Motor-vehicle headlamp control board coding geometry
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Solution Overview
Problem
The automotive industry faces challenges in ensuring correct electrical connector connections for motor vehicle headlight control boards, particularly due to environmental conditions like high temperatures and vibrations, and the need to prevent incorrect plugging of circuit boards, which existing systems fail to address effectively.
Innovation Solution
The solution involves assigning a coding geometry to the side edges of circuit boards, creating a complementary coding system between adjacent boards, which determines the correct plug connections and prevents incorrect assembly by using the geometry of the boards and the arrangement of plugs within plug groups, even in systems without pre-existing coding.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If connector families with mechanical coding systems are used to prevent incorrect plugging, then connection reliability is improved, but device complexity and cost increase due to requiring different connector designs for each connector group
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies asymmetry by giving each circuit board a unique complementary coding geometry on its side edges. These asymmetric geometric codes (such as specific patterns of recesses and projections) prevent incorrect plugging by ensuring that only the correctly assigned connector can be plugged into the correct circuit board, while eliminating the need for multiple different connector designs.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements preliminary action by pre-assigning specific coding geometries to each circuit board and connector combination during manufacturing. This pre-established geometric coding system ensures that correct connections are predetermined and physically enforceable, preventing incorrect assemblies before they occur in the field.
2Manufacturing precision
If multiple different connector designs are used for different connector groups to ensure correct assembly, then assembly correctness is improved, but manufacturing cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies universality by designing a single standardized connector design that can be used across all connector groups. The differentiation and error prevention functionality is achieved not through different connector designs, but through the complementary coding geometries on the circuit boards themselves, allowing one connector type to serve multiple functions while maintaining assembly correctness.
3Measurement precision
If coding systems are added to connectors to prevent incorrect plugging, then connection accuracy is improved, but the number of connectors required increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the coding function from the connectors themselves and relocates it to the circuit boards. By removing the need for coded connectors and placing the geometric coding solely on the circuit boards, the system achieves connection accuracy while reducing the number of connectors needed, as identical connectors can be reused across different groups.
Data Source
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AI summary
The invention relates to a control circuit board (100) for a motor-vehicle headlamp, on which control circuit board at least one electrical connector group (A, B) having structurally identical electrical connectors (200) is arranged for connecting printed circuit boards (400, 401, 402, 403, 404, 411, 412, 413, 414), which have electrical connector counter pieces (300) and are uniquely associated with the respective electrical connectors (200) of an electrical connector group, wherein the printed circuit boards (400, 401, 402, 403, 404, 411, 412, 413, 414) have, on at least one lateral edge, a coding geometry (500, 600, 530, 630, 540, 640) resulting from the shaping of the lateral edge and, in the case of adjacent printed circuit boards (400, 401, 402, 403, 404, 411, 412, 413, 414) connected correctly in the sense of the association of said printed circuit boards, the coding geometry (500, 530, 540) of one lateral edge of one printed circuit board (400, 401, 402, 403, 404, 411, 412, 413, 414) is complementary to a coding geometry (600, 630, 640) of an adjacent lateral edge of an adjacent printed circuit board (400, 401, 402, 403, 404, 411, 412, 413, 414).