Flexible Light Strip with Buffer Areas for Automotive Lamp Adaptability
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current flexible light strips for automotive applications are limited in design, allowing bending only along one axis, which restricts their use in various lamp designs and increases manufacturing costs due to the need for dedicated designs for each application.
Innovation Solution
A flexible light strip with buffer areas between solid state lighting units that can be compressed and expanded, enabling bending over its width, and an embossing tool for manufacturing these strips with suitably shaped buffer areas to accommodate different designs.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a flexible foil is designed with a specific curvature for a particular application, then the light strip can be perfectly adapted to that application, but the same flexible foil cannot be used for other different applications requiring different designs
Solution Approach 1:
The flexible foil is segmented into multiple sections with different rigidity characteristics. The first section has higher rigidity to maintain structural stability, while the second section has lower rigidity to enable bending and curvature adaptation. This segmentation allows the same foil to be precisely manufactured for a specific application while retaining the ability to be reshaped for different applications.
Solution Approach 2:
The flexible foil transitions from a static, permanently curved design to a dynamic structure where the second section can be bent and reshaped. The differential rigidity enables the foil to adapt its curvature dynamically during installation and application, allowing one foil design to serve multiple lamp configurations rather than requiring dedicated foils for each application.
2Stability of the object's composition
If the flexible foil is made rigid enough to maintain its shape, then structural stability is improved, but the ability to bend the foil along its width is lost
Solution Approach 1:
Different sections of the flexible foil are assigned different rigidity qualities to fulfill conflicting requirements. The first section possesses higher rigidity for structural stability and shape maintenance, while the second section has lower rigidity to enable bending operations along the width. This local differentiation of mechanical properties resolves the contradiction between stability and ease of operation.
3Reliability
If dedicated flexible foil designs are manufactured for each specific lamp application, then the light strip performance is optimized for that application, but manufacturing costs increase
Solution Approach 1:
The flexible foil is designed with universal applicability through its differential rigidity structure. The same foil design can be used across multiple lamp applications by utilizing the bendable second section to adapt to different curvature requirements. This multi-functionality eliminates the need to manufacture dedicated foils for each application, thereby reducing manufacturing costs while maintaining reliable performance through optimized first sections for each specific use case.
Data Source
AI summary
The invention describes a flexible light strip, an automotive light unit comprising this flexible light strip, an embossing tool and a method to manufacture the light strip, which comprises multiple solid state lighting units as light sources and a flexible carrier for the solid state lighting units attached to the flexible foil, which further comprises a suitable wiring or the carrier is the wiring connecting the solid state lighting units to enable suitable driving of the lighting units to illuminate an environment with the flexible light strip, wherein the carrier comprises multiple buffer areas arranged between adjacent lighting units, where the buffer area extends along a width of the carrier from one edge to the opposite edge of the carrier and being adapted to be able to be compressed and expanded on demand.