioning of the control panel in the new arrangement of the machine installation.

Object of the Invention It is an object of the present invention to provide a clothes drying machine of the type considered herein, which can be placed directly onto the floor or affixed to a wall, in a position that is sufficiently elevated to mount the dryer above a clothes washing machine, for example, allowing the control panel to be easily positioned, at any time, in the most adequate condition, as a function of the installation chosen by the user.

Summary of the Invention The present invention is applied to a clothes drying machine of the type considered herein, which provides the cabinet of the machine with two foreparts on the front wall thereof, an upper forepart, which is removably affixed to the cabinet above the front door, and a lower forepart, which is interchangeable with the upper forepart and which is also removably affixed to the cabinet below the door. One of said foreparts carries the control panel of the machine.

Brief Description of the Drawings The invention will be described below with reference to the attached drawings, in which :

Figure 1 is a perspective view of the clothes drying machine of the present invention when installed onto a floor, and with the upper and lower foreparts being adequately mounted to the cabinet; Figure 2 is a similar view to that of the previous figure, but with the upper and lower foreparts being illustrated in an exploded condition; Figure 3 is a perspective view of the clothes drying machine, when installed in a position raised from the floor, with the upper and lower foreparts being illustrated in and exploded condition; Figure 4 is a lateral elevational view of the machine illustrated in figure 1; and Figure 5 is a top plan view of the machine of figures 1 and 4.

Description of the Illustrated Embodiments As illustrated in the attached drawings, the clothes drying machine of the present invention comprises a cabinet 10, which is generally but not necessarily parallelepipedic, with a front wall comprising a door 20 preferably with a rotatable vertical axis and occupying the median region of the front door of the cabinet 10.

According to the present invention, the front wall of the cabinet 10 further comprises an upper forepart 30 and a lower forepart 40, which are detachably affixed above and below the door 20, respectively.

The upper forepart 30 and the lower forepart 40 present identical shapes, so as to be interchangeable, i. e., they can be indistinctly affixed, at any time, to the cabinet 10, above or below the door 20.

The fixation of the upper forepart 30 and lower forepart 40 to the cabinet 10 can be achieved by any adequate means, such as screws, clamps, interference fitting, etc., in order to allow changing the position

of the upper forepart 30 and lower forepart 40, at any time, in the site of installation, which is preferably effected with the technical assistance from the manufacturer of the machine.

The constructive arrangement mentioned above further comprises mounting a control panel 50 to one of the foreparts of the machine. In the example illustrated in figures 1, 2,3,4 and 5, the upper forepart 30 is the one that carries the control panel 50, since these figures illustrate a machine mounted to operate seated on the floor, generally beside a washing machine.

In the situation in which the same clothes drying machine requires to be mounted raised from the floor, as illustrated in figure 3, the upper forepart 30 containing the control panel 50 is removed from the upper portion of the front wall of the cabinet 10 and mounted below the door 20, thereby defining the lower forepart of the cabinet 10, while the lower forepart 40 is mounted above the door 20. The inversion of the foreparts allows the control panel 50 to be better and easily positioned for each of the installation conditions of the machine, which can be constructed in only one pattern that is sufficiently versatile to better fulfill the needs of the user, since it allows inverting the positions of the upper and lower foreparts in a simple and quick operation.

In the illustrated embodiment, the upper forepart 30 and lower forepart 40 are constructed to present an external profile, which preferably matches with the external profile of the door 20, as well as end faces 31,32 which match with the opposite side walls of the cabinet 10. It should be understood that the foreparts are not required to occupy the whole width of the cabinet 10, nor match with the external profile of the door 20. The only requirement is that said foreparts

should be made interchangeable to allow the quick and easy alteration of the position of the control panel 50. For instance, the upper forepart 30 and lower forepart 40 can consist solely of interchangeable flanges or plates, which are affixed to windows provided in the front wall portions of the cabinet 10 that are defined above and below the door 20, one of said flanges or plates carrying the control panel 50.

In this case, the external profile of the foreparts should be designed to match with the respective front wall portions of the cabinet 10.