Flexible Diaphragm Button Mechanism for Compact Electronic Keys
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Portable electronic user devices, such as vehicle keys, face challenges in ensuring reliable triggering of functions due to varied button designs and the need for reduced dimensions, which complicates the operation and transmission of signals like door locking.
Innovation Solution
A portable electronic user device with a dimensionally rigid button mounted on a flexibly deformable diaphragm, where the diaphragm provides a spring force through apertures in a rigid frame, allowing for optimized mounting and reliable operation of buttons, enabling reliable triggering of functions with customizable haptics and reduced height.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Length of moving object
If the overall height of the portable electronic user device is reduced to improve carrying comfort, then the device dimensions are minimized, but the reliable triggering of functions becomes more difficult due to limited space for buttons and switching elements
Solution Approach 1:
The device is segmented into distinct functional layers: a rigid frame housing, a flexible diaphragm with bearing sections and operating sections, and switching elements positioned at different depths. This segmentation allows the button operation to be transmitted through the diaphragm to the switching elements while maintaining a compact overall height, as each component performs its specific function in a dedicated zone.
Solution Approach 2:
The switching elements are nested within the housing below the diaphragm, while the diaphragm itself is nested between the rigid frame and the buttons. This nesting arrangement allows multiple components to occupy overlapping spatial zones, reducing the overall height while ensuring that button operations reliably trigger the switching elements through the intermediate diaphragm structure.
2Adaptability or versatility
If various design variants with different button shapes are implemented to meet customer requirements, then design freedom is increased, but the complexity of ensuring reliable switching element triggering increases
Solution Approach 1:
The flexible diaphragm serves as a universal coupling mechanism that can accommodate various button shapes and designs while consistently transmitting their operations to the switching elements. The diaphragm's flexibility allows it to adapt to different button configurations without requiring different triggering mechanisms, thus maintaining design freedom while controlling complexity through a standardized transmission interface.
Solution Approach 2:
The diaphragm acts as an intermediary between the diverse button designs and the switching elements. It receives operations from various button types and shapes, converts them into uniform mechanical movements, and transmits them to the switching elements, thereby decoupling the button design variability from the switching mechanism and simplifying the overall system.
3Device complexity
If the button operation is directly transmitted to the switching element, then the structure is simplified, but the haptics properties and return force cannot be optimized
Solution Approach 1:
The diaphragm is designed with different local qualities: bearing sections with specific aperture configurations that provide return force and haptics feedback to the user, and operating sections that efficiently transmit force to the switching elements. This local differentiation allows the same component to simultaneously optimize user interaction and switching reliability without requiring separate mechanisms.
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 solution ensures reliable operation and customizable haptics of buttons, allowing for a high degree of design freedom while maintaining a low installation space height, ensuring consistent and efficient triggering of functions like door locking.
Implementation Method 1
a flexibly deformable or elastic diaphragm comprising a first side having at least one bearing section on which the at least one button is mounted by means of a tappet
Data Source
AI summary
A portable electronic user device, in the form of an electronic key, having an inherently rigid button for activation by a user. The portable electronic user device further has a flexibly deformable membrane including a first side having at least one support section on which the at least one button is supported via the plunger, and an actuating section, separate from the at least one support section, for receiving and forwarding an actuation of the button to an electrical switch element. There is a rigid frame which bears the membrane on a second side opposite the first side, wherein, in the assembled state, having the membrane in the region of the at least one support section, the frame has at least one breakout, via which the membrane is moveable by the plunger upon activating the at least one button and, in dependence on the size and/or the shape of the breakout, provides a force for resetting the button. As a result of the separation of the generating of the reset force on the support sections movable by the first breakouts and the switch function in the region of the activation section, there is great freedom in the design of the portable electronic user device, wherein reliable triggering of the switch element is always ensured.