CN215911343U

CN215911343U - Luminous key and luminous keyboard

Info

Publication number: CN215911343U
Application number: CN202121993520.9U
Authority: CN
Inventors: 潘奕睿; 林凡舜; 何信政; 许文明
Original assignee: Huaian Darfon Electronics Co ltd; Darfon Electronics Corp
Current assignee: Huaian Darfon Electronics Co ltd; Darfon Electronics Corp
Priority date: 2021-08-24
Filing date: 2021-08-24
Publication date: 2022-02-25
Anticipated expiration: 2031-08-24

Abstract

The utility model discloses a luminous key and a luminous keyboard. The thin film circuit board is provided with a switch; the light emitting unit outputs illumination light with an emission angle, part of the illumination light irradiates a symbol on the key cap, and the other part of the illumination light irradiates the periphery of the key cap; the supporting mechanism supports the keycap to enable the keycap to move up and down relative to the base plate; the elastic recovery piece is arranged between the film circuit board and the keycap, the elastic recovery piece is provided with a top end and a bottom end which are opposite in position, the top end faces the keycap, the bottom end covers the switch and is located above the light emitting unit, and the elastic recovery piece is further provided with a shielding portion which is arranged at the bottom end to reduce the light quantity around the keycap. The utility model can arrange the shielding part on the elastic recovery piece, so that the luminous key and the luminous keyboard have better low-halo characteristics.

Description

Luminous key and luminous keyboard

Technical Field

The present invention relates to a light-emitting key and a light-emitting keyboard, and more particularly, to a light-emitting key and a light-emitting keyboard with a low halo characteristic.

Background

The traditional luminous key and the keyboard thereof are provided with a luminous unit on a circuit board, and the illuminating light output by the luminous unit passes through the corresponding holes of the bottom plate and the thin film circuit board and then passes through the elastic reset piece to irradiate the keycap, so that the keycap characters can emit decorative light. The elastic resetting piece is made of a light-transmitting material to allow illumination light to penetrate through; however, the light transmission characteristic of the elastic reset element may lead the illumination light to be projected to both sides of the key cap, that is, although part of the illumination light can be projected to the character on the key cap, a considerable part of the illumination light may still overflow from the gap between the key cap and the key cap, which affects the beauty of the light-emitting keyboard, and is an important objective to be overcome by the related mechanism design industry.

SUMMERY OF THE UTILITY MODEL

The present invention is directed to a light-emitting key with low halo characteristic to solve the above-mentioned problems.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a light-emitting key with low halo characteristic, which includes a bottom plate, a key cap, a thin film circuit board, a light-emitting unit, a supporting mechanism and an elastic restoring member. The thin film circuit board has a switch. The light emitting unit outputs illumination light having an emission angle. Part of the illuminating light irradiates the symbol on the key cap, and the other part of the illuminating light irradiates the periphery of the key cap. The supporting mechanism supports the keycap to enable the keycap to move up and down relative to the base plate. The elastic restoring piece is arranged between the film circuit board and the keycap. The elastic restoring piece is provided with a top end and a bottom end which are opposite. The top end faces the keycap, and the bottom end covers the switch and is located above the light-emitting unit. The elastic restoring piece is also provided with a shielding part which is arranged at the bottom end to reduce the light quantity around the keycap.

As an optional technical solution, the shielding portion extends outward from the outer surface of the bottom end; alternatively, the shield extends inwardly from the inner surface of the base end.

As an alternative solution, the shielding portion of the elastic restoring member is made of a material with low light transmittance.

As an optional technical solution, the shielding portion is made of a translucent material having a light transmittance of 0% to 30%.

As an optional technical solution, the body of the elastic restoring piece is a shielding portion made of a translucent material with a light transmittance greater than 40%.

As an optional technical solution, the elastic restoring member is provided with a light shielding coating on at least one of the inner surface and the outer surface of the bottom end.

As an optional technical scheme, the light-shielding coating is a coating formed by spray painting, electroplating, evaporation or printing.

As an optional technical solution, the elastic restoring member is provided with a light shielding layer on at least one of an inner side and an outer side of the shielding portion.

As an optional technical solution, the light-emitting key further includes a light-shielding layer disposed on the bottom end and a lower surface of at least one of the shielding portions.

In addition, the utility model provides a luminous keyboard which comprises the luminous key.

According to the light-emitting key and the light-emitting keyboard, the shielding part is arranged at the position, close to the bottom end, of the elastic restoring piece, and the shielding part is used for shielding part of illuminating light so as to reduce the brightness around the keycap. In a specific implementation, the shielding part is formed by utilizing the structural change, the material change, the coating change and/or the like of the elastic restoring piece, and is used for blocking the illuminating light output by the light-emitting unit and preventing the illuminating light from overflowing from the periphery of the keycap. The structure change of the elastic recovery piece can be provided with a shielding part on the inner surface and/or the outer surface of the bottom end of the elastic recovery piece, so as to reduce the peripheral light transmission amount of the elastic recovery piece and achieve the effect of reducing halation. The material of the elastic recovery piece is changed to be that the bottom end and/or the shielding part of the elastic recovery piece are made of low-light-transmittance materials, and the coating of the elastic recovery piece is changed to be that the light shielding layers are arranged on the inner surface, the outer surface, the inner side and the outer side of the bottom end and/or the shielding part of the elastic recovery piece, so that the peripheral light transmittance of the elastic recovery piece can be effectively reduced. The utility model can use one or more of structure change, material change and coating change to design the elastic restoring piece, so that the luminous key and the luminous keyboard have better low-halo characteristic.

The utility model is described in detail below with reference to the drawings and specific examples, but the utility model is not limited thereto.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is an appearance schematic diagram of a light-emitting keyboard according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 2 is an exploded view of a light-emitting key according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 3 to 13 are structural side views of elastic restoring members according to various embodiments of the present invention.

Fig. 14 is a side view of the structure of the light-emitting key according to the embodiment of the utility model.

Detailed Description

In order to further understand the objects, structures, features and functions of the present invention, the following embodiments are described in detail.

Referring to fig. 1, fig. 2 and fig. 14, fig. 1 is an external view of a light-emitting keyboard 10 according to an embodiment of the present invention, fig. 2 is an exploded view of a light-emitting key 12 according to an embodiment of the present invention, and fig. 14 is a side view of the light-emitting key 12 according to an embodiment of the present invention. The light-emitting keyboard 10 may include a plurality of light-emitting keys 12, and the number and arrangement of the plurality of light-emitting keys 12 are determined according to the language specification of the light-emitting keyboard 10, and will not be described in detail herein. The light emitting keys 12 may have a low halo characteristic by reducing light spillage by changing the internal structure of portions of the light emitting keys 12.

The illuminated key 12 may include a base 14, a key cap 16, a main circuit board 18, a membrane circuit board 20, an illumination unit 22, a support mechanism 24, and a resilient return 26. The base plate 14, the main circuit board 18, and the film circuit board 20 may be stacked on each other to be combined together; the assembly method of these plates is not limited to the mode shown in fig. 2, and depends on the design requirement. The light emitting unit 22 may be disposed on the main circuit board 18 and aligned with the break 28 of the base plate 14 and the opening 30 of the film circuit board 20. The light emitting unit 22 outputs illumination light having a specific emission angle. The illumination light can pass through the hole 28 and the opening 30, and partially illuminate the symbol a on the key cap 16, and another part (in practice, a small part of light) illuminates the periphery B of the key cap 16. The thin film circuit board 20 may have a switch 32; the switch 32 is actuated by the support mechanism 24 or the resilient return 26 to output a control command to turn on the light-emitting keys 12.

The upper end of the support mechanism 24 can be connected to the key cap 16, and the lower end of the support mechanism 24 can be assembled on the base plate 14. The support mechanism 24 is used to hold the key cap 16 so that the key cap 16 can move up and down relative to the base plate 14. The resilient return 26 may be disposed between the keycap 16 and the thin film circuit board 20. The keycap 16 is pressed to move downwards, and the elastic restoring piece 26 is extruded and deformed to store elastic restoring force; when the external force applied to the key cap 16 is removed, the elastic restoring member 26 releases its elastic restoring force to push the key cap 16 to restore to the original position under the support of the supporting mechanism 24.

The illumination light output from the light emitting unit 22 passes through the hole 28 and the opening 30, and then passes through the elastic restoring member 26 to reach the key cap 16. The resilient return member 26 may be made of a light-transmissive material and has a top end 34 and a bottom end 36 opposite to each other. The tip 34 is of smaller radial dimension and is positioned towards the key cap 16. The bottom end 36 is larger in radial dimension, covers the switch 32, and is located above the light emitting unit 22. In order to prevent the illumination light from partially leaking through the resilient return 26 and causing a significant portion of the illumination light to leak out of the gap between adjacent key caps, the illuminated key 12 of the present invention may include a shielding portion 38 disposed around the bottom end 36 of the resilient return 26, the shielding portion 38 being used to shield a portion of the illumination light to reduce the amount of light around the key caps 16. The shape, size and position of the shielding portion 38 are not limited to the shape shown in fig. 2, and the shape, size and position are determined according to design requirements. In practice, blocking part of the illumination light can be regarded as blocking in addition to blocking part of the illumination light.

Referring to fig. 3 to 13, fig. 3 to 13 are structural side views of the elastic restoring member 26 according to various embodiments of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 3, the curtain portion 38 can extend outwardly from an outer surface 40 of the bottom end 36. The angle and length of the outward extension of the shade 38 is not limited to the aspect shown in FIG. 3; further, the shielding portion 38 may have a straight strip structure, an arc structure, or a bent structure. It is within the contemplation of the utility model that the shroud 38 can expand the radial dimension of the bottom end 36. As shown in fig. 4, the curtain 38 may extend inwardly from the inner surface 42 of the bottom end 36 with the purpose of reducing the amount of light that enters the interior chamber 44 of the resilient return 26; the angle, length and shape of the inward extending portion 38 are not limited to the shape shown in fig. 4, and the shape is determined according to the design requirement.

As shown in fig. 5, when the body and the top end 34 of the elastic restoring member 26 are made of a common transparent material, the light transmittance thereof is greater than 40%, i.e. the body of the elastic restoring member 26 is made of a transparent material having a light transmittance greater than 40%. The bottom end 36 can be made of a material with low light transmittance, which is defined herein as 0% to 30% light transmittance, i.e., the shielding portion 38 is made of a material with light transmittance of 0% to 30%. This reduces the amount of illumination light passing through the bottom end 36; in this embodiment, the shielding portion 38 can be made of a material with a general light transmittance or a material with a low light transmittance, as shown in fig. 6. Alternatively, the bottom end 36 of the resilient return 26 can be made of a material with low optical transparency, which further reduces the amount of illumination passing through the bottom end 36; in this embodiment, the bottom end 36 can be selectively provided with the shielding portion 38, and the shielding portion 38 can be selectively made of a generally transparent material or a low-transparency material, as shown in fig. 7. The low light transmission material of fig. 5 to 7 is shown in a checkered pattern.

As shown in FIG. 8, the present invention may also be used to form the lower surface 46 of the resilient restoring member 26 from a material having low light transmission; the present invention may only design the bottom surface 46 of the bottom end 36 as a low light transmission material, or both the bottom end 36 and the bottom surface 46 thereof as a low light transmission material, depending on the design requirements. Particularly, the transmittance of the low-transmittance material may be slightly lower than that of the general light-transmitting material, or may be much lower than that of the general light-transmitting material so as to achieve the function of being incapable of transmitting light. The light transmittance of the material is selected according to design requirements, so the related parameter characteristics of the low light transmittance material are not described in detail.

In one embodiment, the shielding portion is a light shielding coating disposed on at least one of the inner surface and the outer surface of the resilient restoring member 26 at the bottom end 36. As shown in fig. 9, the present invention may optionally include a light blocking coating 48 on the inner surface 42 of the bottom end 36 of the resilient return 26; the light blocking coating 48 may be applied to the inner surface 42 by painting, plating, evaporation, printing or other coating means, and may be any material having a light blocking function. Alternatively, as shown in FIG. 10, the present invention may optionally include a light blocking coating 48 on the outer surface 40 and the inner surface 42, respectively, of the bottom end 36.

The embodiment of figures 8-10 does not include a shield 38 at the bottom end 36 of the resilient return 26. In practice, when the elastic restoring member 26 is provided with the shielding portion 38, a light shielding layer may be provided on at least one of the inner side and the outer side of the shielding portion 38. As shown in FIG. 11, if the shield portion 38 is disposed on the outer surface 40 of the base end 36, the present invention may alternatively include a light shield layer 48 disposed on an outer side 50 of the shield portion 38. As shown in fig. 12, if the shielding portion 38 is provided on the inner surface 42 of the base end 36, the present invention can provide the light shielding layer 48 on the inner side 52 of the shielding portion 38. Alternatively, the foregoing embodiments may be combined with the embodiments shown in fig. 11 and 12, and if the shielding portion 38 is disposed on the outer surface 40 of the bottom end 36, the light shielding layer 48 may be disposed on the outer side 50 of the shielding portion 38 and the inner surface 42 of the bottom end 36; if the shield portion 38 is disposed on the inner surface 42 of the base end 36, the light shield layer 48 can be disposed on the inner side 52 of the shield portion 38 and the outer surface 40 of the base end 36.

As shown in FIG. 13, regardless of whether the shielding portion 38 is disposed on the outer surface 40 or the inner surface 42 of the bottom end 36, the present invention may optionally include a light shielding layer 48 disposed on the bottom surface 46 of at least one of the bottom end 36 and the shielding portion 38. The present invention does not limit the parameters of the material, thickness and area of the light shielding layer 48, and the light shielding layer 48 that can be quickly and stably attached to a predetermined position and can provide the illumination light shielding function according to the actual requirement is within the scope of the present invention, so further material and structural features of the light shielding layer 48 will not be explained in detail.

In summary, in the light-emitting key and the light-emitting keyboard of the embodiments of the utility model, the shielding portion is disposed near the bottom end of the elastic restoring member, and the shielding portion is used to shield part of the illumination light to reduce the light around the keycap. In a specific implementation, the shielding part is formed by utilizing the structural change, the material change, the coating change and/or the like of the elastic restoring piece, and is used for blocking the illuminating light output by the light-emitting unit and preventing the illuminating light from overflowing from the periphery of the keycap. The structure change of the elastic recovery piece can be provided with a shielding part on the inner surface and/or the outer surface of the bottom end of the elastic recovery piece, so as to reduce the peripheral light transmission amount of the elastic recovery piece and achieve the effect of reducing halation. The material of the elastic recovery piece is changed to be that the bottom end and/or the shielding part of the elastic recovery piece are made of low-light-transmittance materials, and the coating of the elastic recovery piece is changed to be that the light shielding layers are arranged on the inner surface, the outer surface, the inner side and the outer side of the bottom end and/or the shielding part of the elastic recovery piece, so that the peripheral light transmittance of the elastic recovery piece can be effectively reduced. The utility model can use one or more of structure change, material change and coating change to design the elastic restoring piece, so that the luminous key and the luminous keyboard thereof have better low-halo characteristic.

The present invention is capable of other embodiments, and various changes and modifications may be made by one skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the utility model.

Claims

1. A light-emitting key, comprising:

a base plate;

a keycap;

a thin film circuit board having a switch;

a light emitting unit outputting illumination light having an emission angle, a part of the illumination light illuminating a symbol on the key cap, and another part of the illumination light illuminating a periphery of the key cap;

the supporting mechanism is used for supporting the keycap to enable the keycap to move up and down relative to the base plate; and

the elastic recovery piece is arranged between the film circuit board and the keycap and provided with a top end and a bottom end which are opposite in position, the top end faces the keycap, the bottom end covers the switch and is positioned above the light emitting unit, and the elastic recovery piece is also provided with a shielding part which is close to the bottom end and used for shielding part of the illumination light so as to reduce the light quantity around the keycap.

2. The illuminated key of claim 1, wherein the shielding portion extends outwardly from an outer surface of the bottom end; alternatively, the shield extends inwardly from the inner surface of the base end.

3. The luminescent key according to claim 1, wherein the shielding portion is made of a translucent material having a light transmittance of 0% to 30%.

4. The luminescent key of claim 3, wherein the body of the resilient member is a shielding portion made of a translucent material having a transmittance of more than 40%.

5. The illuminated key of claim 1, wherein the shielding portion has a light-shielding coating on at least one of an inner surface and an outer surface of the bottom end.

6. The luminescent key of claim 5, wherein the light-shielding coating is formed by painting, plating, evaporating or printing.

7. The light-emitting key of claim 1, wherein a light-shielding layer is further disposed on at least one of an inner side and an outer side of the shielding portion.

8. The light-emitting key of claim 1, wherein a light-shielding layer is further disposed on the bottom end of the light-emitting key and on the lower surface of at least one of the shielding portions.

9. The illuminated key of claim 1, wherein the shielding portion has a straight structure, an arc structure or a bent structure.

10. A light-emitting keyboard comprising the light-emitting key according to any one of claims 1 to 9.