Open-Layer Keyboard Structure for Cooling and Echo Reduction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing keyboards suffer from increased bulkiness due to battery compartments, poor heat dissipation, and impact echo, with manufacturing costs being high due to the use of materials like acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), which degrades user experience.
Innovation Solution
A layer-structured, open-design keyboard with an upper-layer, middle-layer, and lower-layer plate arrangement that creates clearance spaces for improved heat dissipation and reduces impact echo, using easily manufactured materials like plastic, wood, or metal, and incorporates a tray for the IO board to make the main body more compact.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a battery compartment is integrated into the keyboard body, then the keyboard can be powered, but the height and width of the keyboard increase, leading to increased bulkiness
Solution Approach 1:
The keyboard is divided into multiple functional layers (upper-layer plate, middle-layer plate, circuit board, lower-layer plate) that are spaced apart, allowing the battery compartment to be integrated without increasing overall keyboard volume. The segmentation enables compact arrangement of power supply components within the keyboard body.
Solution Approach 2:
The battery compartment is nested within the keyboard body structure, with the battery housed inside the lower-layer plate. This nesting approach allows the power supply to be contained within the existing keyboard footprint, avoiding increased bulkiness while maintaining power supply capability.
2Stability of the object's composition
If the keyboard uses a peripherally closed chamber design with lower and upper covers, then the structure is enclosed, but heat dissipation is prevented and impact echo is amplified
Solution Approach 1:
The keyboard structure incorporates open spaces and clearance gaps between the layered components (upper-layer plate, middle-layer plate, circuit board, lower-layer plate), creating a porous-like structure that allows heat to dissipate while maintaining structural integrity. The clearance spaces act as ventilation channels for thermal management.
Solution Approach 2:
The closed chamber is segmented into multiple spaced layers, creating clearance spaces that allow heat to escape and impact echo to be reduced. This segmentation maintains structural stability while enabling thermal ventilation and acoustic dampening.
3Strength
If ABS material is used for the lower and upper covers, then the keyboard has good structural properties, but modeling costs are high, increasing manufacturing costs
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces expensive ABS material with cheaper alternatives such as plastic, wood, or metal plates that can be manufactured without expensive modeling processes. These alternative materials maintain sufficient structural properties while significantly reducing manufacturing costs, particularly by eliminating the need for costly ABS molding.
4Reliability
If the IO board is integrated into the main body, then the connection is direct, but the main body volume increases
Solution Approach 1:
The keyboard is segmented into distinct functional layers with the IO board mounted on the circuit board layer, separated from the main body by the spaced layered structure. This segmentation allows the IO board to be electrically connected while maintaining a compact main body volume through the open-design clearance spaces.
Data Source
AI summary
A layer-structured, open-design keyboard includes a main body and a tray attached to the main body from below. The main body has key mechanisms and keycaps mounted on tops of the key mechanisms. The main body includes an upper-layer plate, a middle-layer plate, a circuit board, and a lower-layer plate arranged from a top to a bottom of the main body successively in a spaced manner, so as to define three clearance spaces that communicate the interior of the main body with the exterior.