JPH09122004A - Mail box - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To confirm easily the presence of the delivered main even without opening the door of a main box. SOLUTION: This mail box comprises an illuminator to radiate light beams toward the bottom surface from the upper part of the inside of the mail box, a light receiver 11 to detect a reflected one of light beams irradiating the mail received in the mail box and output a signal and a delivered mail arrival indicating lamp lighting circuit to light a delivered mail arrival indicating lamp according to the output signal of the light receiving 11 and further a light absorbing mat 6 on the bottom surface of the mail box. The illuminator 10 is concretely made by using LED (luminous diode) or infrared ray radiating LED and the light receiver 11 is made concretely by using a photodiode or photo-transistor having higher sensitivity. Further, the illuminator 10 is practically made of a plurality of LEDs 10a.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a mail box, and more particularly to a mail box suitable for a collective mail box provided in an office building or a housing complex.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A collective mail box provided in an office building, a housing complex, etc. is formed by connecting a plurality of mail boxes vertically and horizontally, and its door is designed to ensure privacy. I made it invisible. For this reason, it was impossible to confirm the presence or absence of a delivery unless the door of the mailbox was opened.

As described above, the conventional mail box has a problem in that the presence of the delivered article cannot be confirmed unless the door is opened, so that even if the delivered article is in the mail box, it is not immediately known.

[0004]

Therefore, the present invention has been made in view of the above problems of the conventional mailbox, and the purpose thereof is to deliver the mail without opening the door of the mailbox. It aims to provide a mailbox that allows easy confirmation of the presence or absence of an item.

[0005]

According to the present invention,
A light emitter 10 that irradiates light from the inside upper part of the mailbox to the bottom, a light receiver 11 that detects the reflected light of the light that has been irradiated on the delivery placed in the mail receiver, and outputs a signal, and a light receiver 11 A delivery arrival indicator lamp lighting circuit 12 for lighting the delivery arrival indicator lamp 5 according to the output signal is provided, and a light absorption mat 6 for absorbing light is further provided on the bottom of the delivery box.

The light emitter 10 can be embodied as an infrared light emitter that emits infrared light, and the use of an infrared light emitter is preferred because the light of the light emitter is invisible.

The light emitter 10 can be specifically achieved by using an LED (light emitting diode), and the light receiver 11 can be specifically achieved by using a photodiode or a phototransistor having higher sensitivity. Specifically, the infrared light emitting device 10 can be achieved by using an infrared light emitting LED.

The light emitter 10 can be implemented as a plurality of LEDs 10a. If a plurality of LEDs 10a are used, the amount of light irradiated to the bottom of the mail box is large, and the reflected light reflected from the delivery is received by the light receiver. Not only is 11 easier to detect, but the light irradiation range is also wider.

The light absorbing mat 6 can be achieved by using a black matte sheet, but it can be appropriately selected and used from those having less reflection of light. When using an infrared emitting LED, it is preferable to use a matte rubber sheet having a high infrared absorption rate.

In front of the light emitting device 10 and the light receiving device 11, a protective transparent plate may be attached and used, if necessary.
When the infrared light emitter 10 is used, a visible light cut filter may be attached in front of the light receiver 11.

[0011]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a collective mail receiver using a plurality of mail receivers of the present invention connected vertically and horizontally.
FIG. 3 is a vertical sectional view of the mailbox according to the present invention.

In the figure, reference numeral 1 is a main body of a mailbox that is formed by bending a stainless steel plate into a box shape, and a door 2 having an insertion opening is hingedly attached to the front portion thereof. Further, a lid plate 3 made of a black acrylic plate is attached to the inlet so that light does not enter from the outside. A lock 4 is attached to the door 2, and the door 2 is opened and closed by using a key.

Further, a delivery arrival indicator lamp 5 composed of an LED (light emitting diode) is attached so that it can be seen from the upper front part of the main body 1 of the mail box.

The inner side surfaces of the mail receiving main body 1 excluding the bottom surface side and the inner side surface of the door 2 are black matte coated in order to prevent malfunction due to light entering through the gap.

A light absorbing mat 6 made of a matte rubber sheet having a high infrared absorption rate is provided on the bottom surface of the main body 1 of the mail receiver. Further, the surface of the light absorbing mat 6 is formed with a quadrangular pyramid-shaped recess in order to increase the infrared absorption rate.

A board 7 is attached to the upper surface of the main body 1 of the mailbox by means of stud bolts 8. On the board 8, there is provided a device for lighting the delivery arrival indicator lamp 5 when the delivery arrives. It is posted. The device is shown in FIG.
As shown in the circuit diagram of FIG.
An oscillation circuit 9 that outputs 5 seconds interval, output 10 milliseconds),
An infrared light emitter 10 composed of an infrared light emitting LED that emits infrared light according to the output of the oscillation circuit 9, and a photodiode that detects and outputs the reflected light of the infrared light that the infrared light emitter 10 irradiates the delivery, or higher sensitivity A light receiver 11 composed of a phototransistor, and a delivery arrival indicator light lighting circuit 12 for lighting the delivery arrival indicator light 5 according to an output signal of the light receiver 11.
The delivery arrival indicator light 5 is turned on when the delivery is placed in the mailbox.

The infrared light emitted from the infrared light emitter 10 is
Although it is reflected not only from the delivered item but also from the bottom surface of the mailbox, as shown in FIG. 4, since the light absorbing mat 6 is provided on the entire bottom surface of the main body 1 of the mailbox, its influence is reduced. Therefore, the difference in the intensity of the reflected light between when the delivery is present and when the delivery is not present is increased, and the dynamic range is increased to prevent malfunction.

In this embodiment, as shown in FIGS. 4 and 5, one light receiver 11 is arranged at a position substantially in the center of the upper surface of the main body 1 of the mail box, and the light receiving unit 11 is arranged in the direction from the center to the front corner. A total of three infrared light emitting LEDs 10a are arranged, one each at a substantially middle position and one at a substantially middle position in the direction straight rearward from the center.

As described above, if the infrared light emitter 10 is composed of a plurality of infrared light emitting LEDs 10a, the irradiation amount of infrared light is increased, so that it is easy to detect the delivered product and the corner of the bottom of the mail box is detected. Since it is possible to irradiate infrared rays individually, even if a delivery item is thrown into the corner of a mail box, it can be detected.

Further, if the infrared light emitting device 10 and the light receiving device 11 are provided on the upper surface of the main body 1 of the mail box, in addition to the advantage that not only infrared rays can be emitted in a wide range but also reflected light can be easily detected, intrusion from the outside is possible. There is also an advantage that the emitted light is less likely to directly hit the light receiver 11 and is less likely to malfunction.

Next, a method of using the mail box will be described. First, when the power is turned on and the door 2 of the mailbox is opened, the light receiver 11 emits a signal by the light entering from the outside,
The delivery arrival indicator light 5 lights up. When the door 2 is closed, light does not enter from the outside, so that the delivery arrival indicator light 5 goes out. In this way, it can be checked whether the device is working properly.

In the apparatus of this embodiment, the oscillator circuit 9 causes the current to flow for 10 milliseconds at intervals of 15 seconds to reduce the power consumption.
It is checked every 5 seconds.

When there is no delivery in the mailbox, the infrared rays emitted by the infrared ray emitter 10 are absorbed by the light absorbing mat 6 and the reflected light is attenuated, so that the light receiver 11 is not turned on.
Do not give a signal.

When a delivery is put in the mail box, the infrared light emitted from the infrared light emitter 10 is reflected by the delivery, the reflected infrared light enters the light receiver 11, and the light receiver 11 is turned on to emit a signal.

The delivery arrival indicator lamp lighting circuit 12 lights the delivery arrival indicator lamp 5 in response to the signal to notify that the delivery item has arrived.

When the delivery is taken out of the mail box, the reflected light of infrared rays is reduced, the light receiver 11 does not turn on and does not emit a signal, and therefore, the state returns to the initial state and the delivery arrival indicator lamp 5 goes out.

The above is the embodiment, and when the power source is a dry battery, it can be implemented by adding a voltage monitoring circuit. Further, although an example in which a light emitting device that emits infrared rays is used as the light emitting device 10 is shown, the light emitting device can also be implemented as a light emitting device that emits visible light or ultraviolet light.

[0029]

The mail box according to the present invention is constructed as described above, and is convenient because it is possible to easily confirm the presence or absence of a delivery without opening the door 2 of the mail box.

Further, in the mail box according to the present invention, since the light absorbing mat 6 is provided on the entire bottom surface, the difference in the intensity of the reflected light between when the delivery is present and when the delivery is not present is large, and the dynamic range is increased. Has an effect that the malfunction becomes less likely to occur.

Since the light emitter 10 and the light receiver 11 are provided on the upper surface of the main body 1 of the mail box, not only can light be emitted in a wide range, but also reflected light can be easily detected. In addition, the light entering from the outside is
There is also an effect that malfunctions due to light that has entered from the outside are less likely to occur.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a state in which a plurality of post boxes according to the present invention are connected vertically and horizontally and used as a collective post box.

FIG. 2 is a vertical cross-sectional view of the mailbox according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a circuit diagram of an apparatus for lighting a delivery arrival indicator light of a mail box according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory view illustrating a state in which a light absorbing mat is provided on the bottom portion of the mailbox according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a perspective view of the mail receiver of the present invention when viewed from the lower left.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Main body of mail box 2 Door 5 Delivery arrival indicator light 6 Optical absorption mat 9 Oscillation circuit 10 Light emitter 10a LED 11 Light receiver 12 Delivery arrival indicator light circuit

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A light emitter (10) for irradiating light from the inside upper part of the mailbox to the bottom surface, and a light receiving device for detecting a reflected light of the light applied to a delivery placed in the mailbox and outputting a signal. Optical receiver (11) and a delivery arrival indicator light lighting circuit (12) that lights the delivery arrival indicator lamp (5) by the output signal of the light receiver (11), and further absorbs light on the bottom of the mailbox. A mail box characterized by having a mat (6). 2. The mailbox according to claim 1, wherein the light emitting device (10) is an infrared light emitting device for emitting infrared rays. 3. A light emitting device (10) comprising a plurality of LEDs (10a)
The mailbox according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that