Push-Button Switch with Lever Link Mechanism for Reduced Thickness
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Solution Overview
Problem
Elevator switches face challenges in achieving reduced thickness while maintaining a clicking sensation and uniform illumination, which is essential for usability, especially for visually impaired users, and conventional designs often compromise on thickness or expand externally due to the need for moving parts and illuminating components.
Innovation Solution
A push-button switch design featuring a light-transmitting plunger, a lever linking mechanism with pivotable lever links and joint members, and a flat illuminating portion with a light-guiding plate and separate light sources for uniform illumination, allowing for independent control and reduced thickness, along with a mark for tactile feedback.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a large movable contact is used to increase durability and extend service life in tactile switches, then reliability is improved, but the thickness of the push-button switch increases, making it difficult to achieve thickness reductions for wall-mounted applications
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the conventional dome-shaped movable contact with a flat movable contact that utilizes a different mechanical principle. Instead of relying on the dome shape to generate clicking sensation through outward turning, the flat movable contact achieves clicking through a lever link mechanism that translates vertical movement into horizontal movement, substituting the mechanical dome structure with a planar mechanism that reduces thickness while maintaining durability
Solution Approach 2:
The invention transitions from a three-dimensional dome-shaped contact to a two-dimensional flat movable contact. By changing the geometric dimensionality from a domed structure requiring vertical clearance to a flat structure operating in a planar manner, the patent reduces the thickness requirement while maintaining the necessary mechanical action for durability and clicking sensation
2Illumination intensity
If flat illuminating portions with light-guiding plates and LEDs are used to achieve overall reductions in thickness and uniform illumination, then illumination quality is improved, but the thickness of the push-button increases proportionately due to the need to dispose moving parts away from the illuminating portions
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the movable contact and illuminating portion into a single integrated structure. The flat movable contact serves dual functions: it provides the mechanical action for switch operation and simultaneously acts as the illuminating surface. This eliminates the need for separate movable parts that would otherwise need to be positioned away from fixed illuminating portions, thereby reducing overall thickness while maintaining uniform illumination quality
3Ease of operation
If symbols are formed to protrude from button surfaces to enable visually impaired people to determine functions, then ease of operation is improved, but the device complexity and manufacturing difficulty increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by incorporating tactile marks directly onto specific regions of the flat movable contact surface. Instead of requiring complex three-dimensional protruding symbols across the entire button, localized tactile features are integrated into the planar structure, providing tactile identification for visually impaired users while maintaining overall structural simplicity and ease of manufacturing
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 design achieves reduced thickness with a clicking sensation, improved tactile feedback for users, and enhanced visibility of symbols for weak-sighted individuals, ensuring swift function identification and improved operability.
Implementation Method 1
a light-guiding plate that is disposed between the switch main body and the push-button
Implementation Method 2
a mark diffusing portion that diffuses injected light is disposed on a portion of the light-guiding plate that faces the mark
Data Source
AI summary
In a push-button switch, a mark for conveying information to a user is disposed on a portion of a front surface of a push-button for operating a switch main body. A light-guiding plate is disposed between the switch main body and the push-button. A mark diffusing portion that diffuses injected light is disposed on a portion of the light-guiding plate that faces the mark. A mark light source portion injects light into the light-guiding plate so as to be directed toward the mark diffusing portion.