JPH07129303A - Pen base tablet - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To precisely and efficiently produce the pen base tablet with high quality on its appearance by arranging conductive electrodes along two opposite sides on conductive faces and superposing conductive electrodes on a pair of conductive plates so that their end parts are adjacent to each other. CONSTITUTION:The conductive electrodes 4a, 4b are printed so that two opposite sides of conductive faces of a pair of conductive plates 1a, 1b having uniform resistance, i.e., boundaries formed on the upper and lower or right and left inner edge sides, are made parallel. Then the electrodes 4a, 4b are superposed so as to intersect with each other at right angles. Since the electrodes 4a, 4b are formed on the upper and lower end parts or right and left end parts, a non-conductive area is made unnecessary. Thereby a series of processes, i.e., masking, etching and washing, is made unnecessary and waste disposal processing is also made unnecessary. In a series of these processes, precision can be prevented from being deteriorated due to the mixture of a foreign substance, the generation of damage, the corrosion of the conductive face due to residual etching solution, and so on.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a pen-based tablet which covers a screen of a monitor television or the like and detects the coordinates corresponding to the screen by pressing the surface with a pen or the like to perform image processing.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A pen-based tablet has a conductive plate made of a transparent conductive film or the like having a conductive surface, the conductive surfaces of which face each other, and a non-conductive dot spacer which screens away from each other. It is known that printing (mesh version) and sandwiching is performed.

A non-conductive area is provided on the outer periphery of the conductive plate constituting such a pen base tablet, and signals are transmitted and received from electrodes formed on the left and right of the conductive area or at the upper and lower ends of the conductive area by an external interface or the like (non-conductive area). The external lead-out circuit having a non-conductive region is connected to the connection portion provided at the end portion as illustrated in FIG.

As for the connecting portion, a method is used in which a protruding portion is formed on a conductive plate to receive and transmit a signal, and a connector is directly attached to the tip. A pull-out tail FPC is provided as a component on the conductive plate, and the connection is made via the tail FPC. The method was used.

[0005]

As shown in FIG. 2, the conventional pen-based tablet is provided with a non-conductive area for forming an external drawing circuit on the outer circumference of the conductive area of the conductive plate. In the conductive area, the unnecessary conductive film is peeled off by etching, so the steps associated with this, masking, products with poor accuracy due to scratches in the conductive area caused by defective drying or work errors, or etching solutions, masking agents, There is a high possibility that a low-quality product such as foreign matter will be produced due to the cleaning agent remaining in the conductive region, and the productivity will be reduced.

Further, the existence of the etching process requires not only a set of etching equipment and masking equipment but also a waste liquid treatment equipment such as an etching solution and a stripping solution, resulting in an expensive capital investment.

The conductive area is formed on the surface of a polyester film or the like by a conductive film by vapor deposition, sputtering or the like.
Since the operating surface of the conductive plate that forms the surface of the pen base tablet is hard-coated because it is weak against external stress, it is still weak against sliding of the input pen, etc., and scratches on the operating surface and peeling of the conductive film, etc. It was necessary to replace and adjust the operation surface every time. Therefore, careful handling was also necessary.

Furthermore, a dot spacer made of a screen-printed non-conductive elastic material is sandwiched between one side of the two conductive plates, and the two conductive plates are held apart from each other without applying external pressure. Therefore, depending on the size and load of the external stress of the input pen, etc., the dispersion density of the dot spacers, the area of the dot spacers (diameter in the case of a circle)
However, since the dot spacers were formed by screen printing, there was a limit to reducing the area. Therefore, the dispersion density of the dot spacers cannot be increased, and the shape of the dot spacers can be confirmed on the appearance, which hinders the improvement of the product quality.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems of the prior art, and an object of the present invention is to efficiently produce a pen-based tablet having high precision and high appearance. It is a thing.

[0010]

In order to achieve the above object, a pen base tablet according to the present invention has a uniform resistance over the entire conductive surfaces of a pair of conductive plates and a pair of conductive plates facing each other. A conductive electrode made of silver paste or the like is provided so that the inner edges are parallel along the sides, and the pair of conductive plates are stacked so that the ends of the conductive electrodes provided on each of the pair of conductive plates are close to each other. It has been combined.

Then, the connection terminal is fixed to the conductive electrode by caulking or the like, or the connection terminal made of a metal foil such as copper or aluminum is attached and the conductive plate is wound up to the back surface. Signals can be sent and received through the interface, etc.

The outer diameter of the dot spacer sandwiched between the pair of conductive plates to be superposed is 0.2 m.
/ M or less and uniformly arranged.

Further, the surface of the upper conductive plate is covered with a surface sheet made of PET or the like whose operation surface pressed and slid by the input pen is hard-coated.

PET whose operation surface is hard-coated
It is also preferable that the surface sheet made of, for example, be formed integrally with the upper conductive plate.

When the upper conductive plate and the surface sheet are separate bodies, a dot spacer is formed so as to be sandwiched between the surface of the upper conductive plate and the surface sheet, or
Alternatively, it is better to perform non-glare processing.

[0016]

The conductive electrode has a uniform resistance, and the boundary lines formed on the two opposite sides of the conductive surfaces of the upper and lower conductive plates, that is, the upper and lower or left and right inner edge sides are parallel to each other. It is printed so that the sum of resistance values between any one point on the conductive surface sandwiched between the electrodes and the respective conductive electrodes becomes equal. The conductive plate is usually formed in a rectangular or square shape with the same shape on both the upper side and the lower side.

The conductive electrodes printed on the upper and lower conductive plates are arranged such that their directions are orthogonal to each other, and when they are stacked, a rectangular or square conductive surface surrounded by the conductive electrodes is formed. It

The dot spacer is a small-diameter spacer formed of a transparent soft elastic material (for example, silicon rubber).
The upper and lower conductive plates are separated from each other so that the conductive surfaces facing each other do not come into contact with each other without a pressing force from the outside. Furthermore, it prevents the formation of multiple overlapping annular stripes called Newton rings that occur when they are so close to each other that there is only a minute gap, including between the upper conductive plate and the transparent surface sheet covering the surface. Have a role to play.

[0019]

EXAMPLES Examples will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a schematic explanatory diagram of a pen-based tablet according to the present invention. The rectangular or square upper conductive plate 1a and the lower conductive plate 1b have their respective conductive surfaces 2
It is combined so that a and 2b face inward. Conductive electrodes 4a are formed by printing or the like on the left and right ends of the conductive surface 2a, and the boundary line between the inner edges of the pair of conductive electrodes 4a and the conductive surface 2a is an arbitrary point on the conductive surface 2a. And the respective conductive electrodes 4a are formed in parallel so that the sum of resistance values becomes equal. The conductive surface 2b is provided with conductive electrodes 4b at the upper and lower ends thereof by printing similarly to the conductive surface 2a. The dot spacer 3 is a transparent soft elastic material, which is printed on the conductive surface 2b and is separated from the conductive plates 1a and 1b in a non-pressurized state.
Generally, the upper conductive plate 1a is made of a thin PET film or the like, and the lower conductive plate 1b is made of a thick acrylic plate or glass plate as a base material. Therefore, the dot spacers 3 are printed on the conductive surface 2a. On the contrary, there is no problem even if it is printed on the conductive surface 2b.

In FIG. 1, when the voltage Eo is applied between the pair of conductive electrodes 4a and the upper surface of the upper conductive plate 1a is pressed with an input pen or finger, the dot spacer 3 at the pressing point is compressed. The conductive surfaces 2a and 2b are brought into contact with each other. Therefore, the pressing point in the X direction is the lower conductive plate 1
Ex / E is measured by measuring the voltage Ex of the conductive electrode 4b of FIG.
X can be calculated by substituting it into the equation of o = x / lx. In addition, the measurement of the pressing point in the Y direction is performed by measuring the voltage E between the lower conductive electrodes 4b.
The same calculation can be performed by measuring the voltage Ey of the conductive electrode 4a with o applied.

2 (a) and 2 (b) are illustrations of the conductive plate of the conventional pen-based tablet. 2A and 2B show the upper conductive plate 1a and the lower conductive plate 1a.
1b is shown. The conductive plates 1a and 1b are stacked and used as a pen-based tablet, but the conductive electrodes 4a and 4b and the connection terminal 7a, which are important for confirming the position pressed by the input pen or finger, An external drawing circuit 6 connecting the two is wound. Since the distance between the external extraction circuit 6 and the pair of conductive electrodes 4a and 4b is not constant, it is necessary to separate the conductive surfaces 2a and 2b from the external extraction circuit 6. Therefore, the portions forming the external lead-out circuit 6 on the outer peripheries of the upper and lower conductive plates 1a, 1b are the non-conductive areas 5.

The non-conductive area 5 requires processing for the upper and lower conductive plates 1a, 1b by a masking process, an etching process, and a peeling process, which requires additional equipment and productivity due to the processing process. There were various problems that resulted in a decrease in

Non-conductive area 5 in order to omit steps such as etching
The upper and lower conductive plates 1a and 1b having no edge are the same as those described in FIG. The pen base tablet is used by being connected to a personal computer application or the like and attached as an input device of a personal computer as an input device. The conductive electrodes 4a and 4b exchange signals with an interface or the like. However, the conductive electrode 4
Since a and 4b are printed on the conductive surfaces 2a and 2b by silver paste or the like, it is difficult to directly solder them.
In addition, sliding contact through a connector also shortens the life.

3 (a) and 3 (b) show a mounting state diagram of the connection terminal 7a. Metal connection terminals 7a are provided on the conductive electrodes 4a, 4b formed by printing or the like on the conductive surfaces 2a, 2b.
Is caulked together with the upper or lower conductive plates 1a and 1b as shown in FIG. 3 (b). Here, the connection terminal 7a and the conductive surfaces 2a and 2b are stably conducted.
The connection terminal 7a is resistant to heat, and can be connected to an interface or the like by aesthetically connecting a lead harness or the like by soldering or the like.

On the other hand, FIGS. 4A and 4B show the contact terminal 7b.
The attachment state figure of is shown. The contact terminals 7b made of a metal foil such as copper or aluminum are attached to the conductive electrodes 4a and 4b formed by printing or the like on the conductive surfaces 2a and 2b, and the upper or lower sides are attached as shown in FIG. 4 (b). The conductive plates 1a and 1b are sandwiched so as to be wound up to the back surfaces thereof. The foil is embossed or the conductive electrode 4
It is sandwiched between a and 4b so that stable conduction is achieved. Then, the contact terminal 7b can be connected to an interface or the like by a means such as being inserted into a connector or the like.

These connection terminals 7a or contact terminals 7
When b is used for the conductive electrodes 4a and 4b according to the present invention, aesthetically and easily connectable through a lead harness or connector connection even in a discrete state.

FIG. 5 (a) is an illustration of a conventional dot spacer, and FIG. 5 (b) is an illustration of a dot spacer according to the present invention. The dot spacer 3 is a transparent soft elastic insulating material generally provided on the conductive surface 2b formed on the surface of the lower conductive plate 1b by printing or the like, and for example, silicon rubber or the like is used. The outer diameter and density of the dot spacer 3 are determined according to the input load, but it is difficult to reduce the outer diameter of the dot spacer 3 to 0.5 m / m or less in conventional printing by screen printing (mesh plate). Funny Therefore, the outer diameter is about 0.5 m / m, as shown in FIG. ,
The pitch was about 10 m / m. However, if the outer diameter is large and the pitch width is large, the appearance is impaired as if foreign matter had entered. Therefore, a very small outer diameter is provided at high density on the conductive surface 2b by a photographic method using a photoresist, offset printing, screen printing (combination metal mask plate) or the like. At this time, if the dot spacers 3 are 0.2 m / m or less and the pitch is made finer, a uniform state is approached, so that a feeling of strangeness such as foreign matter mixing is reduced.

6 and 7 are explanatory views of the surface protection means of the pen base tablet according to the present invention. In FIG. 6, the dot spacers 3 are sandwiched between the upper and lower conductive plates 1a and 1b with the conductive surfaces 2a and 2b facing each other. It is desirable that the lower conductive plate 1b does not deform. Therefore, the transparent conductive layer on transparent acrylic or glass is vapor-deposited to form the conductive surface 2b. On the other hand, the upper conductive surface 1a has a transparent conductive layer formed by vapor deposition on one surface such as a PET film, and the other surface is subjected to a transparent bird coat or a non-glare hard coat. However, the transparent conductive layer formed on the conductive surface 2a is
The conductive layer is easily peeled off due to the pressing strain of the input pen or the like, and cracks or cracks are likely to occur. In order to cope with such a problem, the topsheet 8 is formed of a PET film or the like and indirectly presses the upper conductive plate 1a on which a conductive layer is deposited.

Further, the dot spacers 3 are provided on the upper surface of the upper conductive plate 1a so as to prevent the occurrence of annular stripes (Newton rings) that often occur when two transparent materials are in close contact with each other. Is to increase.

FIG. 7 shows the topsheet 8 shown in FIG.
In order to make the upper conductive plate 1a and the upper conductive plate 1a integral with each other, two or more PET sheets are stacked, and the operation surface 9 is provided with a transparent hard coat. Here, similarly to covering the surface sheet 8 on the surface of the upper conductive plate 1a, it is possible to protect the conductive layer from damage due to the pressing force of the input pen.

[0031]

Since the present invention is constructed as described above, it has the following effects.

In the pen base tablet according to the first aspect, since the conductive electrodes 4a and 4b are formed on the upper and lower sides and the left and right ends of the conductive surfaces 2a and 2b, the non-conductive area 5 is unnecessary. Therefore, a series of steps of masking, etching, and cleaning are not required, and waste liquid treatment is also unnecessary, which has an effect of reducing facility costs and facility management costs.
In addition, these series of steps reduce the accuracy due to contamination of the conductive surface with foreign matter, occurrence of scratches, corrosion of the conductive surface due to residual etching solution, etc. It has the effect of improving productivity.

In the pen base tablet according to the second aspect, the conductive electrodes 4a and 4b are brought close to the ends of the conductive surfaces 2a and 2b and the external drawing circuit 6 is not provided. The connection terminal 7a or the contact terminal 7b is provided in the 4b so as to be electrically connected, and it has an effect that an external interface or the like can be aesthetically and surely connected via a lead harness or a connector.

In the pen base tablet according to the third aspect, the outer diameter of the dot spacers provided so that the conductive surfaces 2a, 2b of the transparent upper and lower conductive plates 1a, 1b are separated from each other, and arranged. By increasing the density, it becomes difficult to distinguish the dot spacers from each other, which leads to the improvement of the appearance of the product.

In the pen base tablet of claims 4 and 5, stress is applied so that the conductive surface 2a vapor-deposited on the conductive plate 1a on the upper side is not peeled or cracked due to external stress strain by an input pen or the like. It alleviates distortion and protects it.

In the pen base tablet according to the sixth aspect, there is an effect that the Newton's ring is prevented from occurring by separating the top sheet 8 and the upper conductive plate 1a.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic explanatory diagram of a pen-based tablet according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of a conductive plate of a conventional pen-based tablet.

FIG. 3 is an attachment state diagram of a connection terminal according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a mounting state diagram of a contact terminal according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of a dot spacer.

FIG. 6 is a surface protection means for a pen-based tablet according to the present invention.

FIG. 7 is another surface protection means of the pen-based tablet according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1a-conductive plate on the upper side 1b-conductive plate on the lower side 2a, 2b-conductive surface 3-dot spacers 4a, 4b-conductive electrode 7a-connection terminal 7b-contact terminal 8-surface sheet

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A dot spacer made of a non-conductive elastic material is provided so that conductive surfaces of upper and lower conductive plates made of a transparent conductive film having conductivity are opposed to each other and are separated from each other. In a pen-based tablet that is printed and sandwiched, the entire surface of the conductive surfaces facing each other of the pair of conductive plates has a uniform resistance, and the silver is formed so that the inner edges are parallel along the two opposite sides on the conductive surfaces. A conductive electrode formed of paste or the like is provided, and the pair of conductive plates are overlapped so that the ends of the conductive electrodes provided on the pair of conductive plates are close to each other, thereby eliminating the external drawing circuit. Pen-based tablet to do. 2. A conductive electrode provided on the conductive surface according to claim 1, fixed by means such as caulking a connection terminal made of metal, or contact made of metal foil such as copper or aluminum. A pen-based tablet characterized by being able to send and receive signals from an external interface, etc. by sticking the terminals and winding the conductive plate to the back. 3. The dot spacers made of a non-conductive elastic material are arranged so that the conductive surfaces of the upper and lower conductive plates made of a transparent conductive film having conductivity are opposed to each other and are separated from each other. A pen-based tablet that is printed and nipped, in which the outer diameter of the dot spacer is a fine diameter of 0.2 m / m or less and the dots are evenly arranged to improve the appearance. 4. The dot spacers made of a non-conductive elastic material are arranged so that the conductive surfaces of the upper and lower conductive plates made of a transparent conductive film having conductivity are opposed to each other and are separated from each other. In a pen-based tablet formed by printing and sandwiching, the surface of the above-mentioned upper conductive plate is covered with a surface sheet made of PET or the like having a hard coat treatment on the operation surface on which the input pen is pressed and slid. Pen-based tablet to do. 5. The pen base tablet according to claim 4, wherein a surface sheet made of PET or the like having a hard coat on the operation surface is formed integrally with the upper conductive plate. 6. The non-contact type as set forth in claim 4, wherein a Newton's ring is formed on the surface of the upper conductive plate or the back surface of the upper surface of the upper conductive plate so as to be sandwiched between the surface of the upper conductive plate and the surface sheet. Pen-based tablet with dot spacers or non-glare treatment.