AU2012101877A4 - Led safety vest - Google Patents

Abstract

This safety vest implement an extra function on the standard Day and Night high visibility safety vest - LED signalling. Different from retro-reflective tapes, LEDs generates active signalling, rather than relying incoming light. Original functions of fluorescent for day time use and retro-reflective for night time use remain. LEDs, connected through a flexible cable, are mounted on a plastic reflective tape through Cateyes created on the tape to form an LED Strap. The Cateye design not only mounts the LEDs on the tape, but also keeps LED signalling in a forward direction. The LED Strap is sewed onto the vest next to the original retro-reflective tape, such as 3M scotchlite tape. LEDs are powered by batteries in a Control Box. The Control Box is held in a pouch, which is sewed inside the vest. LED signal can be turned off or turned on and set in an operating mode using the toggle switch on the Control box. Front View Back View LED strap LED and Cateye Retro-reflective tape Fluorescent fabric Fig 1: LED Safety Vest Top View Top View Cateye pressing mounting area Top View LED strap Plastic reflective tape Cateye for LED protection LED Mounting pad Cateye LED hole - LED ED board ounting Printed circuit board pad Side View Side View Back cover tape Bottom View Side View Fig 2: Cateye Fig 3: LED circuit board Fig 4: LED/Cateye mounting LED board Cable Left Back S h oul1 de r Front Switch Right * * * Control box Fig 5: Electronic structure

Description

1 LED SAFETY VEST [0001] Glass N high-visibility garments are intended to provide the wearer with high visibility at night when viewed under retroreflected light, such as by drivers of vehicles using headlight illumination. Such retroreflected light from retroreflective tapes, served as warning signals, completely relies on incoming light. When incoming light does not exist, the warning signals of the garment do not exist. Such a passive warning signal significantly limits the performance and applications of the garment. [0002] The LED Safety Vest includes two LED Straps on the Class N high-visibility vest. LEDs on the LED Straps, powered by batteries, generate light so an active warning signal is produced. LED signal also has other good features which reflective tapes cannot provide. The signal is very strong; it can be viewed from one hundred meters away, is in wide angle, so it can be viewed from a wide area and is eye-catching because of flashing operation. The signal can also be penetrating in heavy rain, foggy weather and smoke (do you mean "smoggy"?) environments, especially when using LEDs in red colour. LED Straps have reflective surfaces so it also provides with extra light reflection. [1003] Two LED Straps are sewed on the vest next to two vertical retroreflective tapes as shown in Fig 1. Original retroreflective tapes remain functioning so that the LED Safety Vest still complies with high-visibility safety garment standard in Class N. LED Straps are narrow so cover only small fabric area. If the vest is a Class D garment, the remaining area of the fluorescent fabric is still large enough to comply with high-visibility garment standard in Class D. Therefore, LED Straps are only extra parts on top of the original vest for extra functioning. The original vest still complies with standard, whether it is for "Day use only", "Night use only" or "Day or Night use". [1004] An LED is mounted to LED Strap under a Cateye through a Mounting pad. Cateye is a transparent cover in convex shape in the same material as plastic reflective tape. Cateyes and Mounting Pads do not only mount and protect the LED, but also hold the LED board in the correct, stable position so the light can always be in the correct direction as show in Fig 2-4. [0005] All LED boards are connected with a flexible cable. At the end of the cable is a Control box, as shown in Fig 5. The Control box contains circuit and batteries. It can be 2 opened to replace batteries. A toggle switch is at the end of the Control box used to turn LEDs off or turn them on in one of several operating modes, which could be a stable light, slow flash or fast flash.

Claims (4)

1. LED Safety Vest, a standard Class N safety vest comprising of two LED Straps on the vest, one on the left side and another one on the right side. LED straps are sewed on the vest over the shoulders on both front and back. LEDs, as active signal sources, generate signals in a certain colour so the vest keeps sending signals towards the front and back, even in complete darkness, rather than just reflecting incoming light. Original retroreflective tapes remain so it still complies with Class N standard.

2. LED Safety Vest as claimed in claim 1, wherein LEDs are mounted on the plastic reflective tape through Cateyes, which are transparent convexes in the same material as plastic reflective tape. Cateyes not only covers the LED under it for protection but also holds the LED in correct and stable signal direction because of the rigid feature of the plastic.

3. LED Safety Vest as claimed in claim 1 and 2, wherein LEDs, mounted in the Cateyes, are connected through a flexible electrical cable. LEDs and the cable are covered by plastic reflective tape on top and a waterproof tape underneath. Both tapes are sewed together along the edges so the LEDs and the cable are completely sealed. This Plastic reflective tape, LED plus cable and underneath cover form a complete LED Strap, as claimed in claim 1.

4. The cable connects to a Control Box. The Control box is held in a pouch, which is sewed inside the vest on the front of the vest for convenient access. The Control Box includes control circuit, batteries inside and a toggle switch. It can be opened for battery replacement. The switch can switch the LEDs off or on in different operating modes, such as stable, fast flashing and slow flashing mode.