GB2345746A

GB2345746A - Lighting system which is switched on by pivoting its lens

Info

Publication number: GB2345746A
Application number: GB9930568A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Hiroshi Yabata
Original assignee: T AN T KK
Current assignee: T AN T KK
Priority date: 1999-01-14
Filing date: 1999-12-23
Publication date: 2000-07-19
Anticipated expiration: 2019-12-23
Also published as: CA2295900C; GB9930568D0; CA2295900A1; JP2000207929A; DE10000242A1; GB2345746B

Abstract

The lighting system comprises a housing (1), a first bus bar 2 secured to the housing, a moving contact member 4 swingably pivoted to the housing, a light source 5 such as a bulb resiliently held between the first bus bar and the moving contact member, a second bus bar 3 formed with a stationary contact point 31a at a position in the housing opposite a moving contact point 41a of the moving contact member and a lens plate 6 swingably pivoted to the housing and adapted to swing the moving contact member to open and close the moving contact point 41a and the stationary contact point 31a. The lighting system has the advantage that a separate switch is not required to turn the light source on and off and is particularly suitable for use in a passenger or luggage compartment of a vehicle.

Description

2345746 LIGHTING SYSTEM The present invention relates to a lighting system

equipped and used for spotlighting (particularly as a source for preliminary lighting) in general households, or in a passenger compartment, a trunk room or the like of an automobile.

In prior art lighting systems used in places as mentioned in the foregoing, a light source including a lamp or the like is accommodated in a housing, the front portion of which is mounted with a lens plate for diffusing or converging lights from said light source and there is further provided a switch for turning on or off said light source provided within said housing with a push button of sid switch being provided to extrude outward or said al switch being provided sep arately from the housino.1In operation of said light source, such push button of the switch is pushed or slid such that the light source is connected to a power source to turn on the light source with the result that the lights from the light source are diffused or converged by way of said lens plate.

In the prior art described in the foregoing, the switch for turning on and off the light source is integrally attached to the housing or is provided separately therefrom, thus requiring provision of two members including a lighting member composed of the housing, the light source and the lens; and a switch member, thus creating a problem such as a large number of parts being involved to raise the cost and requiring a troublesome push button operation of the switch to turn on and off the light source.

2 It would be desirable to be able to provide a lighting system which is capable of reducing the cost by making the construction thereof simpler than heretofore.

In the invention, one of the terminal plates for supplying power to the light source is used as a moving contact member of the switch while the rotatable lens plate is used as means for operating said moving contact member.

More particularly, and according to the present invention, there is provided a lighting system comprising a housing; a first bus bar secured to said housing; a moving contact member swingably pivoted to said housing and having a moving contact point; a light source including a bulb or the like resiliently held between said first bus bar and said moving member; a second bus bar formed with a stationary contact point at a position in said housing opposite said moving contact point of said moving contact member; and a lens plate swingably pivoted to said housing such that said moving contact member is swung by causing said lens plate to pivot such that said moving contact point and said stationary contact point are opened and closed.

In the drawings:

Fig. 1 is a front view of the lighting system of the invention; Fig. 2 is a right hand side elevation of Fig. 1; Fig. 3 is a bottom view of Fig. 1; Fig. 4 is a sectional view of Fig. 1 taken along the line A-A; 3 Fig. 5a is a sectional view of Fig. 1 taken along the line B-B, showing the lighting system take a position to turn on the light source while Fig. 5b is a sectional view similar to Fi-. 5a in which said light source is turned off in; and Flo.. 6 is an exploded perspective view of the i tD elementary portion of the present invention.

Referrino now to the attached drawings, one embodiment of the present invention will be exp-lained. In this embodiment, the explanation will be given with respect to the situation in which the system is adopted to an automotive lighting system to be attached to the ceilino portion of a trunk room of the vehicle or a compartment thereof.

The numeral 1 denotes a housing having an open bottom side, an open top side and a lateral side formed with a connector receiving portion 11. Said top side of the housing 1 is inserted into a mounting hole a (see & and b- in Fig. 5) formed in the ceiling A of the trunk room or the vehicle compartment, of the vehicle, said top side of the housin- 1 bein- formed with a flan-e 12 adapted to close zz 13 0 said mountin- hole 1 ir rz aThere axe further provided a pai of clamp pawls 13 to en-a,e the underside of said ceiling A 0 0 such that an incidental separation of said housing 1 from said mounting hole ais prevented. Further, the inside of said housing 1 is formed with a protuberance 14 at a portion correspondin,- to said connector receiving portion 11 such that a movlna contact member 4 which will be explained later is pivoted.

4 The numeral 2 denotes a first bus bar of electrically conductive material and provided substantially in a channel form as shown in Fig. 6. Said first bus bar 2 is composed of a vertical portion 21 formed with a hole 21&to receive one end of a light source 5 such as a bulb which will be explained later; a horizontal portion 22 perpendicularly bent from said vertical portion 2 1-, a connection piece 23 extending perpendicularly from said horizontal portion 22 to be inserted into said connector receiving portion 11 of housing 1; and two engagement pieces 2 2 a sal n Zn) perpendicularly descending from said horizontal portion 22 to be enca-,ed with the housina 1 when said first bus bar 2 is set in the housing 1.

The numeral 3 denotes a second bus bar provided substantially in the form of the letter L formed of the same material as said first bus bar 2. Said second bus bar 3 is composed of a horizontal portion 31 havinc, a stationarv contact point 3 1,-L bent perpendicularly to descend therefrom; a connection pI e c e 32 extending perpendicularly t o said horizontal portion 31 to be inserted into the connector receiving portion 11 of said housing I; and an engagement piece 31b bent perpendicularly from said horizontal portion 3 1 to descend therefrom to be en-aaed with the housing I when said second bus bar 3 is set in the housing 1.

The numeral 4 denotes a moving contact member made of an elastic electrically conductive metal piece having substantially a hairpin configuration. Said movin- contact member 4 has a long le- portion 41 having 73 ZD n!M at a distal end thereof a moving contact point 41a which forms a switch in cooperation with said stationary contact point 31a. Said long leg portion 41 is formed with a support hole 41b at an intermediate portion thereof in which said protuberance 14 formed in said housing 1 is axially supported. Said moving member 4 also has a short leg portion 41 ' formed with a hole 41c at a position opposite said support hole 41b formed in the Ion- leg portion 41 such that one end of the light source 5 is inserted into said hole 41c. Further, said movincr contact member 4 has an engagement piece 42 extending from a bent portion thereof such that said engagement piece 42 extends to come into engagement with an erected piece 62 of a lens plate 6 which will be explained later.

The numeral 5 denotes a light source such as a bulb or the like having said one end thereof inserted into said hole 41c in the moving contact member 4 and another end thereof inserted into the hole 21a in said vertical portion 21 of the first bus bar 2. The numeral 6 denotes a lens plate having protuberances 61 formed in the lateral side thereof, said protuberances 61 being pivotally supported in holes formed in opposing inner side walls of said housing 1. Said lens plate 6 has longitudinal sides, one of said longitudinal sides is formed with erected piece 62 which en-ages the encragement piece 42 of the moving contact member 4.

Said housing 1 as another pair of opposing inner side walls are formed with stops 15 and 16 (see Figs. 3 and 5) adapted to abut against said lens 6 at a bottom face thereof at the time of the swing of said lens plate 6 (to take an open position or a closed position). Further, one of said 6 inner walls is formed with a clicking portion 17 at a position opposite said stationary contact point 31a of the second bus bar 3 such that said clicking portion 171 give a clicking feel at positions where the moving contact point 41a comes into and goes out of contact with said stationary contact point 31a. (See Fig. 5) Next, an explanation will be given as to the method of assembling the lightincr svstem of the invention bv use of the parts described in the foregoing. That is, while the first and second bus bars 2 and 3 are being placed at an outer periphery of the floor face side of the housing 1, said en-agement pieces 22a and 31b of the respective first and second bus bars 2 and 3 are fixedly inserted into the flanks of the housing 1.

Next, the protuberance 14 is inserted into the hole 41b in the moving contact member 4 by passing the rib (not shown) formed in said protuberance 14 therethrough or by deforming the head of said protuberance 14 through a heating process such that the moving member is swingably supported therein. Thereafter, the light source 5 is fitted in the respective holes 21a and 41c in the first bus bar 2 and the moving contact member 4. Further, the protuberances 61 in the lens plate 6 are pivotally fitted into holes in the housing 1 while the engagement piece 42 of the movino, contact. member 4 is encraged with the Z:' zn 5 erected piece 62 of the lens plate 6, thus completing the assembly work.

In the thus constructed lighting system of the invention, the connectors of lead wires extending from automotive accessories are connected to the connector 7 receiving portion 11 while the reverse side of the housing I is inserted into the mounting hole a. formed in the ceiling A of the trunk room or the compartment of the vehicle, thus locking the pawls 13 for fixation of the housing onto the underside of the ceilina Next, the operation of the instant lighting system mounted to the ceiling A of the trunk room or the compartment will be explained.

In a state as shown in Fig. 5a in which the lens plate 6 takes a closed or horizontal position, the engagement piece 42 of the moving contact member 4 is in engagement with the erected piece 62 of the lens plate 6 with said moving contact member having been swung counterclockwise. Therefore, the moving contact point 41a of said moving ontact member 4 is brought into contact with the stationary contact point 31a of the second bus bar 3; that is, the switch composed of the stationary contact point 31a and the moving contact point 41a is turned on.

Therefore, while the ignition key takes the accessory position, the power is supplied through a closed circuit composed of the second bus bar 3, the stationary contact point 31a, the moving contact point 41a, the moving contact member 4, through the light source 5 to the first bus bar 2 such that the light source 5 is turned on. In this connection, the moving contact point 41a is given a clicking feel by the clicking portion 17 to be locked such that said contacting condition is maintained. Further, with the lens plate 6 taking a closed position, the underside of said lens plate 6 abuts against the stop 15 8 formed in the housing 1 to stop the lens plate from further swinging counterclockwise at this position.

The explanation of the switchover from the onposition to the off-position is given as shown referring to Fig. 5b. That is, the lens plate 6 is swung clockwise until the underside of the lens plate 6 abuts against the stop 16 to press down the engagement piece 42 of the moving contact member 4 in engagement of the erected piece 62 such that the moving contact member 4 per se is swung clockwise, causing the moving contact point 41a to move away from the stationary contact point 31a of the second bus bar 3.

Therefore, the switch composed of the movinz contact point 41a and the stationary contact point 31a is brou-ht into an off-position to open said closed circuit such that the power supply to the light source is suspended to turn off the light. Further, upon completion of the clockwise swing of the lens plate, the moving contact point 41a overrides the clicking portion 17 to be locked with a clicking feel.

Now, all throuah during the swing action of the moving contact member 4. the hole 41c into which one end of the light source 5 is engaged is in an opposite positional relationship to the hole 41b such that there is no deflection of the light source 5 during the swing action of the moving contact member 4, thus preventing the light source from dropping off from the first bus bar 2 and the moving contact member 4.

In the aforementioned embodiment, the lighting ZD zn system of the invention is explained as an automotive 9 lighting system, the invention may be adopted to a general household internal lighting lamp such as a foot lamp, a pillow lamp, a locker lamp, a cloakroom lamp, a lamp for lighting a keyhole of a door or a switching position of the illumination lamp, a preliminary lamp for a stand lamp of a household electrical appliance.

The present invention eliminates the need for a conventionally required independent switch for turning on or off the light source because the bus bars are secured to the housing, a moving contact member is swingably pivoted to the housing, a light source is resiliently held between the housing and the moving contact member, said contact moving member is swung by a lens plate rotatably pivoted housing to bring said moving member and said to sal I M stationary contact point of the second bus bar into or out of contact such that the light source is turned on and off. As a result, the cost is reduced while the structure is simplified.

Further, said moving member is adapted to override a clicking portion at the time of closing and opening the contact points such that the clicking feel is given while the open or closed state may be maintained. As a result, even if the lighting system is adopted to the automobile, a likelihood that vibrations from the vehicle in motion cause the open state to turn into the closed state is prevented.

Further, the lens plate is adapted to abut against the stops formed in the housing at the time of lens swing for turn-on and turn-off operations of the light source such that said light source is prevented from slipping off as a result of lens swing action caused by a strong external force. Further, there is no likelihood of insufficient contact clue to the moving contact point passing the stationary contact point. There is a further effect that the connection work to the external power source is easily done by use of connectors since bus bars are provided as stationary conduction members extending to the connector receivin- sections of the housinc, 11

Claims

A lighting system comprising a housing; a first bus bar secured to said housing; a moving contact member swingably pivoted to said housin- and havin- a movincr contact point; a light source including a bulb or the like resiliently held between said first bus bar and said moving member; a second bus bar formed with a stationary contact point at a position in said housing opposite s'aid movincr contact point of said moving contact member; and a lens plate swin-ably pivoted to said housing such that said moving contact member is swung by causing said lens plate to pivot such that said moving contact point and said stationary contact point are opened and closed.
2. A lighting system as set forth in claim 1, wherein said housin-- has an inner wall formed with a clickincr portion at a position opposite said moving contact point of the moving contact member such that a clicking feel is 0 ?.,.Y given at a contact position where said moving contact point comes into contact with said stationary contact point and a break point where said moving contact point moves b out of contact with said stationary point.
3. A lighting system as set forth in claim 1, or claim 2, wherein said housing has an inner wall formed with stops against which said lens plate abuts at a horizontal position and a swung position, respectively.

12
4. A lighting system as set forth in any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein each of said first bus bar and said second bus bar formed with said stationary contact point has one end thereof extending toward a connector receiving portion of the housing.
5. A lighting system as set forth in any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein said lighting system includes an automotive lighting system used for lighting an automobile inner compartment.
6. A lighting system substantially as described with reference to and as illustrated by the accompanying is drawings.