JPH11224158A - Wireless mouse - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a wireless mouse which can prolong the battery life by adding the fact that the mouse actually has moved to resetting conditions of the sleep mode of a CPU. SOLUTION: The wireless mouse is equipped with a case 51, a roller ball 52 which rotates by friction against an external stationary body accompanying the movement of the case 51, a signal processing circuit 53a which processes a position information signal based upon the rotation of the roller ball 52, a transmitting circuit 53b which sends the position information signal processed by the signal processing circuit 53a to a host system by radio, a battery 54a which supplies electric power to the signal processing circuit 53a and a transmitting circuit 53b, and a vibration detecting mechanism 10 which detects vibration applied to the case 51 and outputs a vibration detection signal. The signal processing circuit 53a, once receiving the vibration detection signal, has a transition from the sleep mode to an operation mode to process the position information signal in the operation mode and moves to the sleep mode again a certain time later.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a wireless mouse for wirelessly transmitting a position information signal to a host system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A wireless mouse in which a cable for connection to a host system is omitted has a wireless transmission system for inputting a mouse signal (position information signal) to the host system. FIGS. 5A and 5B are a plan view and a side view showing a general configuration of a conventional wireless mouse. In this figure, reference numeral 51 denotes a lower case of the mouse. The upper case paired with the lower case 51 is opened,
It is omitted in the drawing. The lower case 51 is mounted so that a roller ball 52 for position detection is partially exposed.
When the roller 51 moves the case 51,
It rotates by friction with an external stationary body (for example, a mouse pad). When the ball 52 rotates, an electromechanical converter (not shown) converts the rotation into a position information signal in the X-axis direction and the Y-axis direction.

The position information signal is processed by a signal processing circuit 53a using a CPU, and further transmitted from a transmission circuit 53b wirelessly to a host system (not shown). 53 is a printed circuit board on which circuits 53a and 53b are mounted. Under the printed board 53, a battery 54 is provided.
The battery accommodating portion 54 for accommodating a is provided. Reference numeral 55 denotes a transmission loop antenna formed of a covered copper wire, and is coupled to an output terminal of the transmission circuit 53b. Reference numeral 56 denotes a switch substrate on which switches 56a to 56c for fixing the cursor position moved by the ball 52 are mounted.

Since this type of wireless mouse uses a battery 54a having a limited capacity as an operating power source, it is necessary to extend the life of the battery 54a by employing an operation mode that consumes as little power as possible. As an example, the CPU 53
A sleep mode is introduced into the operation a, and for example, a 200 ms sleep period is set for a 2 ms sampling period. When the movement of the mouse is detected during the sampling period, the mode is shifted from the sleep mode to the operation mode. In this operation mode, the processing of the position information signal is performed. Then, when the mouse does not move for a certain period, the mode returns to the sleep mode.

FIG. 6 is a schematic flowchart showing the above-described software processing by the CPU 53a. After the CPU is operated in step 61, the stationary state of the mouse is detected in the next step 62. During the period in which it is determined in step 62 that the mouse is not stationary (moving), the CPU operation in step 61 is always continued. Step 62
When it is determined that the mouse is stationary, the process proceeds to step 63, and it is determined whether or not the mouse operation is detected by the intermittent operation of the CPU. When the operation is detected in step 63, the operation proceeds to the CPU continuous operation in step 61.
Step 63 is repeated as long as no operation is detected.

[0006]

The intermittent operation of the CPU shown in the flowchart of FIG. 6, that is, the alternate execution of the sleep mode and the operation mode, can reduce the consumption of the battery 54a as compared with the case where the mouse operation is constantly monitored. . However, the time when the mouse is left unused without using it may be unexpectedly long. In this period, although the sleep mode is introduced, it is useless to repeatedly detect the presence or absence of the mouse operation at a constant cycle, and the battery life is shortened. This is not sufficient as an extension measure. This is a problem to be solved by the present invention.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a wireless mouse which can further extend the battery life by adding the fact that the mouse has actually moved to the CPU sleep mode release condition. .

[0008]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The object of the present invention is to provide a case, a roller ball partially exposed from the case and rotating by friction with an external stationary body accompanying the movement of the case, and a roller ball. A signal processing circuit for processing a position information signal based on the rotation of the transmitter, a transmitting circuit for wirelessly transmitting the position information signal processed by the signal processing circuit to a host system, and supplying power to the signal processing circuit and the transmitting circuit A battery, and a vibration detection mechanism that detects vibration applied to the case and outputs a vibration detection signal, wherein the signal processing circuit shifts from a sleep mode to an operation mode when the vibration detection signal is received, and In the wireless mouse, which processes the position information signal and shifts to the sleep mode after a lapse of a predetermined time.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, the vibration detecting mechanism includes a first spring having an axis along the direction of gravity, a conductive weight supported at an end of the first spring, A second spring having an inner diameter larger than the outer diameter of the weight and disposed around the weight; and a second spring disposed between the first and second springs due to contact between the weight and the second spring. Is used as the vibration detection signal.

In this case, the weight is mounted on the upper end of the first spring whose lower end is fixed, or is suspended from the lower end of the first spring whose upper end is fixed. The signal processing circuit is a CPU that switches between the sleep mode and the operation mode by software processing.

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described below in detail with reference to embodiments shown in the drawings. FIG. 1 is a plan view showing an embodiment of the wireless mouse of the present invention. FIG. 1 corresponds to FIG. 5A, and the present invention also has a side configuration similar to that of FIG. 5B. As shown in FIG. 1, the wireless mouse of the present invention includes a vibration detection mechanism 10 for interrupting the CPU 53a in the sleep mode to shift to the operation mode. The vibration detection mechanism 10 is mounted on an appropriate position in the case 51, for example, on a printed circuit board 53.

FIG. 2 is a side sectional view showing a specific example of the vibration detecting mechanism 10 of the present invention. This vibration detecting mechanism 10 is covered with a cylindrical dome 11 and a cap 12 for closing an upper end opening thereof. A first spring 13 having an axis along the direction of gravity is provided in the dome 11, A conductive weight 14 supported at an end of the first spring 13 and a second spring 15 having an inner diameter larger than the outer diameter of the weight 14 and disposed around the weight 14 are provided. ing.
The vibration detecting mechanism 10 includes a weight 14 and a second spring 1.
The conduction between the first and second springs 13 and 15 due to the contact with the fifth spring 5 is used as a vibration detection signal that interrupts the CPU 53a. For this purpose, the lead 13A of the first spring 13 and the lead 15A of the second spring 15 are soldered to the printed circuit board 53 by solder 16, respectively.
53a is connected to one of the input ports.

In the vibration detecting mechanism 10 having the structure shown in FIG.
4 is fixed to the upper end of the first spring 13 whose lower end is fixed. Therefore, when the vibration caused by the mouse operation is applied to the case 51 of FIG.
Of the second spring 15
Contact Therefore, the leads 13A and 15A are electrically connected, and the CPU 53a recognizes the vibration detection signal and cancels the sleep mode. CPU5 released from sleep mode
3a enters the operation mode and processes the position information signal resulting from the rotation of the roller ball 52.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing processing by the CPU 53a of the present invention. Steps 41 and 42
Corresponds to steps 61 and 62 in FIG. 6, but in step 42 of the present invention, when the mouse is stopped, the CPU operation is stopped in step 43. That is, the mode is shifted to the sleep mode. The sleep mode of the present invention is not repeated intermittently at regular time intervals as in the related art, and is not canceled unless the vibration detection mechanism 10 detects a new vibration.

Step 44 is a process for detecting an interruption of a vibration detection signal from the vibration detection mechanism 10. When the interruption of the vibration detection signal is detected in step 44, the operation of the CPU is started in step 45. That is, CPU
53a shifts to the operation mode after step 41 and processes the position information signal. After the shift to the operation mode, if it is determined in step 42 that the mouse is stopped, the process shifts to the sleep mode. When such a mode switching is performed, the CPU 53a continues the sleep mode for many hours if the mouse is not operated at all, so that the consumption of the battery 54a (FIG. 5) is significantly reduced.

FIG. 3 is a sectional view showing another example of the vibration detecting mechanism 10 of the present invention. In the vibration detection mechanism 10 of the present example,
The weight 14 is suspended from the lower end of the first spring 13 having the upper end fixed. The second spring 15 is provided near the bottom surface of the dome 11. The first spring includes a portion 13 for suspending the weight 14 and the weight 14
And a portion 13B electrically connected to 3A. When viewed from the printed circuit board 53, the leads 13A and 15A have the same relationship as in FIG.

[0017]

As described above, according to the present invention, since the vibration detecting mechanism for actually detecting the movement of the mouse is incorporated, it is possible to add the detection of the actual movement of the mouse to the condition for releasing the sleep mode of the CPU. This makes it possible to realize a wireless mouse that can extend the sleep mode as much as possible and reduce battery consumption without delaying detection of mouse operation.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a plan view showing an embodiment of a wireless mouse of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view illustrating an example of the vibration detection mechanism of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a sectional view showing another example of the vibration detection mechanism of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating processing of a CPU according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a configuration diagram of a conventional wireless mouse.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing processing of a conventional CPU.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 10 position detection mechanism 11 dome 12 cap 13 first spring 14 weight 15 second spring 16 solder 51 case 52 roller ball 53 printed board 53a signal processing circuit (CPU) 53b transmission circuit 54a battery 55 loop antenna

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A case, a roller ball partially exposed from the case and rotated by friction with an external stationary body accompanying the movement of the case, and a signal for processing a position information signal based on the rotation of the roller ball A processing circuit; a transmission circuit that wirelessly transmits the position information signal processed by the signal processing circuit to a host system; a battery that supplies power to the signal processing circuit and the transmission circuit; and a vibration applied to the case. And a vibration detection mechanism that outputs a vibration detection signal.When the signal processing circuit receives the vibration detection signal, the signal processing circuit shifts from a sleep mode to an operation mode, processes the position information signal in the operation mode, and then performs a constant operation. A wireless mouse that shifts to the sleep mode after a lapse of time. 2. The vibration detecting mechanism according to claim 1, wherein said first spring has an axis centered in a direction of gravity, a conductive weight supported on an end of said first spring, and an outer diameter of said weight. A second spring having a large inner diameter and disposed around the weight, and detecting the vibration between the first and second springs due to contact between the weight and the second spring; The wireless mouse according to claim 1, wherein the mouse is a signal. 3. The wireless mouse according to claim 2, wherein the weight is mounted on an upper end of the first spring to which a lower end is fixed. 4. The wireless mouse according to claim 2, wherein the weight is suspended from a lower end of the first spring having an upper end fixed. 5. The wireless mouse according to claim 1, wherein the signal processing circuit is a CPU that switches between the sleep mode and the operation mode by software processing.