Laundry Door Touch Sensor Alignment With Concealed Guide Marks
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing laundry treating apparatuses have a separate configuration of doors and control units, which complicates their appearance and lacks a seamless integration of touch screens, particularly due to misalignment issues between door covers, touch sensors, and display modules.
Innovation Solution
A laundry treating apparatus with a door cover featuring a transparent region and an opaque region, where a touch sensor is attached to the rear surface and includes an align mark for accurate alignment, and an opaque shielding member obscures guide marks to ensure components are not visible externally, allowing for a simplified and reliable touch screen implementation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a touch sensor is separately fabricated and attached to the door cover, then the touch screen functionality is achieved, but alignment accuracy between the touch sensor and door cover deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The guide mark is pre-formed on the door cover at the precise location where the touch sensor should be attached. This preliminary positioning marker enables accurate alignment during the attachment process, eliminating the misalignment issues that occur with separate fabrication and attachment of the touch sensor.
Solution Approach 2:
The guide mark acts as an intermediary element between the door cover and the touch sensor. It provides a visual reference that mediates the alignment process, allowing the touch sensor to be accurately positioned relative to the door cover without requiring complex positioning mechanisms.
2Manufacturing precision
If guide marks are provided on the door cover for alignment, then alignment accuracy is improved, but the appearance of the door deteriorates due to visible marks
Solution Approach 1:
The guide mark is designed with local quality characteristics - it has a transparent portion that allows visibility through the door cover and an opaque portion that provides contrast for alignment. This localized variation in optical properties enables the guide mark to serve its alignment function while minimizing visual impact on the overall appearance.
Solution Approach 2:
The guide mark utilizes color (or optical property) changes by incorporating both transparent and opaque portions. The opaque portion provides visual contrast for alignment purposes, while the transparent portion allows the guide mark to blend with the surrounding transparent region of the door cover, thus maintaining aesthetic appearance.
3Ease of manufacture
If the door and control unit are separately configured, then manufacturing ease is improved, but the appearance simplicity and user interface integration deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The touch sensor is integrated with the door cover to form a unified touch screen interface. The guide mark and opaque shielding member are incorporated into the door assembly, merging the previously separate control unit functions directly into the door structure. This creates a seamless appearance while maintaining the manufacturing advantages of modular components.
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2A~2B
Figure 3
AI summary
The present invention discloses a laundry treating apparatus (1) including a main body (20) having a laundry introduction opening (20a), and a door (10) capable of opening and closing the laundry introduction opening, wherein the door includes a door cover (140, 2140, 5140) defining an appearance of the door, and provided with a transparent region (141, 142, 2141, 2142, 3141, 3142) and an opaque region (143, 2143, 3143, 4143, 5143) surrounding the transparent region, a display module (130) disposed on a rear surface of the door cover and capable of outputting visual information through the transparent region, and a touch sensor (160, 2160, 3160, 4160, 5160) attached to a rear surface of the door cover and capable of sensing a touch input applied to the transparent region, wherein the touch sensor is provided with an align mark (163, 4163, 5163a, 5163b), and the opaque region is provided with a guide mark (144, 4144) guiding an attachment position of the touch sensor using the align mark. In addition, the present invention discloses a method for fabricating the door (10) of the laundry treating apparatus (1).