Molded Interface Assembly With Embedded Sensors for Movable Controls
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for manufacturing electronic assemblies with movable elements, such as buttons or knobs, face challenges in providing tactile feedback while maintaining structural integrity and material efficiency, as overmolding can fix the elements in place and require complex electrical circuits.
Innovation Solution
An interface assembly with a movable member and a sensor arrangement embedded in a molded material layer, allowing position detection through sensors, enabling tactile feedback and durable, robust structures with adaptable use cases.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Strength
If movable elements (buttons, knobs) are overmolded with plastic material, then structural integrity and protection are improved, but the elements become fixed and lose their tactile feedback functionality
Solution Approach 1:
The interface assembly is divided into distinct layers: a substrate layer, a molded material layer with embedded sensors, and a separate movable member layer. This segmentation allows the movable elements to maintain their tactile functionality while the molded layer provides structural protection through embedded sensor arrangements that detect element positions without fixing them.
2Adaptability or versatility
If complex electrical circuits are produced on substrate to achieve interface functionalities, then functional capabilities are improved, but manufacturing complexity and vulnerability increase
Solution Approach 1:
Complex electrical circuits are replaced with a sensor arrangement embedded in the molded material layer. The sensors detect positions of movable elements through their interaction with detection portions, eliminating the need for complex wired electrical circuits while maintaining functional capabilities and reducing manufacturing complexity.
3Ease of manufacture
If sensor arrangement is embedded in molded material layer, then material efficiency and structural simplicity are improved, but sensor protection and positioning precision may be compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The sensor arrangement is embedded in the molded material layer during the molding process itself, before final assembly. This preliminary action ensures precise positioning of sensors relative to where detection portions will be placed on movable elements, while maintaining material efficiency by integrating the sensor layer into the molded structure.
Data Source
AI summary
An interface assembly includes a functional multilayer structure that includes a first substrate, a molded material layer on a first side of the first substrate, and a sensor arrangement including at least one sensor, wherein the sensor arrangement is arranged at least partly embedded into the molded material layer. The assembly further includes a movable member being movable relative to the functional multilayer structure, wherein the movable member includes at least one detection portion, and the sensor arrangement and the at least one detection portion are mutually arranged so that a position or a change of position of the movable member is detectable by the sensor arrangement based on a position or a change of position of the at least one detection portion relative to the sensor arrangement.