Keyboard Light Guide Geometry for Uniform Per-Key Backlighting
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current keyboard backlighting solutions lack individual key addressing and lighting, resulting in limited application and user experience, particularly in gaming and low-light environments.
Innovation Solution
A keyboard key structure incorporating a light guide with a trapezoidal shape and uniform thickness, positioned between a light emitting element and a transparent keycap region, to efficiently direct light and ensure even illumination across the keycap, enhancing light dispersion and color uniformity.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If traditional backlighting is used, then light can be provided to the keycap, but individual key addressing and lighting capability is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the keyboard into individual key units, each with its own light guide and light emitting element. This segmentation enables independent control and addressing of each key, transforming a unified backlighting system into discrete, addressable units that can be individually illuminated based on specific conditions or inputs.
Solution Approach 2:
The light guide acts as an intermediary component between the light emitting element and the keycap. It receives light from the LED and directs it through the transparent keycap, enabling individual key illumination while maintaining a relatively simple overall structure. The light guide mediates the light transmission path, allowing precise control over which keys are illuminated.
2Illumination intensity
If backlighting is implemented, then user experience is improved, but light distribution uniformity and color consistency deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The light guide is designed with specific geometric characteristics (trapezoidal shape with particular width ratios) that optimize light distribution locally across the keycap surface. The structured design ensures that light from the LED is evenly dispersed across the entire keycap area, creating uniform illumination intensity and consistent color appearance without requiring complex additional components.
3Productivity
If a light guide is introduced, then light direction and dispersion are improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The light guide serves multiple functions simultaneously: it directs light from the LED, disperses light uniformly across the keycap, maintains color consistency, and provides structural support within the key assembly. By consolidating these functions into a single component with optimized geometry, the patent improves light directing efficiency without proportionally increasing overall device complexity.
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 provides improved homogeneous illumination and color uniformity across the keycap, addressing the limitations of existing backlighting systems by ensuring consistent and efficient light distribution, enhancing user experience in various environments.
Implementation Method 1
The light emitting element can be operable to emit light into the bottom surface of the light guide. The light guide can direct the light entering the bottom surface through a body of the light guide, out of the top surface of the light guide, and through the transparent region of the key cap.
Implementation Method 2
A keyboard key structure incorporating a light guide with a trapezoidal shape and uniform thickness, positioned between a light emitting element and a transparent keycap region, to efficiently direct light and ensure even illumination across the keycap, enhancing light dispersion and color uniformity.
Data Source
AI summary
Aspects of the invention relate to a keyboard key structure, a light guide for the keyboard key structure, and a computer key mechanism. The keyboard key structure can include a substrate; a key switch where the bottom of the key switch is configured to be coupled to the substrate; a keycap including a transparent region; a light guide coupled to the side of the key switch, the light guide comprising: a bottom surface and a top surface that is wider than and parallel to the bottom surface; a light emitting element coupled to the substrate and configured under the bottom surface of the light guide such that the light emitting element, the light guide, and the transparent region of the key cap are in a collinear arrangement.