BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a shower head of ultra-flat conformation, i.e. having a thickness of only a few millimetres.

PRIOR ART Ultra-flat shower heads are known that are aesthetically of small volume but fully perform their function of distributing water.

Known ultra-flat shower heads consist of a drilled plate into which nozzles are inserted for dispensing water and of a slightly convex cover that closes the drilled plate above and that forms an inner chamber with the drilled plate. The cover is provided with a connection through which the water coming from the sanitary installation enters the chamber and then exits from the nozzles.

These ultra-flat shower heads are not inspectable, or they are not openable to replace, for example, nozzles in the event of breakage or deterioration thereof or to clean the inner chamber. It is further difficult to perform protection and/or embellishment processes, for example a chroming treatment.

These drawbacks are mainly due to the ultra-flat conformation of the head, whereas heads of a certain thickness do not have these drawbacks.

OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION

The object of the present invention is to propose an ultra-flat shower head that ena- bles these drawbacks to be overcome.

SHORT DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION This object is achieved by a shower head as claimed in claim 1.

SHORT DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS In order to understand the invention better, a description is set out below of an embodiment of the invention by way of non-limiting example, illustrated in the appended drawings, in which:

fig. 1 is an exploded perspective view of an ultra-flat shower head according to the invention;

fig. 2 is an exploded perspective view of two components of the shower head of fig. i;

fig. 3 is a bottom plan view of the two assembled components of fig.2;

fig. 4 is an exploded perspective view of two other components of the shower head of fig.l;

fig. 5 is a bottom plan view of the two assembled components of fig.4;

fig. 6 is a side view of the assembled shower head of fig.l;

fig. 7 is a side section view of the assembled shower head of fig.l;

fig. 8 is a top perspective view of the assembled shower head of fig.l;

fig. 9 is a bottom perspective view of the assembled shower head of fig.l;

fig. 10 is a top perspective view of another shower head according to the invention;

fig. 11 is a bottom perspective view of the shower head of fig.10. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The shower head illustrated in figs 1-9 is indicated generally with 10.

With reference to fig. 1, the shower head 10 comprises a metal circular plate 11, a metal ring 12, a series of silicone nozzles 13, a silicone annular gasket 14, a flat met- al circular cover 15, and a series of screws 16.

Still with reference to fig. 1, for the connection to the sanitary installation, the shower head 10 has a connection 17 consisting of an externally threaded metal fitting 18, a rubber annular gasket 19, a metal hollow spherical fitting 20, a metal cap 21, and a rubber annular gasket 22.

The plate 11 has a series of through holes 11A arranged along the entire surface of the plate, as clearly visible in fig. 3. The ring 12 has a series of internally threaded through holes 12A, arranged perimetrally equidistant from one another. The gasket 14 has a series of perimetral through holes 14A corresponding to the holes 12A of the ring 12. The cover 15 also has a series of through perimetral holes 15A also corresponding to the holes 12A of the ring 12 and a large central hole 15B, which is visi- ble in fig.4. As shown in fig.5, the fitting 18 has a bottom 18A provided with a series of through holes 18B, which are arranged equidistantly from one another.

The components of the shower head 10 that have been seen above are assembled in the following manner.

With particular reference to figs 2,3, the ring 12 is joined to the plate 11 along the edge. The joint is made by means of depth welding of the edges of the two superimposed pieces, preferably by means of depth laser welding. Preferably, welding is 0.5mm deeper in the direction of the centre of the plate 11.

The cover 15 is also made with the connection 17, by welding the annular fitting 18 to the cover 15 at the hole 15B, as shown in figs 4,5, and then inserting the gasket 19 and the spherical fitting 20 with the gasket 22 inside in the annular fitting 18, and lastly fixing the spherical fitting 20 by the cap 21 that is screwed onto the fitting 18.

The nozzles 13 are inserted into the holes 11A of the plate 11.

The gasket 14 is positioned on the ring 12 with the holes 14A aligned with the holes 12A.

The cover 15 is positioned with the connection 17 on the plate 11, ring 12 and gasket 14 assembly, with the holes 15A aligned with the holes 14A and 12A. Each screw 16 is then screwed into a respective hole formed by the aligned holes 15A,14A and 12A until the cover 15 is hermetically tightened against the ring 12 owing to the interposition of the gasket 14. Once assembled, the shower head 10 is as shown in figs 6-9. As can be noted, the shower head 10 is circular with an ultra-flat conformation.

In the section view of fig.7 it is noted how between the plate 11 and the cover 15, owing to the thickness of the ring 12, an inner chamber 23 for distributing water is formed.

As shown by the arrows in fig.7, the water coming from the sanitary installation enters the shower head 10 from the connection 17 passing through the cavity of the spherical fitting 20 and through the holes 18B of the fitting 18, then reaches the inner chamber 23 and from here exits the shower head 10 through the nozzles 13 in the form of numerous thin jets of water.

The spherical fitting 20 enables the shower head 10 to be oriented with respect to the connection axis.

The shower head 10 has the advantage of being inspectable despite having an ultra- flat conformation. In fact, it is sufficient to unscrew the screws 16 to separate all the components and be able to perform maintenance on or replace one or more of such components.

It is also easy to perform protection and/or embellishment work, for example cleaning, polishing and chroming treatments. In fact, these processes can be performed individually on the plate/ring 11,12 assembly (fig.3) and on the cover 15 without particular problems using known techniques, to then assemble all the components of the shower head 10. In particular, as the plate/ring 11,12 assembly and the cover 15 have a flat configuration, a treatment with a bath immersion, for example into a chrome bath, is particularly effective for depositing a coating. Further, for the plate/ring 11,12 assembly, depth welding enables mechanical processes to be performed on the edge of the assembly without undesired passages forming for the water through the edge that would compromise the correct operation of the shower head 10.

The holes 18B of the fitting 18 limit the quantity of water entering so that the fitting 18 acts as a pressure reducer.

The through drilling of the ring 12 to make the threaded holes 12A is a very simple operation and, once the ring 12 is welded to the plate 11, it enables blind threaded holes to be obtained that it would be difficult to make on small thicknesses.

It is clear that variations on and/or additions to what has disclosed and illustrated can be provided.

In particular, the shape of the shower head can be varied, which in the case of the shower head 10 is circular. For example, in figs 10,11 a shower head is shown that is square in shape, indicated by 100; it can also be rectangular, oval or of another shape: obviously the plate, the ring, the gasket and the cover will have a corresponding shape. The configuration and the number of the nozzles and of the various components of the connection can also be varied.

The components seen can be replaced by functionally equivalent components. Also the materials of the various components can be different from those disclosed.