Operating component for a domestic appliance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing control elements for household appliances face challenges in reliable assembly and maintaining consistent illumination quality, often resulting in forgotten light guides and increased production costs due to complex component interactions.
Innovation Solution
The integration of an adapter part and a light guide, where the light source carrier can only be mounted when combined with the light guide, ensuring assembly inevitability and using a slide-in shaft design with elastic wings for easy assembly and robustness, reducing parts and costs.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If the light guide is assembled separately from the adapter part, then the assembly process becomes more flexible, but the light guide may be forgotten during assembly, compromising illumination quality
Solution Approach 1:
The light guide is integrated with the adapter part to form a single combined component. The light guide is inserted into the adapter part and secured in position, creating a unified assembly that ensures the light guide is always present when the light source carrier is mounted, eliminating the risk of forgetting to assemble the light guide separately while maintaining assembly efficiency.
2Ease of manufacture
If more separate components are used, then each component can be optimized independently, but the number of parts increases, increasing production costs
Solution Approach 1:
The adapter part and light guide are combined into a single integrated component, reducing the total number of parts in the control element assembly. This integration maintains the functional optimization benefits of separate components while eliminating the cost and complexity penalties associated with managing multiple separate parts.
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
This solution ensures reliable assembly, maintains specified illumination quality, and reduces production costs by simplifying the assembly process and using fewer components, while preventing light loss and ensuring secure mounting of the light source carrier.
Implementation Method 1
a light guide that is separate from the support sleeve and into which the light from the light source can be coupled and guided into the interior of the support sleeve
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3~5
AI summary
A control element (1) for a household appliance (H) has an adapter part (2) for connecting a control element head and a light guide (14), the adapter part (2) and the light guide (14) being joined together and together forming a slide-in slot (26 ) form for a light source carrier (12). A household appliance (H) has at least one such control element (1). The invention can be used particularly advantageously on control elements for front control panels, in particular oven or stove control panels.