JP2009048859A - Operation key, electronic equipment, and manufacturing method of operation key - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To reduce manufacturing man hour of an illumination type operation key, and do away with deviation of a concave marking part of a symbol and transmission light. <P>SOLUTION: A base body 24 of the operation key 20 is provided with a groove 29 along a peripheral edge part of the bottom face 27 of a concave marking part 21. The base body 24 is made of a transparent or a translucent material. In a forming process of a metal coating, the metal coating is either not formed at a groove 29 part, or is formed as more thinly at the groove 29 part than at the other part, as to transmit visible light, As a result, light projected from a rear-face side of the concave marking part 21 is transmitted toward a top-face 23 side only at a peripheral edge part of the bottom face 27 of the concave marking part 21. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an electronic device having a stamped operation key, and more particularly to an operation key in which a stamped portion is illuminated from the inside and an electronic device having the same.

  Usually, in an electronic device having an operation key such as a mobile phone, symbols representing characters, symbols, functions, etc. assigned to the operation key are recorded on the top of the key. The recording of the symbol is not simply printed, but may be recorded with a concave stamp from the viewpoint of symbol durability and decoration (see Patent Document 1).

  Further, the operation keys are often formed of a synthetic resin from the viewpoint of ease of processing and weight. On the surface of the operation key made of synthetic resin, a metal film by vapor deposition or sputtering may be formed to give a high-class feeling.

Further, an illumination type operation key that illuminates an operation key from the inside so that a user of the electronic device can see even in a dark space is also known (see Patent Document 1).
JP 2005-071728 A

  Even when a metal film is formed by vapor deposition or sputtering, it is possible to allow the light emitted from the light source inside the electronic device body to pass through the operation key by sufficiently reducing the thickness of the metal film.

  However, in this case, since the light is transmitted from the entire operation key, it is not possible to make only the portion where the symbol is recessed marked. Moreover, when the metal film of the whole key is too thin, the original effect of providing the metal film is reduced.

  When a metal film with sufficient thickness is formed on the operation key, the metal film does not transmit light. Therefore, it is necessary to cut out the metal film on the top surface of the operation key into a symbol shape by processing such as laser cutting to emit light in the shape of the symbol. There is. For this reason, when processing such as laser cutting is involved, the processing steps are added to all target operation keys, which is disadvantageous in terms of manufacturing man-hours and costs.

  In addition, when laser cutting is performed in the same shape as the concave stamped part, it is difficult to increase the accuracy of laser cutting in consideration of general mass productivity, and the position of the laser cut with respect to the concave stamped part varies, and the position There was also a problem in terms of quality that deviation occurred.

  The present invention has been made in such a background, and it is intended to reduce the number of manufacturing steps of the illumination type operation key and to eliminate the deviation between the concave marking portion of the symbol and the transmitted light.

  In general, in the metal film forming process, if there is a fine recess on the surface on which the metal film is to be formed, the metal film is not formed in the fine recess, or even if formed, the film thickness is visible compared to other parts. In some cases, the film becomes extremely thin to the extent that it passes through. Therefore, in order to prevent such a defective film formation, it has been a conventional practice that such fine concave portions are not formed on the target surface on which the metal film is to be formed. On the contrary, the present invention achieves the problem by actively utilizing such poor film formation.

  That is, the operation key according to the present invention is an operation key in which a metal film is formed on a base made of a transparent or translucent material having a concave stamped portion on the top surface, and the base has a concave stamped portion. There is a groove along the peripheral edge of the bottom surface, and the metal film is not formed in the groove part in the metal film forming step, or the metal film is in another part of the groove to the extent that visible light is transmitted. The light projected from the back side of the marking portion is transmitted to the top surface side of the operation key only at the peripheral edge of the bottom surface of the marking portion.

  An electronic device according to the present invention is an electronic device provided with such operation keys.

  Furthermore, the manufacturing method of the operation key according to the present invention is a manufacturing method of the operation key as described above, which is a mold corresponding to the operation key, and a groove is formed in a peripheral portion of the bottom surface of the marking portion. A step of creating a mold having a convex portion corresponding to the groove, a step of creating an operation key with a transparent or translucent material using the mold, and a metal film on the surface of the operation key Forming a metal film, and as a result of the step of forming the metal film, the metal film is not formed on the groove part or the metal film is formed on the groove part to the extent that visible light is transmitted. It is characterized by being formed thinner than the above.

  According to the present invention, after the operation keys are subjected to film formation processing such as vapor deposition and sputtering, the process of removing the metal film in a symbol shape such as laser cutting for each operation key can be made unnecessary. . Therefore, the manufacturing process can be simplified, the manufacturing time can be shortened, and the manufacturing cost can be reduced.

  Further, by eliminating the laser cutting process for the concave marking part, it is possible to avoid the deviation between the symbol and the concave marking part based on the processing accuracy of laser cutting. In particular, the shape of the transmitted light can be made to completely match the shape of the concave stamped portion by performing the film forming process in the state where the groove is formed along the bottom peripheral edge portion of the concave stamped portion in the base.

  DESCRIPTION OF EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 shows an external view of a mobile phone terminal 100 as an example of an electronic apparatus to which the present invention is applied. In this embodiment mode, a two-fold type mobile phone terminal is shown, but the present invention is not limited to a two-fold type, and any type of housing such as a so-called straight type or slide type may be used. Further, the present invention is not limited to the mobile phone terminal, and the present invention can be applied to any electronic device having an illumination type operation key.

  The mobile phone terminal 100 includes a hinge portion 118, a cover portion 114 and a main body portion 125 that are connected to the hinge portion 118 so as to be opened and closed. A speaker 112 is arranged on the upper surface of the inner side of the cover unit 114, and a display unit 116 (for example, a flat display device such as a liquid crystal display) is arranged on the inner main surface.

  On the inner surface of the main body 125, a donut-shaped direction instruction key (also referred to as a cursor movement key) 120 and an enter key 121 arranged at the center thereof are arranged at the upper center, and soft keys 117a and 117b are arranged at both side ends. Has been. The soft keys 117a and 117b are operation keys to which arbitrary functions are assigned corresponding to various menus and screens, and the assigned functions are informed to the user by the display contents of the key operation display area. Below these operation keys, a call key 122, a clear key 123, and a power key / end key 124 are arranged. Further, a numeric key 128 is disposed below the memo key 130 and a manner key 131 are disposed below them. A microphone 132 is disposed at the bottom of the main body 125.

  It is arbitrary whether the illumination type operation key of the present invention is adopted for all of the various operation keys as described above or only for a part of the operation keys (for example, the direction instruction key 120). Can be determined according to In the present embodiment, it is applied to the direction key 120 and the enter key 121, and the symbols 120a to 120d and 121a are moved up and down with the structure according to the present invention.

  FIG. 2 shows a schematic configuration example of an operation key (key top) 10 of a conventional electronic apparatus for comparison with the present invention. 2 (a) is a plan view of the operation key 10, FIG. 2 (b) is a right side view thereof, FIG. 2 (c) is a sectional view taken along the line CC of FIG. 2 (a), and FIG. It is an enlarged view of D section of Drawing 2 (c).

  The operation key 10 has a base 14 made of a transparent or translucent material having a concave marking on the top surface. As a material for such operation keys, synthetic resin materials such as polycarbonate and ABS are generally used. Moreover, you may provide an elastic part in an operation key in combination with a silicon rubber.

  A concave marking 11 is formed on the top surface 13 of the base 14. A lower portion of the base 14 has a flange portion 15 extending in the horizontal direction.

  On the upper surface of the operation key 10 having the concave marking portion 11, a metal coating 18 including the concave marking portion 11 is formed by a coating forming process such as vapor deposition or sputtering. On the bottom surface 17 of the concave marking portion 11, although not shown, the metal coating 18 is removed in a shape corresponding to the symbol by laser cutting. In this example, a square (□) symbol is shown as an example, but the present invention is not limited to this.

  As shown in FIG. 2 (c), light (visible light) projected from the inside of the operation key 10 (behind the concave marking portion 11) passes to the top side of the operation key in the symbol shape of the concave marking portion 11. To do. However, as described above, the laser processing not only requires a processing time, but a processing shift due to processing accuracy may occur.

  Corresponding to the conventional example of FIG. 2, FIG. 3 shows a schematic configuration example of the operation key (key top) 20 of the electronic apparatus of the present embodiment. 3A is a plan view of the operation key 20, FIG. 3B is a right side view thereof, FIG. 3C is a cross-sectional view taken along the line CC of FIG. 3A, and FIG. It is an enlarged view of D section of Drawing 3 (c).

  The operation key 20 has a base 24 made of a transparent or translucent material. A concave marking 21 is formed on the top surface 23 of the base 24. A lower portion of the base 24 has a flange portion 25 that extends in the horizontal direction. However, the flange portion 25 is not an essential component for the present invention.

  On the upper surface of the operation key 20 having the concave marking portion 21, a metal film 28 including the concave marking portion 21 is formed by vapor deposition or sputtering. The configuration so far is the same as the configuration of the operation key 10 shown in FIG. 2, but the base 24 has a groove 29 along the peripheral edge of the bottom surface 27 of the concave concave marking portion 21. In the step of forming the metal film 28, the metal film is not formed on the groove 29, or the metal film is formed thinner on the groove than the other parts to the extent that visible light is transmitted. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 3C, light (visible light) projected from the inside of the operation key 20 (behind the concave marking portion 21) by a light source (not shown) provided inside the electronic device main body. Passes to the top surface side of the operation key only at the peripheral edge portion of the bottom surface 27 of the concave marking portion 21. As the light source, a different light source may be provided for each operation key or symbol as required, or one or a plurality of light sources may be provided in common for a plurality of operation keys or symbols.

  The operation key (key top) 20 is formed by a manufacturing method such as injection molding using a mold, and the operation key of the same symbol is formed with the concave marking portion 21 having the same shape including the groove 29 at the same position. . Accordingly, the grooves 29 for all the operation keys have the same shape as the outer shape of the concave marking portion 21, and thus the light transmitted through the operation keys 20 looks exactly in the shape of the concave marking portion 21.

  FIG. 4 shows some examples of grooves as “fine concave portions” formed along the peripheral edge portion of the bottom surface 27 of the concave marking portion 21 of the base body 14 in the present embodiment. FIG. 4A is an enlarged cross-sectional view of a part of FIG. In the cross-sectional view of the groove 29a, an angle formed by the wall surface 26 of the concave portion of the concave marking portion 21 and the inclined surface 30a formed along the peripheral edge portion of the bottom surface 27 is defined as an angle α. The angle α at which the object of the present invention can be achieved can be determined experimentally or empirically in a specific metal film forming environment. In the drawing, the case where the angle α is an acute angle (less than 90 °) is shown. Such a groove 29a constitutes a fine recess, and in the step of forming the metal film 28, the metal film is not formed or the metal film is compared with other parts to the extent that visible light is transmitted. And thin.

  FIG. 4B shows a groove 29b as a modification of the groove 29a of FIG. The groove 29b has a shape in which the inclined surface 30b is curved upwardly.

  FIG. 4C shows another example of a “fine recess”. The groove 29c in this example is a groove having a rectangular cross section with a width x and a depth y. The groove width x is narrower than the predetermined width Δx, and the groove depth y is deeper than the predetermined depth Δy. The predetermined width Δx and depth Δy can be determined experimentally or empirically in a specific metal film formation environment.

  Here, the procedure of the operation key manufacturing method in the present embodiment will be compared with the conventional method.

  FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a procedure of a conventional method for manufacturing an illumination type operation key. In this procedure, first, a mold for an operation key (key top) is created by a known method (S11). Using the mold, an operation key is created by a known method such as injection molding (S12). Next, a metal film is formed on the surface of the operation key by a known film forming method such as vapor deposition or sputtering (S13). Thereafter, symbols corresponding to the individual operation keys are formed on the surface of the operation keys using a known processing method such as laser cutting (S14).

  On the other hand, FIG. 6 shows a flowchart showing the procedure of the manufacturing method of the illumination type operation key in the present embodiment.

  First, a mold for an operation key (key top) is created by a known method (S21). For this purpose, for example, a method called electroforming can be used. “Electroforming” is a method in which the metal melted in the electrolytic solution by electrolysis is electrodeposited on the master (master), and the same mold as the original is precisely duplicated, with higher accuracy than normal machining The object can be reproduced in detail. Therefore, if the groove 29 is provided in the original mold, a convex portion corresponding to the groove 29 is formed in a mold created from the original mold. Further, the same resin shape as that of the original mold is molded from this mold. However, the present invention is not limited to the use of electroforming.

  Using the mold thus formed, an operation key is created by a known method such as injection molding (S22). Next, a metal film is formed on the surface of the operation key by a known film forming method such as vapor deposition or sputtering (S23). In the present invention, at this stage, the metal film is not formed on the portion of the groove 29, or the groove 29 is formed so thin that light can be transmitted. As a result, the light projected from the back side of the concave marking portion is transmitted to the top surface side of the operation key only at the peripheral edge of the bottom surface of the concave marking portion. In addition, the processing corresponding to the conventional step S14 for processing the symbol corresponding to each operation key on the surface of the operation key using a known processing method such as laser cutting becomes unnecessary.

  As described above, according to the present embodiment, it is possible to realize improvement in quality, cost advantage, and mass productivity (reduction of part manufacturing time) by realizing without an additional process such as conventional laser cutting. Can be realized.

  The preferred embodiments of the present invention have been described above, but various modifications and changes other than those mentioned above can be made. For example, although only a mobile phone terminal has been described as an electronic device, the present invention can be applied to any electronic device such as a personal digital assistant (PDA), a PC, a game machine, and an electronic dictionary. Further, the electronic device is not limited to a portable device.

1 is an external view of a mobile phone terminal as an example of an electronic apparatus to which the present invention is applied. It is the figure which showed the example of a rough structure of the operation key (key top) of the conventional electronic device for contrast with this invention. It is the figure which showed the example of a schematic structure of the operation key (key top) of the electronic device of embodiment of this invention. In embodiment of this invention, it is the figure which showed some examples of the groove | channel as a fine recessed part formed along the peripheral part of the bottom face of the concave marking part of a base | substrate. It is the flowchart which showed the procedure of the manufacturing method of the conventional illumination type operation key. It is the flowchart which showed the procedure of the manufacturing method of the illumination type operation key in embodiment of this invention.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 20 ... Operation key, 21 ... Concave marking part, 23 ... Top surface, 24 ... Base | substrate, 25 ... Flange part, 26 ... Wall surface, 27 ... Bottom surface, 28 ... Metal coating, 29 ... Groove, 29a ... Groove, 29b ... Groove, 29c ... groove, 30a ... inclined surface, 30b ... inclined surface, 100 ... mobile phone terminal

Claims (3)

An operation key in which a metal film is formed on a base made of a transparent or translucent material having a concave marking on the top surface,
The base has a groove along the bottom peripheral edge of the concave marking part, and the metal film is not formed on the groove part in the metal film forming step, or the groove is formed so that visible light is transmitted. A metal film is formed thinner on the part than on the other part, and light projected from the back side of the marking part is transmitted to the top side of the operation key only at the peripheral edge of the bottom face of the marking part. Operation key. An electronic device comprising: an operation key having a metal film formed on a base made of a transparent or translucent material having a concave marking on the top surface; and an illuminating means for illuminating from behind the operation key. ,
The base of the operation key has a groove along the bottom peripheral edge of the concave marking part, and the metal film is not formed on the groove part in the metal film forming step, or the visible light is transmitted. Further, the groove is formed with a metal film thinner than other portions, and the light projected from the back side of the marking portion passes only to the top surface side of the operation key only at the peripheral edge of the bottom surface of the marking portion. Electronic equipment characterized by A method of manufacturing an operation key in which a metal film is formed on a base made of a transparent or translucent material having a concave marking on the top surface,
A mold corresponding to the operation key, and creating a mold having a convex portion corresponding to the groove so that a groove is formed on a peripheral edge of the bottom surface of the marking portion;
Creating an operation key with a transparent or translucent material using the mold;
Forming a metal film on the surface of the operation key,
As a result of the step of forming the metal film, the metal film is not formed in the groove portion, or the metal film is formed in the groove portion so as to be thin enough to transmit visible light compared to other portions. An operation key manufacturing method characterized by the above.

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