Battery Grip Contact Spring Redundant Switching Reliability
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing battery grips for medical diagnostic instruments experience reliability issues due to failure in high switching cycles, as they rely on continuous line or area contacts which are prone to wear and breakage.
Innovation Solution
A battery grip design featuring a contact spring member with multiple spring tongues and a contact member with longitudinal recesses, creating redundant contact points to ensure reliable switching, even after numerous cycles, and allowing for adjustable brightness levels through specific contact configurations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If continuous line or area contact between contact spring and contact strip is used, then simple design is achieved, but reliability deteriorates due to wear and breakage in high switching cycles
Solution Approach 1:
The contact spring is designed with multiple spring tongues (at least two) instead of a single continuous strip. Each spring tongue has a contact head that creates discrete contact points with the contact strip, segmenting the continuous contact into multiple separate contact zones that distribute wear and reduce failure risk
Solution Approach 2:
The contact heads are designed to engage with longitudinal recesses in the contact strip, creating contact points at multiple locations along the length of the contact strip. This transforms a single-line contact into a multi-point contact system, adding spatial distribution to the contact interface
2Reliability
If multiple contact points are created through contact heads and longitudinal recesses, then switching reliability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The longitudinal recesses are integrated directly into the contact strip structure, and the contact heads are formed as part of the spring tongues. This merging of features into the base components avoids adding separate discrete parts, maintaining manufacturing simplicity while achieving multi-point contact
Solution Approach 2:
The contact strip serves multiple functions: it provides the electrical contact surface, contains the longitudinal recesses for positioning contact heads, and acts as the stationary contact member. The spring tongues similarly serve as both the flexible mounting structure and the contact-making elements
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The design enhances switching reliability and durability by establishing multiple contact points, reducing wear, and enabling adjustable brightness settings, suitable for high-cycle applications like ophthalmologic diagnostics.
Implementation Method 1
the contact spring member is in biased contact with the contact member
Data Source
AI summary
A battery grip for diagnostic units comprises a grip sleeve for accommodating batteries, at the upper end of which a metal sleeve for accommodating a consumer load, such as an electric bulb, is mounted, a guide opening formed in the wall of the grip sleeve, a switching slide being guided the guide opening in a longitudinal direction of the grip sleeve, a contact member extending from a lower end of the grip sleeve with one contact end into the guide opening, and a contact spring member having one end conductively connected to the metal sleeve manner and another free end extending into the guide opening such that the free end is disposed above the contact member and is brought into contact with the contact member by displacing the switching slide. The contact between free end of the contact spring member and the contact member is created by at least two contact points. At least one longitudinal recess is provided in the contact end of the contact member. At least one contact head extending towards the contact member is provided at the free end of the contact spring member for engaging in the longitudinal recess for creating a contact between the contact member and the contact spring member, the contact head being formed such that it contacts both longitudinal sides of the longitudinal recess.