Exterior Mirror Cam Track for Smooth Pivoting and Locking
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing adjusting instruments for exterior vision units in vehicles face issues such as jolting adjustments and unwanted noise due to production tolerances and part warping, which hinder smooth pivoting and user experience.
Innovation Solution
The design incorporates a bridge connecting spaced cams to form a guiding track, ensuring smooth pivoting by supporting the guide cam on a largely flat surface, and includes a ring segment-shaped contour to enhance stability and prevent obstructions, with guide cams having a greater height than others to facilitate rotation-locking engagement.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If multiple cams are arranged to distribute bias over a large contact surface, then the bias can be efficiently distributed and rotation-locking engagement is improved, but production tolerances and part warping cause individual cams to form obstructions and hinder smooth pivoting
Solution Approach 1:
A guide cam is introduced as an intermediary element that runs in a guiding track formed by the bridge and spaced cams. This guide cam mediates the interaction between the cam patterns, ensuring smooth pivoting motion while the other cams maintain rotation-locking engagement. The guide cam prevents individual cams from forming obstructions by providing a controlled guiding path.
Solution Approach 2:
The cam pattern is segmented into two functional groups: spaced cams that form the guiding track with the bridge, and a guide cam that runs in this track. This segmentation allows different cams to have different functions - some for guiding smooth motion and others for rotation-locking engagement - thereby resolving the contradiction between smooth pivoting and reliable engagement.
2Stability of the object's composition
If cams are pressed towards each other under bias to counteract vibrations and movements, then stability during driving is improved, but individual cams may form obstructions in the adjustment range causing jolting and noise
Solution Approach 1:
The guide cam acts as an intermediary that absorbs and distributes the bias force smoothly along the guiding track. This prevents individual cams from creating obstructions under bias pressure, thereby eliminating jolting and noise while maintaining stability in the drive position through the coordinated action of all cams.
3Ease of operation
If a bridge connects spaced cams to form a guiding track, then smooth pivoting is achieved by supporting the guide cam on a flat surface, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The bridge serves multiple functions: it connects spaced cams structurally, forms part of the guiding track, and provides a flat supporting surface for the guide cam. This multi-functionality reduces the need for separate guiding components, thereby limiting the increase in device complexity while achieving smooth pivoting.
Data Source
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AI summary
Adjusting instrument for an exterior vision unit of a vehicle, comprising a base with a foot for attachment to the vehicle, and a frame for carrying the exterior vision unit, wherein the frame is attached to the base in a manner pivotable about a pivoting axis, in a pivoting range between at least a drive position and a park position of the adjusting instrument, via a pair of mutually facing and mutually cooperating cam patterns which are arranged on the base and the frame respectively, wherein each of the two cam patterns comprises cams which are disposed in a circumferential direction around the pivoting axis in successive positions in a ring segment, such that cams of the patterns in the drive position of the adjusting instrument engage each other in a rotation-locking manner and in the pivoting range from and to the drive position adjust over each other, wherein a first cam pattern is provided with a bridge which mutually connects spaced cams in the circumferential direction and with the spaced cams forms a guiding track on which a guide cam of the second cam pattern is supported in at least a substantial part of the pivoting range from and to the drive position.