JP2000111363A - Lighting structure of instrument for vehicle - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To eliminate the need for a light-guiding plate as another member and an endsheet that projects in a case by using a dial also as the display part of an indicator and to expand the degree of freedom of indicator design. SOLUTION: Cloth 20 of a dial 6 of a meter 1 is made of a transparent material and the cloth 20 is extended to an indicator housing 4, and a reverse side printing 21 is made to the reverse side of the cloth 20 while remaining a non-printed part 26 around the indicator housing 4. Then, indicator design 12 is formed at the non-printed part 26, a non-transmission surface print part 22 is provided on the surface of the dial 6 except a display part 27 of the indicator design 12, and light from a light source 5 is introduced from the non-printed part 26 outside the indicator housing 4 into the cloth 20, thus lighting up a guide.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a lighting structure of a vehicle instrument, and more particularly to an improvement of a lighting structure of an indicator.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, as an instrument for a vehicle of an automatic car, a structure in which an indicator 2 for displaying an operation position of a shift lever is provided on a side of a meter 1 as shown in FIG. 5 is generally known. .

That is, an indicator housing 4 is provided on the side of the meter case 3, a light source 5 and a dial 6 are mounted on the meter case 3, a lens 7 is provided on the indicator housing 4, and acrylic or polycarbonate or the like is provided thereon. A light guide plate 8 for a guide light made of a transparent resin is provided. A dial 9 is provided over the light guide plate 8 and the dial 6, and the indicator design 12 can be visually recognized from an opening 11 of the dial 9. An indicator light source 13 is attached to the bottom of the indicator housing 4.

The light guide plate 8 has an indicator design 12 for displaying the position of the shift lever printed on the back surface, and tapered light introducing portions 14 formed on both end surfaces. The dial 6 is illuminated with the light from the light source 5 and the entire light guide plate 8 is illuminated with the light introduced into the light introducing unit 14.

[0005]

In the above-mentioned lighting structure, the light guide plate 8 is separate from the dial 6 of the meter 1, so that the number of parts is increased by that much, and the light guide plate 8 and the dial 1 It is necessary to cover the gap between the indicator design 12 and prevent the leakage of light, so that the design restrictions around the indicator design 12 increase, and the gap between the indicator opening 11 and the indicator design 12 due to the facing 9 easily occurs. There is.

The present invention has been made in view of the above points. By using a dial as a display portion of an indicator, a light guide plate as another member and a counterpart projecting into a case are not required. An object of the present invention is to provide a lighting structure of a vehicle instrument that can increase the degree of freedom of an indicator design.

[0007]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, an indicator is provided on a side of a meter, and a light source of the meter guides the indicator to illuminate the indicator. Lighting structure,
The fabric of the dial of the meter is made of a transparent material, the fabric is extended to the indicator housing, and a back side printing is formed on the back side of the fabric leaving a non-printed portion around the indicator housing. The indicator design is formed on a printing portion, and an impermeable surface printing portion is applied to a surface of the dial except for a display portion of the indicator design, and the non-printing portion located outside the indicator housing is provided. The light from the light source is introduced into the fabric from a portion to guide and illuminate the indicator design.

Therefore, in the first aspect of the invention, the light of the light source enters the fabric from the non-printed portion, is reflected by the front surface printed portion, enters the indicator, and illuminates the indicator design. Therefore, guide illumination of the indicator design can be performed without using a light guide plate as another member or a facing protruding into the case.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided an illumination structure for a vehicle instrument according to the first aspect, wherein the back side printing includes:
It is a white print for performing indirect illumination by reflecting the light of the light source.

Therefore, according to the second aspect of the present invention, the light from the light source can be efficiently reflected by white printing, and the amount of light for indirect illumination can be increased.

[0011] The invention according to claim 3 is the invention according to claim 1 or 2.
The lighting structure of the vehicle instrument according to the above aspect, wherein the surface printing portion is configured by lower-layer white printing and ground color printing thereon, and the indicator design is trimmed by the ground color printing. It is characterized by the following.

Therefore, according to the third aspect of the present invention, light can be efficiently reflected by white printing, and a border design of an indicator design can be formed by ground color printing.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided the lighting structure of the instrument for a vehicle according to any one of the first to third aspects, wherein the non-printed portion is printed with the toning design of the indicator design. It is characterized by the following.

Therefore, according to the invention of claim 4, visibility of the indicator design can be improved by toning printing.

[0015]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. The same members or those having the same functions as those in FIGS. 5 and 6 are denoted by the same reference numerals.

FIG. 1 is an exploded perspective view of a vehicle instrument provided with the lighting structure of the present invention.
A facing attached to the front side of the case 3, a front glass attached to the facing, a wiring board 29 attached to the rear side of the case 3, and a rear face of the case 3 so as to cover the wiring board 29. And a cover 30 attached to the side. In FIG. 1, the look back and the front glass are not shown.

For example, as shown in the figure, the wiring board 29 is provided with four locking holes 15 at four locations corresponding to the tachometer, and four terminals 16 mounted thereon. 5 are electrically connected. And the wiring board 29
Are mounted on the rear side of the case 3 with the locking holes 15, the terminals 16, and the light source 5 facing the holes 3a formed in the bottom of the case 3. With this attachment, the light source 5 and the terminal 16 are arranged in the case 3.

An indicator housing 4 is integrally provided in the case 3 within an area where the dial 6 of the tachometer is mounted.

FIG. 2 is a rear view of the dial, in which an inner unit 17 is provided on the back side of the dial 6, and a pointer 28 (FIG. 1) is attached to a pointer shaft of the inner unit 17. . The inner unit 17 is supported and attached to a support member 32 which is attached by screwing to the back surface of the dial 6. The supporting member 32 includes a leg 18 having a locking claw 18a at a lower end and a socket 1 having a terminal of the inner unit 17 provided inside.
9 are provided. The latch claw 18a is fitted into the latch hole 15, the terminal 16 is inserted into the socket 19, and the dial 6 is attached to the front of the case 3.

In FIG. 4, the dial 6 has a cloth 20 made of a transparent resin material. The cloth 20 is extended up to the indicator housing 4 and arranged on the lens 7. On the back side of the fabric 20, a back side print 21 is formed at a portion corresponding to the meter display section. This back side printing 2
Numeral 1 is for reflecting the light of the light source 5 to perform indirect illumination of the dial 6, and is preferably white printing which easily reflects the light.
The cloth 20 is made of a transparent resin plate that is slightly thicker (for example, 0.8 mm) than a conventional dial cloth (about 0.5 mm thick).

The back side printing 21 is not printed around the indicator housing 4 and is a non-printing portion 26. As shown in FIG. 3, the non-printing portion 26 has an indicator design 1 for displaying a shift lever position.
2 is printed. By making the area of the non-printing portion 26 larger than the area of the upper end of the indicator housing 4, a predetermined dimension W is formed between the end of the back side printing 21 and the indicator housing 4 (see FIG. 4). The light of the light source 5 can be introduced into the fabric 20 from the non-printing portion 26 of W. The amount of light introduced is determined by the width of the dimension W, and the brightness of the guide illumination of the indicator can be arbitrarily set.

At this time, the non-printing portion 26 is preferably formed by performing toning printing of the indicator design 12. This printing for toning has a light-transmitting property, and is performed in order to perform color adjustment between the individual designs constituting the indicator design 12 and guide illumination without variation in brightness, and thereby, The visibility of the indicator design can be improved.

On the front side of the fabric 20, a front surface printing portion 22 is provided except for an upper portion of the indicator design 12. Therefore, the vicinity of the upper portion of the indicator design 12 is an open display section 27.

The front printing portion 22 is provided with a lower white printing 2
3 and the background color printing on it. In this embodiment, the ground color printing includes a black print 24 on a white print 23 and a ground color print 25 on the black print 24. The black print 24 is exposed on the surface of the dial 6 by the portion where the ground color print 25 is removed, thereby forming a dial design 25 (see FIG. 1).

The edge 24a of the black print 24 is the white print 2
3 protrudes from the end portion of the indicator design 12, and the periphery of each character P, R,... Of the indicator design 12 is bordered by the edge portion 24a. These characters of the indicator design 12 can be visually recognized from the display unit 27 on the front surface side through the transparent fabric 20.

When the dial 6 is viewed from the back side, a white print 23 on the front side is seen through the non-printed portion 26 around the edge 24a as shown in FIG. The back side print 21 is formed.

The ground color printing is not only configured as a two-layer structure of different colors (black printing 24 and ground color printing 25) as in this embodiment, but also configured as a single-layer structure of the ground color printing 25 only. You can also.

In FIG. 4, the light from the light source 5 is
, And enters the indicator portion 2 while being reflected by the white print 23 and alternately reflected on the back surface and the upper surface of the fabric 20, and guide-illuminates the indicator design 12 and its periphery.

The light from the light source 5 also strikes the back side print 21 and is reflected. The reflected light is reflected on the side wall of the case 3 to indirectly illuminate the dial 6. The back side printing 21 is preferably white printing, but may be another color. Displaying the position of the shift lever with the indicator light source 13 is the same as in the related art.

As described above, in the lighting structure of the vehicle instrument according to the present embodiment, the fabric 20 of the dial 6 is extended to the indicator housing 4, and the indicator design 12 is placed on the non-printing portion 26 where the back surface printing 21 is removed. Light source 5
Is introduced from the non-printed portion 26 to the portion of the indicator design 12 to perform the guide illumination, so that a light guide plate as another member or a facing protruding into the case 3 becomes unnecessary, and the indicator design 12 and the Since the indicator design 12 can be freely designed with the front surface printed portion 22 and the display portion 27 is formed with the front surface printed portion 22, no deviation occurs between the display portion 27 and the indicator design 12.

[0031]

As described above in detail, according to the first aspect of the present invention, the fabric of the dial of the meter is made of a transparent material and extended to the indicator housing, and the indicator design is formed thereon. At the same time, the light of the light source is introduced into the fabric to guide the indicator design, so that the indicator can be illuminated without using a light guide plate as another member or a facing that projects into the case. In addition to the reduction, there is no protruding look in the case, so that the indicator design can be designed freely, and there is no deviation between the indicator design and the surface display portion, so that a high-quality lighting structure can be obtained.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, since the back side printing is white printing, in addition to the effect of the first aspect, the light of the light source is efficiently reflected to reduce the amount of light for indirect illumination. Can be increased.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, the front surface printing portion is composed of the lowermost layer white printing, the black printing thereon, and the uppermost background color printing, and the border of the indicator design is printed by black printing. Therefore, in addition to the effects of the invention described in claim 1 or 2, light can be efficiently reflected by white printing, and a border design of the indicator design can be freely formed by black printing.

According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, the visibility of the indicator design can be improved by toning printing, and in addition to the effects of the first to third aspects of the present invention, The lighting quality of the instrument for vehicles can be improved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an exploded perspective view showing an embodiment of a lighting structure for a vehicle instrument of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a rear perspective view of the dial portion of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a rear perspective view of an indicator design portion.

FIG. 4 is a longitudinal sectional side view of a main part of a lighting structure of a vehicle instrument according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a vertical side view of a conventional lighting structure of a vehicle instrument.

FIG. 6 is a perspective view of the light guide plate of FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Meter 4 Indicator housing 6 Dial 12 Indicator design 20 Fabric 22 Front printing part 21 Back printing 23 White printing 24 Black printing 25 Background printing 26 Non-printing part 27 Display part

Continued on the front page F term (reference) 2F074 AA02 BB01 CC01 CC05 DD03 EE02 EE03 FF01 GG03 GG10 2F078 FA07 FB12 FB50 FC05 FD16 FE02 FE12 FE18 FE29 FE33 FE47 3D036 CA10 GH06 GJ01 3J052 AA20 GA17

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. An illumination structure for a vehicle instrument comprising an indicator on a side portion of a meter, and a guide light for illuminating the indicator with a light source of the meter, wherein a material of a dial of the meter is made of a transparent material. The fabric is extended to the indicator housing, the back surface of the fabric is printed on the back surface leaving a non-printed portion around the indicator housing, the indicator design is formed on the non-printed portion, and the character The surface of the plate is provided with an impermeable surface printing portion except for the display portion of the indicator design, and the light of the light source is introduced into the fabric from the non-printing portion located outside the indicator housing. And a guide illumination for said indicator design. 2. The lighting structure of a vehicle instrument according to claim 1, wherein said back side printing is white printing for reflecting light of said light source to perform indirect lighting. 3. The surface printing unit includes: a lower layer white printing;
The lighting structure of a vehicle instrument according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the indicator design is configured to be framed by the background color printing. 4. A printing method according to claim 1, wherein said non-printed portion is printed with a color toning of said indicator design.
The lighting structure of a vehicle instrument according to any one of the preceding claims.