Modular Button Assembly for Stable Pressing Force Sensing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional button assemblies with soft foam pressure sensors experience high sensitivity leading to drastic changes in pressing force values due to structural tolerance issues, making it difficult to determine component failures and replace broken parts.
Innovation Solution
A modularized button assembly design featuring a base with accommodating grooves and stop blocks, a pressure sensor with a soft sensor element, and a keycap with flexible upper positioning portions that reduce accumulated tolerance and facilitate component replacement and integration with compatible carriers.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If a soft foam pressure sensor is used to increase sensitivity, then the detective sensitivity is improved, but accumulated tolerance causes drastic changes in pressing force values
Solution Approach 1:
The button assembly is divided into separate modular components: a base, a pressure sensor module, and a keycap. The positioning portions are segmented into lower positioning portions (on the base) and upper positioning portions (on the keycap), which can be independently manufactured and assembled. This segmentation reduces accumulated tolerance by eliminating tolerance stacking across multiple assembled parts.
2Device complexity
If conventional button structure is used, then assembly is simple, but component replacement and failure detection are difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The button assembly is designed as a modular system with distinct separable components (base, pressure sensor, keycap) connected through positioning portions. This allows individual components to be replaced independently while maintaining simple assembly through the positioning portion interface, resolving the contradiction between assembly simplicity and repairability.
Solution Approach 2:
The pressure sensor is extracted as a separate replaceable module within the button assembly. When the pressure sensor fails, it can be removed and replaced independently without disassembling the entire button structure, making failure detection and component replacement straightforward while preserving the overall simple assembly design.
3Ease of repair
If modularized structure is implemented for easy replacement, then component replacement is facilitated, but structure becomes more complex
Solution Approach 1:
The modularization is achieved through clear segmentation into base, pressure sensor module, and keycap with standardized positioning portions. This segmentation enables easy component replacement while keeping each module's internal structure simple, thus facilitating repair without excessive structural complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The positioning portions are designed with universal compatibility - lower positioning portions on the base and upper positioning portions on the keycap create a standardized interface that simplifies the modular connection. This universal interface design enables easy replacement while avoiding complex specialized connection mechanisms.
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 modularized button assembly minimizes accumulated tolerance during pressing operations and allows for easy replacement of components, enhancing sensitivity and usability while maintaining high detective sensitivity of the soft material pressure sensor.
Implementation Method 1
The hollow areas of the two upper positioning portions allow the two upper positioning portions to be bendable upwardly and downwardly under stress as flexible elastic arms
Data Source
AI summary
A button assembly is disposed in a rocker. The button assembly including a base, a pressure sensor and a keycap. The base has two lower positioning portions with each of the two lower positioning portions protruding outwardly from respective sides of the base. The pressure sensor is mounted on the base. The keycap overlies the pressure sensor. The keycap has two upper positioning portions with each of the two upper positioning portions protruding outwardly from respective sides of the keycap. The two upper positioning portions are individually fixed on each of the two lower positioning portions. As described above, a push-button structure is thus formed by the two lower positioning portions and the two upper positioning portions configured among the base, the pressure sensor and the keycap to achieve the modularization of the button assembly of the present invention.