Keyboard Assembly with Flexible Membrane Cover
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional keyboards are prone to contamination and infection due to their complex structures with crevices, making them difficult to clean and unsuitable for long-term use without causing user fatigue, especially in environments where hygiene is a concern.
Innovation Solution
A keyboard and cover assembly with a smooth, flexible cover that allows for easy cleaning and reduces the actuation force required for key presses, enabling touch typing while preventing adjacent key activation during use.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional keyboards with complex key assemblies are used, then tactile feedback and switch contact are provided, but the keyboard becomes difficult to clean and prone to contamination due to crevices between keys
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the key mechanism from beneath the surface by using a membrane keyboard where the keys are recessed into the housing, creating a smooth top surface. The switching mechanism is positioned below the key surface, eliminating crevices while maintaining functional capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs a flexible membrane as the key surface, which provides a smooth, continuous top layer that can be easily cleaned. The membrane incorporates the switching mechanism within its structure, eliminating the need for separate key components that create crevices.
2Ease of operation
If cleaning solvents are used to clean keyboards with crevices, then the keyboard surface is cleaned, but the solvents may pass between adjacent keys and contact the electronics, damaging the keyboard
Solution Approach 1:
The patent positions the electronic switching mechanism below the key surface, extracting it from the potential path of cleaning solvents. The smooth membrane surface allows cleaning without solvents penetrating to the electronics.
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 a cleanable and ergonomic keyboard design that reduces the risk of contamination and user fatigue, allowing for extended use without compromising typing efficiency or hygiene.
Implementation Method 1
The cover includes a predetermined flexibility to substantially mechanically isolate one input key assembly from a second input key assembly during a key stroke input travel distance of at least 0.05 inches.
Data Source
AI summary
A keyboard assembly is provided. The keyboard assembly includes a keyboard having at least one input key assembly positioned within the housing and an infection controllable apparatus attached thereto.