JP6249791B2 - Scale ring illumination device - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a scale ring illumination device.

  Vehicles such as automobiles are provided with a vehicle instrument device for displaying various types of driving information in the front part of the passenger compartment. And this lighting device for vehicles is equipped with the illuminating device for performing night illumination, decoration lighting, etc. (for example, refer to patent documents 1). Such an illumination device for a vehicle instrument includes a scale ring illumination device that illuminates a scale ring installed on the surface of a dial of the vehicle instrument device.

Japanese Patent No. 4758953

However, in the above-described scale ring illumination device, there may be a phenomenon in which the illumination of the scale portion formed on the scale ring looks dark depending on the situation.
This phenomenon is caused by a dark part in the back of the scale part (light transmission part) being looked into from the outside due to the position and angle at which the scale part is viewed and the refraction of light on the surface of the scale part. In addition, the dark part inside a ring main body is an outer surface of a ring main body.
For this reason, conventionally, by applying a white coating with high light reflectance to the outer side surface of the ring main body, the illumination of the scale ring is not felt dark even when viewed from the outside.
However, the above-described white coating is partly applied to the outer peripheral surface of the ring main body by a coating means such as mask coating, and thus costs and labor are required.

  Therefore, the main object of the present invention is to solve the above-described problems and prevent a phenomenon in which the illumination on the scale looks dark even if the white paint is eliminated.

In order to solve the above-described problems, the present invention provides a dial having a pointer rotation area, a scale ring installed on the surface side of the dial so as to surround the pointer rotation area, and the dial. A light guide plate that is disposed on the back side so as to surround at least the pointer rotation region and guides light from a light source to the dial plate, and the dial plate extends along a bottom surface portion of the scale ring. In the scale ring illuminating device, the scale ring illumination device has a translucent part that transmits light from the light guide plate, and the scale ring is illuminated by light that has passed through the translucent part.
On the back side of the outer peripheral portion of the light guide plate , located outside the scale portion provided in the scale ring, a part of the light guided to the inside of the light guide plate is directed toward the outer surface of the scale ring A reflection surface portion to be reflected is formed to be concave.

According to the present invention, the following effects can be obtained by the above-described configuration. That is, the reflective surface part located outside the scale part provided in the said scale ring was recessedly formed in the back surface side of the outer peripheral part of a light-guide plate. A part of the light guided to the inside of the light guide plate is reflected toward the outer surface of the scale ring by the reflection surface portion. Thereby, the inner side of the outer surface of the scale ring is illuminated by the light reflected by the reflecting surface portion, and becomes bright. Therefore, even when the outer surface of the scale ring is viewed through the scale portion from the outside, the inside of the outer surface of the scale ring is brightly illuminated, so that the illumination of the scale portion is prevented from appearing dark. Therefore, it is not necessary to perform white coating on the outer surface of the scale ring, and the cost can be reduced accordingly.

It is the front view which looked at the instrument lighting apparatus for vehicles concerning the Example of this invention from the near side. It is sectional drawing which cut | disconnected FIG. 1 along the AA line. It is the front view which added the light-guide plate to FIG. It is sectional drawing (enlarged view) in positions other than the scale part of a scale ring. It is a front view which shows the modification of FIG. It is a front view which shows the modification of FIG. It is sectional drawing which shows the modification of FIG.

Hereinafter, the present embodiment will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.
1 to 7 are for explaining examples of the embodiment and modifications thereof.

<Configuration> The configuration will be described below.
Vehicles such as automobiles are provided with a vehicle instrument device 1 for displaying various types of driving information at the front part of the passenger compartment. The vehicle instrument device 1 is provided with an illumination device (that is, a vehicle meter illumination device 2) for performing night illumination, decorative illumination, and the like. As such a vehicular instrument illumination device 2, a scale ring illumination device is provided that illuminates a graduation ring 25 installed on the surface of the dial 5 of the vehicular instrument device 1.

  First, the vehicle instrument device 1 will be described. FIG. 1 shows a dial plate 5 of a vehicular instrument device 1, which is a combination meter having a speedometer 11, an engine speed meter 12, and the like integrally. In addition, the dial 5 is provided with a lighting type display device 17 such as various warning lights, a panel type display device 18 and the like.

  The dial 5 is provided with a pointer turning area 21 for the speedometer 11, the engine speed meter 12, and the like, and the pointer turning area 21 is provided with a numerical value display 23. Further, on the surface side of the dial plate 5, a scale ring 25 having a scale portion 24 is provided so as to surround the pointer rotation area 21.

  Such a dial plate 5 is attached to the surface side of the housing 27 as shown in FIG. A circuit board 28 is attached to the back side of the housing 27. An actuator 29 for driving a pointer (not shown) is attached to the circuit board 28.

  Next, the vehicle instrument illumination device 2 will be described. A light guide plate 8 that guides light L from the light source 6 (see FIG. 3) to the dial plate 5 is provided between the back side of the dial plate 5 and the front side of the housing 27. The numerical value display portion 23 of the dial 5 is the translucent portion 4. For this purpose, the dial plate 5 is formed by forming a light-impermeable printing layer on a transparent resin plate material, leaving the numerical value display portion 23 to be the light-transmitting portion 4 and the like. As shown in FIG. 3, the light guide plate 8 includes a main body portion 36 that extends in an arc shape so as to cover the pointer rotation region 21, and a light incident portion 37 that receives light L from the light source 6. Yes. With these configurations, a dial plate illumination device is configured.

  Next, the scale ring illumination device will be described. As shown in FIG. 2, the dial 5 extends along the bottom surface 51 (see FIG. 4) of the scale ring 25, and transmits the light L from the light guide plate 8. ). The scale ring transparent portion 61 is formed in the same manner as the numerical value display portion 23. The scale portion 24 of the scale ring 25 is a translucent light transmitting portion 56 that is illuminated by the light that has passed through the light transmitting portion 4.

Therefore, as shown in FIG. 4, the scale ring 25 has an intermediate coating 53b and a finish on the inner surface 54 (or inner peripheral surface) and the outer surface 57 (or outer peripheral surface) of the ring body 52 made of transparent resin. and painting 53c is that make up the painted portion 53 Rukoto subjected sequentially. The scale ring 25 has a substantially right-angled triangular cross section in which the outer surface 57 is substantially perpendicular to the dial plate 5.

  In addition to the basic or overall configuration as described above, this embodiment has the following configuration.

(Configuration 1) As shown in FIG. 2, the light guided to the inside of the light guide plate 8 on the back side of the outer peripheral portion of the light guide plate 8 and located outside the scale portion 24 provided on the scale ring 25. A reflection surface portion 42 (outer direction reflection surface portion 58) that reflects a part of L toward the outer surface 57 of the scale ring 25 is formed to be concave. As shown in FIG. 2, a part of the reflection surface portion 42 may extend to the lower side of the scale portion 24.

  Here, the above-described reflecting surface portion 42 is an inclined surface on the inner peripheral side in a concave portion or the like having an inverted V shape in side view. The reflection surface portion 42 is formed so as to form an angle of approximately 15 ° to 30 ° with respect to the back surface of the light guide plate 8. As shown in FIG. 3, the reflection surface portion 42 may be a continuous arc-shaped groove portion that passes under the scale portions 24. Further, as shown in FIG. 5, the reflecting surface portion 42 may be discontinuous located below all the scale portions 24. Furthermore, as shown in FIG. 6, the reflecting surface portion 42 may be a partial portion located only below the scale portion 24 (darkly visible portion 41) that looks dark from the outside.

  (Configuration 2) As shown in FIG. 7, the reflection surface portion 42 may be provided in multiple stages.

  Here, the reflection surface portion 42 described above is provided in two steps with respect to the radial direction of the pointer rotation region 21. The reflective surface portion 42 located on the inner peripheral side is preferably shallower than the reflective surface portion 42 located on the outer peripheral side in order not to disturb the light L in the light guide plate 8. The reflective surface portion 42 described above may be a flat surface or a curved surface. When the reflective surface portion 42 is a curved surface, it is possible to widen the range in which the outer surface 57 of the scale ring 25 is illuminated.

<Operation> The operation of this embodiment will be described below.
Light L from the light source 6 is guided through the light guide plate 8 and enters the scale ring 25 from the bottom surface 51 through the light transmitting portion 4 of the dial 5 from the surface of the light guide plate 8. Thereby, the scale part 24 formed in the scale ring 25 is illuminated.

<Effect> According to this embodiment, the following effects can be obtained.
On the back side of the outer peripheral portion of the light guide plate 8 , a reflective surface portion 42 located outside the scale portion provided on the scale ring 25 is formed to be concave. A part of the light L guided to the inside of the light guide plate 8 is reflected toward the outer surface 57 of the scale ring 25 by the reflecting surface portion 42. Thereby, the inner side of the outer side surface 57 (the coating portion 53) of the scale ring 25 is illuminated with the light L reflected by the reflecting surface portion 42 and becomes brighter. Therefore, even when the outer surface 57 of the scale ring 25 is viewed through the scale portion 24 from the outside (line of sight E), the inner side of the outer surface 57 (the coating portion 53) of the scale ring 25 is brightly illuminated. Therefore, it is prevented that the illumination of the scale part 24 looks dark. Therefore, it is not necessary to perform the white coating 53a on the outer side surface 57 of the scale ring 25, and the cost can be reduced accordingly.

  Moreover, you may make it provide the reflective surface part 42 in multiple steps. Thereby, the depth of the reflection surface part 42 with respect to the inside of the light guide plate 8 can be reduced, and the light L guided to the inside of the light guide plate 8 by the reflection surface part 42 can be made difficult to be hindered. Therefore, the light L can be used effectively. Moreover, the range which illuminates the outer side surface 57 of the scale ring 25 can be expanded by the reflective surface part 42 provided in multiple steps.

4 Light-transmitting part 5 Dial 6 Light source 8 Light guide plate 21 Pointer rotation area 24 Scale part 25 Scale ring 42 Reflecting surface part 51 Bottom face part 57 Outer side face L Light

Claims (4)

A dial having a pointer rotation area, a scale ring installed on the front side of the dial so as to surround the pointer rotation area, and at least the pointer rotation area on the back side of the dial A light guide plate that guides the light from the light source to the dial,
The dial has a translucent portion that extends along the bottom surface of the scale ring and allows light from the light guide plate to pass therethrough, and the scale ring is illuminated by light that has passed through the translucent portion. In the scale ring illumination device having a characteristic scale portion,
On the back side of the outer peripheral portion of the light guide plate , located outside the scale portion provided in the scale ring, a part of the light guided to the inside of the light guide plate is directed toward the outer surface of the scale ring A scale ring illumination device characterized in that a reflecting surface portion to be reflected is formed in a recessed manner. The scale ring illumination device according to claim 1, wherein a part of the reflection surface part extends to a lower side of the scale part . The scale ring illumination device according to claim 1, wherein the reflection surface portion is provided discontinuously or partially with respect to a circumferential direction of the light guide plate. The scale ring illumination device according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the reflection surface portion is provided in multiple stages.