JP7280656B2 - vehicle lamp - Google Patents

Description

The present disclosure relates to a lamp such as a vehicle rear combination lamp.

Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-200001 discloses a lighting fixture that constitutes, for example, a tail lamp by an LED light source and a light guide. The light guide has an incident portion along the optical axis of the LED light source and a light guiding portion arranged at an angle from the incident portion. An end portion of the incident portion is provided with a reflecting portion that reflects light from the light source that has passed through the incident portion to the light guide portion. As a result, the light from the light source is guided from the incident portion of the light guide to the end of the light guide.

JP 2011-198536 A

There are cases where it is desired to transmit light behind the light source due to restrictions on vehicle design and sheet metal parts. In this case, uniform light emission of the inner lens is required even when the surface facing the light source is nearly parallel to the optical axis. Therefore, by providing a notch portion in front of the light source and reflecting the light toward the entire light guide, uniform light emission from the entire light guide can be realized. However, in this case, the cutout portion is visible and the appearance of the lamp is spoiled.

Therefore, it is necessary to ensure a good appearance while achieving uniform light emission from the entire light guide for a lamp having a light guide extending behind the light source.

According to one feature of the present disclosure, a vehicle lamp has a light source and a light guide disposed in front of the light source and extending forward. The light guide has a recessed notch on the front surface. It has a side reflecting surface positioned behind the notch and reflecting the light from the light source sideways within the light guide. A scattering lens surface is provided on the front surface of the light guide adjacent the cutout to scatter light outwardly from the light guide.

Therefore, the side surface of the light guide body emits light uniformly due to the notch. On the front surface of the light guide, light is uniformly emitted by the scattering lens surface, and the cutout portion is obscured by the scattering lens surface and becomes inconspicuous. This improves the appearance of the lamp.

According to another feature of the present disclosure, scattering lens surfaces are formed on both sides of the cutout. Therefore, the notch becomes less conspicuous.

According to another feature of the present disclosure, the scattering lens surface is recessed into the front surface of the light guide and extends in the same direction as the cutout. Therefore, the entire notch is effectively blurred.

According to another feature of the present disclosure, the light guide includes a forward extension extending forward from the light source and a rearward extension extending rearward from the light source from a side of the forward extension. have. Therefore, the light is laterally reflected by the side reflection surface of the notch provided on the front surface of the forward extension and enters the rearward extension.

According to another feature of the present disclosure, the rearwardly extending portion has a rearward reflecting surface that reflects light from the side reflecting surface back along the rearwardly extending portion. Therefore, the light incident from the side reflecting surface is reflected by the rear reflecting surface, and the entire rear extending portion emits light.

According to another feature of the present disclosure, the rearward extension has a back surface facing the light source. A reflector is provided facing and along the rear surface of the rearwardly extending portion. Therefore, the reflector illuminates the rear extension more uniformly.

1 is a perspective view of the rear part of a vehicle; FIG. Fig. 3 is a perspective view of a lamp on the right side of the vehicle; FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view of the lighting device taken along the line (III)-(III) in FIG. 2; 1 is an overall perspective view of a light guide according to this embodiment; FIG. 1 is a plan view of a general inner lens; FIG. FIG. 11 is a front view of a light guide having an alternative form of side reflective surface;

Next, an embodiment of the present disclosure will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 to 5. FIG. As shown in FIG. 1, a vehicle 1 has a pair of left and right lamps 2 at its rear portion. The lamp 2 is also called a rear combination lamp. As shown in FIG. 2 , the lamp 2 has a configuration in which a stop lamp 3 , a width lamp 4 and a reflector 5 are assembled with a lamp body 6 .

Generally, a vehicle lamp has a light source such as a light bulb or an LED, an inner lens as a light guide, and an outer lens as a light emitting surface. The inner lens is arranged between the light source and the outer lens. The inner lens is required to emit light uniformly when lit, and to look uniform without unevenness of brightness and darkness even when not lit. For this reason, as shown in FIG. 5, the inner lens is generally formed in a range of 45° (90° with respect to the optical axis J) in front of the light source.

In general, the inner lens has scattering lens surfaces (for example, step portions and cut portions) for diffusing light on each of the front surface and the rear surface. The step portion is composed of a plurality of fine unevennesses. The step portion is, for example, a Fresnel step having sawtooth unevenness, a prism step having polyhedral unevenness, or a cylindrical step having columnar unevenness. Light from the light source spreads radially and reaches the inner lens. Light is scattered by the steps of the inner lens. Thereby, the light emitting surface can be illuminated uniformly.

In this embodiment, as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, the stop lamp 3 includes a light source 10, a light guide 11 as an inner lens, and an outer lens 12 as a light emitting surface. The light source 10 is an LED (light emitting diode).

The light guide 11 is arranged in front of the light source 10 in the direction of the optical axis J and extends forward. The light guide 11 includes a forward extending portion 11a extending forward from the light source 10 along the optical axis J, and a rearward extending portion 11a extending rearward from the light source 10 from a side portion of the forward extending portion 11a. It has a portion 11b.

A cutout portion 13 is provided on the front surface of the light guide 11 and on the front surface of the front extending portion 11a. The notch portion 13 is provided continuously over the entire range (plate thickness direction) from the front upper portion to the lower portion of the light guide 11 . A side reflecting surface 13 a is positioned on the rear surface of the notch portion 13 . The side reflecting surface 13a is positioned on the optical axis J. As shown in FIG. The light from the light source 10 is reflected by the side reflecting surface 13 a toward the rear extending portion 11 b extending sideways within the light guide 11 .

A rear reflecting surface 14 is provided on the right side of the side reflecting surface 13a and in front of the rear extending portion 11b. The rear reflective surface 14 is set in the region shown with grid-like hatching in FIG. Light from the side reflecting surface 13a is reflected backward by the rear reflecting surface 14 along the rearwardly extending portion 11b.

The rear extension portion 11b extends rearward from the right side portion of the front extension portion 11a. The rearwardly extending portion 11b extends further rearward than the light source 10 . Therefore, the rear surface (back surface) of the rear extension portion 11b faces the light source 10. As shown in FIG. A scattering lens surface 17 for scattering light is provided on the rear surface of the rearwardly extending portion 11b. The light incident on the rear extension portion 11b through the rear reflecting surface 14 is scattered by the scattering lens surface 17 and made uniform.

A reflecting member 16 is provided along the rear surface of the rearwardly extending portion 11b. The reflecting member 16 prevents light from the light source 10 from directly entering the rear extending portion 11b. The light indirectly incident on the rear extension portion 11 b through the rear reflection surface 14 is also reflected by the reflection member 16 . As a result, the light emitted from the rear extension portion 11b is made more uniform. As shown in FIG. 3 , the rear portion of the rearwardly extending portion 11 b enters the rear side of the reflecting member 16 .

A scattering lens surface 15 that scatters the light from the light source 10 is recessed in the front surface of the forward extending portion 11a. The scattering lens surface 15 uniformly emits light from the front surface of the forward extending portion 11a. The scattering lens surface 15 is formed adjacent to both left and right sides of the notch 13 . The scattering lens surface 15 is provided continuously in the plate thickness direction like the notch portion 13 . The scattering lens surface 15 has a plurality of ridges 15a each having a semicircular cross section. Each ridge 15a extends continuously in the plate thickness direction like the notch 13. As shown in FIG. The plurality of ridges 15a are arranged in parallel on the left and right. The light from the light source 10 is scattered by the scattering lens surface 15 and the notch 13 is blurred.

According to the lamp 2 configured as described above, the scattering lens surface 15 causes the front surface of the forward extending portion 11a of the light guide 11 to emit light uniformly. In addition, the light is uniformly emitted from the front surface of the rear extending portion 11b due to the reflection of the notch portion 13. As shown in FIG. As a result, the entire light guide 11 emits light uniformly. In addition, the notch 13 is obscured by the scattering lens surfaces 15 arranged on both the left and right sides, making it inconspicuous. Thereby, the appearance of the lamp 2 is improved.

A side reflection surface 13a of the notch 13 is provided on the front surface of the front extending portion 11a. The light from the light source 10 is reflected by the side reflecting surface 13a and enters the rear extension portion 11b. The rearwardly extending portion 11b has a rearward reflecting surface 14 that reflects the light from the side reflecting surface 13a backward along the rearwardly extending portion 11b. As a result, the light incident from the side reflecting surface 13a is reflected by the rear reflecting surface 14, and the entire rear extending portion 11b emits light.

The rearwardly extending portion 11b extends so as to wrap around rearward from the side portion of the forwardly extending portion 11a. Therefore, the rear extending portion 11b faces the light source 10 side. A reflecting member 16 is provided along the rear surface of the rearwardly extending portion 11b. Therefore, the reflecting member 16 causes the rear extending portion 11b to emit light more uniformly. In addition, the light from the light source 10 is not directly incident on the rear extension portion 11b because it is blocked by the reflecting member 16. As shown in FIG. This also causes the rear extension portion 11b to emit light uniformly.

Various modifications can be made to the first embodiment described above. For example, although the configuration having the notch 13 on the optical axis J has been exemplified, the case where the notch is displaced from the optical axis J can be similarly applied.

Further, in the first embodiment, the configuration in which the notch portion 13 is continuously provided in the entire range (plate thickness direction) from the upper part of the front surface of the light guide 11 to the lower part is exemplified. In the second embodiment, for example, as shown in FIG. 6, the upper and lower portions in the thickness direction may be scattering lens surfaces 15, and a notch portion 18 may be provided in the center in the thickness direction. The light from the light source 10 is also reflected by the side reflection surface 18a of the notch portion 18 according to the second embodiment to the rear extension portion 11b through the rear reflection surface 14. FIG. The side reflecting surfaces 18a of the second embodiment are made more inconspicuous by the scattering lens surfaces 15 arranged vertically and horizontally, thereby improving the appearance of the lamp. Moreover, since the notch 18 is recessed in the center in the plate thickness direction, the strength of the light guide 11 can be increased more than in the first embodiment.

Furthermore, it is also possible to omit the upper or lower scattering lens surface 15 in the plate thickness direction and extend a notch on one side in the plate thickness direction.

Although the configuration in which the scattering lens surfaces 15 are arranged on both the left and right sides of the notch portion 13 is illustrated, a configuration in which the scattering lens surfaces are arranged only on one of the left and right sides may be adopted.

The notch portion 13 and the scattering lens surface 15 illustrated as examples can also be applied when the rear extension portion 11 b does not reach the rear of the light source 10 .

Further, the illustrated lamp 2 can be applied not only to the rear combination lamp at the rear of the vehicle, but also to the headlamp at the front of the vehicle.

Furthermore, the exemplified lamp 2 can be widely applied not only to automobiles and railway vehicles but also to ships, aircraft, and constructions.

1...Vehicle 2...Lamp (rear combination lamp)
3 Stop lamp 4 Side lamp 5 Reflector 6 Lamp body 10 Light source J Optical axis 11 Light guide 11a Front extension 11b Rear extension 12 Outer lens 13 Notch Part (first embodiment)
13a... Side reflecting surface 14... Back reflecting surface 15... Scattering lens surface 15a... Ridge 16... Reflecting member 17... Scattering lens surface 18... Notch (second embodiment)
18a... side reflecting surface

Claims (5)

A vehicle lamp,
a light source;
a light guide having a forward extending portion extending forward from the light source and a rearward extending portion extending rearward from the light source from a side portion of the forward extending portion;
a notch recessed in the front surface of the light guide;
a side reflecting surface located behind the notch portion and reflecting the light from the light source sideways within the light guide;
A vehicle lamp having a scattering lens surface provided on the front surface of the light guide so as to be adjacent to the notch and scattering light outward from the light guide. The vehicle lamp according to claim 1,
A vehicle lamp in which the scattering lens surfaces are formed on both sides of the notch. The vehicle lamp according to claim 1 or 2,
The scattering lens surface is recessed in the front surface of the light guide and extends in the same direction as the notch. A vehicle lamp according to any one of claims 1 to 3 ,
A vehicular lamp, wherein the rearwardly extending portion has a rearward reflecting surface that reflects light from the side reflecting surface rearward along the rearwardly extending portion. A vehicle lamp according to any one of claims 1 to 4 ,
The rearwardly extending portion has a back surface facing the light source,
A vehicle lamp having a reflector facing the back surface and provided along the back surface.

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