JPH07312105A - Tail lamp of car and its light-emitting device serving as reflector - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To evenly obtain transmitting light as a tail lamp and reflecting light as a reflector over all surface, and to transmit all the light of a bulb. CONSTITUTION: This automobile tail lamp comprises a light source 34 and a light transmitter/reflector having a first sheet 22 and an optical plate 24. The first sheet 22, i.e., an outer lens, is made of a red transparent resin, and has a smooth outer side face 26 and an inner side face formed with plural cells 28 for a reflector. The cells 28 are arranged along three axes arranged at 120 deg. angle with one another in a lattices, while flat light-transmitting regions 31 are formed among the respective cells 28. The regions 31 are also arranged in a lattice such that the regions 31 complement the cells 28. The optical plate 24 is made of a colorless transparent resin, and has a light source 34 side surface formed with a Fresnel convex lens surface 32 and a first sheet 22 side surface formed with hexagonal convex lens parts 33. The convex lens parts 33 are arranged in a lattice corresponding to the light-transmitting regions 31 to focus light from the light source 34 onto only the light-transmitting regions 31.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to improvements in automobile tail lamps.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art It is stipulated by law that an automobile is equipped with a tail lamp that emits red light toward the rear at night. It is also obligatory to install a rear reflector that glows red when illuminated by the headlights of the following vehicle. In addition, brake lights are needed. Generally, a rear lamp assembly is arranged on both sides of an automobile, and the rear lamp assembly has a transparent portion corresponding to a tail lamp, a reflector, a brake lamp, a backward light, a turn signal, a fog lamp, or the like.

A structure is known in which a reflector is incorporated in a tail lamp in order to save space. That is, the lens that serves as the light emitter cover of the tail lamp also serves as a reflector, and is called a reflector-combined light emitter. Usually, the part that becomes the light emitter is arranged immediately behind the light bulb, and the reflector part is provided in a region away from the light path of the light bulb. On the other hand, a reflector including an elongated strip portion extending across the light emitter portion is also known. In this case, an optical plate acting as a plurality of cylindrical convex lenses is necessary in order to reliably collect the light from the light bulb in the light emitting strips located between the reflecting strips. A conventional tail lamp of this kind is shown in FIGS.

This conventional tail lamp has a housing 2
A housing 2 having a light bulb 1 mounted therein and a generally red external lens or cover 3 for emitting light;
It supports an optical plate 4 that serves as an internal lens. The outer surface 6 of the cover 3 is substantially flat, and the inner surface 7 has laterally extending light emitting strips 8 and reflecting strips 9 alternately. The light emitting strip 8 is relatively wider than the reflecting strip 9. Each of the reflecting strips 9 is composed of a row of cube corners 11. Each of the light emitting strips 8 located in the middle has a groove 12 for diffusing the light given from the electric bulb 1 via the optical plate 4.

The optical plate 4 is provided with a Fresnel convex lens surface 13 toward the cover 3, and is provided with aligned cylindrical convex lens portions 14 toward the light bulb 1. As shown in the optical path in FIG. 7, the light from the electric bulb 1 is collected by the optical plate 4 in the light emitting strip portion 8 of the cover 3.

[0006]

Therefore, the light emitting strip portion 8 emits strip light, which is not preferable. Further, the overall thickness of the cover 3 is set to be sufficient for forming the concave groove 12 while sufficiently maintaining its mechanical strength. Therefore, the thickness of the cover 3 in the light emitting strip portion 8 cannot be minimized, and the amount of light supplied from the light bulb 1 to the outside as a lamp is reduced. Depending on the design of the lamp, it is required by law. Will not be able to satisfy the required performance level.

Further, the mosaic pins forming the mold forming the inner surface 7 require end faces that are polished into different shapes, and the pins of different shapes must be put together side by side. The manufacture of 3 is complicated and expensive.

The light of the tail lamp and the reflected light of the reflector appearing in a band shape are unfavorable from the viewpoint of styling considering the external design of the automobile.

Therefore, it is required to provide a reflector / light-emitting device which can avoid or suppress such a problem.

[0010]

DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION The present invention provides a reflector-type light emission of an automobile tail lamp including an outer lens including a first sheet made of a transparent material and an inner lens including a second sheet made of a transparent material. The first sheet has a substantially parallel outer side surface and an inner side surface facing each other, and the inner side surface includes a cell having a facet that reflects light entering through the outer side surface. The light-transmitting regions are arranged in a two-dimensional lattice so as to supplement the cells, and the second sheet is provided on the rear surface facing the first sheet and the rear surface. It has a front surface facing each other, and one of the surfaces has a convex lens portion arranged in a two-dimensional lattice shape corresponding to the lattice arrangement of the light transmitting regions.

[0011]

With the arrangement as described above, both the reflected light as the reflector and the transmitted light as the tail lamp can be obtained more uniformly over the entire area of the tail lamp. In addition, the reflection area can be increased without reducing the amount of light emitted through the light transmission area, and the lamp performance can be substantially improved.

In a tail lamp having a built-in reflector / light-emitter as described above, the internal lens refracts the light from the light source and focuses the light so that the light is substantially incident only on the light transmitting region of the external lens. Let

[0013]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.

As shown in FIG. 8, the external lens, that is, the cover 21 of the tail lamp that also serves as a reflector according to the present invention.
Form a part of a cover integrally formed of a red transparent resin material. The first sheet 22 serving as a reflector is
The periphery is surrounded by a flange portion 23 formed by molding, and the flange portion 23 forms It is positioned. Further, the flange portion 23 accurately maintains the distance between the sheets 22 and 24.

The first sheet 22 is a first sheet that is polished to be substantially flat.
A plurality of triangular pyramidal cells 28 (one of which is shown by a thick line in FIG. 9) arranged in a two-dimensional grid pattern. is doing. The above-described cells 28 are arranged so that each of the three adjacent cells 28 is located at the apex of an equilateral triangle when the three adjacent cells 28 form a group.

Each cell 28 consists of one corner of a cube, that is, it has three faces 29 which are orthogonal to each other. Light that enters the first sheet 22 vertically, for example, enters the cell 28 through the outer surface 26 and the three surfaces 29.
The light is sequentially reflected at, and is reflected in the same direction as the incident direction through the outer side surface 26. In a grid arrangement, the cells 28 are arranged along three axes every 120 °. The spacing of each cell 28 along these three axes is equal to each other and equal to the dimension of the cells 28 along each axis. That is, the cells 28 have the same rotationally symmetric shape every 120 ° and are in contact with each other.

As shown in FIG. 9, the inner surface 27 is further provided with triangular regions 31 arranged in a two-dimensional lattice along the same plane so as to supplement the cells 28 described above. . This triangular area 31 is defined by three adjacent cells 28. That is, the two lattice arrays are combined to fill the inner surface 27. In this embodiment, the proportion of the triangular region 31 on the inner surface 27 is set smaller than the proportion of the cells 28. In other words, the bottom area of each cell 28 is set larger than the area of the triangular region 31.

The front surface of the optical plate 24 is formed as a Fresnel convex lens surface 32, and the rear surface thereof is provided with a large number of hexagonal convex lens portions 33 arranged in a grid corresponding to the grid arrangement of the regions 31 described above. Has been formed. As shown in FIG. 13, the light beam emitted from the light bulb 34 arranged on the optical axis of the Fresnel convex lens surface 32 is focused only on the triangular region 31 by the optical plate 24 and is not reflected from the outer surface 26 of the cover 22. It is emitted as parallel light.

Since the region 31 to be the light emitting portion is arranged uniformly and closely over the entire tail lamp, the light emitted to the outside looks substantially uniform. Similarly, the cells 28 serving as the rear reflectors are also uniformly arranged over the entire tail lamp, so that the reflected light also appears as a uniform light. Furthermore, the light bulb 3 that has passed through the optical plate 24
Since the entire amount of light of No. 4 is radiated to the outside through the triangular region 31, the light emission performance is not sacrificed in spite of using a majority area of the tail lamp as the reflector. Further, since the region 31 is combined with the cell 28, that is, the cell 28 has a structure in which the cells 28 bridge each other, the region 31 does not weaken the strength of the first sheet 22. Therefore, the thickness of the first sheet 22 can be minimized while maintaining the mechanical strength, and the absorption of the light of the electric bulb 34 in the first sheet 22 can be minimized. Furthermore, when molding the inner surface 27 of the first sheet 22, only two types of pins are required, and since these pins have a regular prismatic shape, they can be manufactured relatively easily. , Can be easily arranged. Therefore, at the same time as ensuring excellent performance, the first sheet 22 is replaced with the conventional strip-shaped sheet (see FIGS. 1 to 4).
It becomes possible to manufacture at a low cost as compared with.

The following table shows the reflection performance of the reflector of the above-mentioned embodiment in comparison with that of the above-mentioned conventional example. This is an ECE standard No. 3, EEC
This is a summary of the results obtained by the standard test according to Directive 76/757 / EEC. The reflector is irradiated with a laser beam at various vertical and horizontal angles, and 20 'and 1 ° 30' are set for incident light. The reflected light is measured by the photocell arranged at the position.

[0021]

[Table 1]

As shown in this table, in the conventional example,
Depending on the irradiation angle, only a performance slightly exceeding the required lower limit value can be obtained, but according to the present invention, it is possible to obtain a performance that is three times as high as the required value on average.

The embodiment of the present invention has been described above.
The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment, and various modifications can be made. For example, the proportions occupied by the cell 28 and the triangular area 31 can be changed variously. The embodiment shown in FIG. 14 is an example in which the ratios of both are equal. When the ratio of the region 31 that becomes the light emitting portion is further increased, the cell 28 is in a state of being melted into the region 31, as shown in FIG.

If necessary, it is possible to form the triangular region 31 as a concave lens so as to supplement the convex lens function of the optical plate 24.

FIG. 16 shows rectangular six-sided cells 36 arranged in a rhombic two-dimensional lattice. Each cell 36 has a shape in which a pair of cubic corner portions 37 are combined, and rectangular-shaped, coplanar regions 38 are arranged in a grid pattern that complements the cells 36. In this embodiment, the optical plate has convex lens portions arranged in a lattice corresponding to the lattice arrangement of the rectangular area 38.

If necessary, the optical plate can be inverted as shown in FIG. 7 so that the Fresnel lens surface is separated from the light source.

Further, when a substantially parallel light beam can be generated as a light source by using, for example, a parabolic mirror, the Fresnel lens surface may be replaced by a flat surface.

[0028]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the present invention, both the reflected light as a reflector and the transmitted light as a tail lamp can be obtained more uniformly over the entire area of the tail lamp. . Therefore, there are fewer design restrictions. Further, since the light from the light source is effectively collected in the light transmitting area by the convex lens portion, the amount of light emitted through the light transmitting area is not reduced. That is, it is possible to increase the reflection area while ensuring the amount of transmitted light, and it is possible to substantially improve the lamp performance. Further, if each cell is configured to be continuous as in the embodiment of FIG. 9, mechanical strength can be ensured by the cell and the light transmission region can be thinned to the minimum.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a front view of a conventional tail lamp seen from the rear.

FIG. 2 is a sectional view taken along line II-II in FIG.

FIG. 3 is an enlarged view of the inside of the cover of the tail lamp shown in FIG.

FIG. 4 is a sectional view taken along line IV-IV in FIG.

5 is an enlarged view of an optical plate in the tail lamp of FIG.

6 is a sectional view taken along line VI-VI of FIG.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram of an optical path in a conventional tail lamp.

FIG. 8 is a front view of the cover according to the present invention with an inner surface thereof partially omitted.

9 is a partially enlarged view of the inner surface of the cover shown in FIG.

10 is a cross-sectional view taken along line XX of FIG.

FIG. 11 is a partially enlarged view of the optical plate of the tail lamp according to the present invention.

12 is a sectional view taken along line XII-XII in FIG.

FIG. 13 is an explanatory diagram of an optical path in the tail lamp of the present invention.

FIG. 14 is a partially enlarged view of the inner surface of the cover similar to FIG. 9 showing another embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 15 is a partially enlarged view of the inner surface of the cover similar to FIG. 9 showing still another embodiment of the present invention.

16 is a partially enlarged view of the inner surface of the cover similar to FIG. 9 showing still another embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 22 ... 1st sheet 24 ... Optical plate 28 ... Cell 31 ... Light transmission region 32 ... Fresnel convex lens surface 33 ... Convex lens part

Claims (14)

[Claims] 1. A reflector / type light emitter for a tail lamp of an automobile, comprising: an outer lens including a first sheet made of a transparent material; and an inner lens including a second sheet made of a transparent material. The sheet has an outer surface and an inner surface that are substantially parallel to each other, and on the inner surface, cells having facets that reflect light entering through the outer surface are arranged in a two-dimensional lattice. Along with, the regions that transmit light are arranged in a two-dimensional lattice shape so as to supplement the cells, the second sheet has a rear surface facing the first sheet and a front surface facing the rear surface, On either side,
A reflector / type light emitter for a tail lamp of an automobile, comprising convex lens portions arranged in a two-dimensional lattice shape corresponding to the lattice arrangement of the light transmitting regions. 2. The cells are arranged along axes that intersect with each other, and the spacing between cells along each axis is proportional to the cell size along that axis.
A light emitter that also serves as a reflector for the tail lamp of the automobile. 3. The reflector / emitter of a vehicle tail lamp according to claim 1, wherein the cell includes at least one cubic corner portion. 4. The reflector / emitter of a vehicle tail lamp according to claim 3, wherein the cell comprises one cube corner. 5. The reflector / emitter of a vehicle tail lamp according to claim 1, wherein the cells are arranged along three axes of 120 °. 6. The reflector-cum-illuminator of a tail lamp of an automobile according to claim 1, wherein the cells are arranged in contact with each other. 7. The reflector for a tail lamp of an automobile according to claim 1, wherein the cell occupies a larger area than the light transmitting region on the inner surface of the first sheet. Type light emitter. 8. The reflector-combined light-emitting device for a tail lamp of an automobile according to claim 1, wherein the light transmitting region is formed in a flat surface. 9. The reflector / emitter of a vehicle tail lamp according to claim 8, wherein the respective light transmitting regions are formed on the same plane. 10. The tail lamp of an automobile according to claim 1, wherein a Fresnel convex lens surface is provided on a surface of the second sheet opposite to the convex lens portion. Reflector type light emitter. 11. The convex lens portion is provided on the rear surface of the second sheet, according to claim 1.
11. A light emitter that also serves as a reflector for an automobile tail lamp according to any one of 10. 12. The reflector for a tail lamp of an automobile according to claim 1, wherein the first sheet is surrounded by a peripheral flange portion for positioning a peripheral portion of the internal lens. Type light emitter. 13. The reflector / emitter of a vehicle tail lamp according to claim 12, wherein the flange portion maintains a space between the first sheet and the second sheet. 14. A tail lamp for a vehicle, comprising the reflector-combined light emitter according to claim 1. Description: