JPS5987586A - Input device pen - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To execute a multi-step detection of writing pressure by forming a split electrode on one surface part of a plate-like mechanical/electrical transducing element, and making a elastic body having different elasticity absorbing effect, respectively, press-contact with this split electrode surface. CONSTITUTION:The elastic body 12 is interposed in a common electrode 14c provided on the one surface part of a mechanical/electrical transducing element 13, also elastic bodies 16, 17 having different vibration absorbing effect are interposed to contact with each of the split electrode 14a, 14b provided on the other surface part, and to sandwich the mechanical/electrical transducing element 13 by a pen point 11 and a sandwiching body 19. The characteristic of the mechanical/electrical transducing element 13 is varied by applying the pressure effected to the pen point 11 accompanying an input operation to the mechanical/ electrical transducing element 13, the contact of the pen point to the input board surface and the variation of the contact pressure are detected by utilizing the split electrode to multi-step detect the writing pressure with no stroke of the pen point.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an input device pen used in computer input devices such as graphic input devices and digitizers.

Conventional configuration and its r-1 problem As an input terminal device for a computer, a coordinate input device is used in which characters, figures, etc. are drawn with a pen, and the pen position is read as coordinates on an input panel surface.

In such coordinate input devices, for example, electromagnetic coupling between a pen and an input panel surface is often used as a coordinate detection method. In this way, the pen and the input panel surface are spatially coupled. And the shape of the pen tip.

Dirt on the input panel surface has little effect on coordinate detection accuracy, making it possible to provide a highly reliable device.

However, on the other hand, even if the pen tip is far from the input panel surface,
Since there is a connection between them, coordinates can be input even if the pen does not touch the board surface. Therefore, conventionally, a pen is provided with a microswitch that is linked to the pen tip, and the microswitch is activated by the pressure of the pen tip to detect contact between the pen and the input panel surface. Therefore, there is inevitably a stroke at the pen tip that is the same as the stroke of the microswitch operation, and this up and down movement can cause input to be cut off.
There was a problem that it was difficult to hear.

FIG. 1 is a sectional view of a conventional pen for an input device. In the figure, 1 is a pickup coil for detecting the magnetic field generated from the input panel surface, 2 is a pen shaft,
3 is a microswitch, 4 is a case, and 6 is a cable for extracting signals from the pickup coil 1 and the microswitch 3.

FIG. 2 is an enlarged sectional view of the microswitch 3 of FIG. 1. Reference numerals 6 and 7 denote a pair of terminals constituting a switch, 8 a metallic torque spring with a spherical surface, and 9 a moving piece in contact with the apex of the torque spring 8, on the surface of which the pen shaft 2 is provided.

In the above configuration, when writing pressure is applied to the pen shaft, the center portion of the toggle spring comes into contact with the terminal 6 and the switch is closed. In this case, the opening/closing stroke of the switch is determined by the gap between the torque spring 8 and the terminal 6, but this gap cannot be made extremely narrow in order to clearly open/close depending on the presence or absence of pen pressure. Therefore, in the above-mentioned configuration, there is a problem that the vertical movement of the pen and the opening/closing of the switch cause a click feeling, and when inputting delicate characters and shapes, it is difficult to write because the input traces are cut off. Furthermore, since it is a mechanical switch, the contacts have a limited lifespan and there are problems with reliability.

On the other hand, as the uses of such input devices expand, pens for input devices should not only detect the presence or absence of contact with the input panel surface, but also have the ability to distinguish between two levels of contact pressure, that is, pen pressure. It's often convenient. For example, when inputting handwritten characters, you can distinguish between the thick and thin lines of the characters by the amount of total pen pressure, or move the cursor with light pen pressure.
It is used to fix the cursor using strong pen pressure. Such a function cannot be realized with the conventional input device pen described above, nor can it be easily realized even with improvements thereto.

OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a pen for an input device that allows the pen tip to come into contact with the input panel surface without the troublesome strokes described above, and that also allows multi-stage detection of contact pressure. .

Structure of the Invention The input device pen of the present invention includes a plate-shaped mechanical-electrical transducer having a common electrode provided on one surface and a plurality of divided electrodes provided on the other surface, and an input operation pen. Sometimes,
A pen nib that is in contact with the input panel surface and a holding body, an elastic body interposed therebetween so as to be in contact with a common electrode provided on one surface of the mechanical-electric conversion element, and provided on the other surface of the mechanical-electric conversion element. interposing elastic bodies having different vibration absorption effects so as to be in contact with each of the divided electrodes, and sandwiching the mechanical-electric conversion element between the pen tip and the clamping body;
By applying the pressing force applied to the pen tip in response to an input operation to the mechanical-electrical converting element, the characteristics of the mechanical-electrical converting element are changed, and the plurality of divisions'
The pen tip is configured to use electrodes to detect the contact of the pen tip with the input panel surface and the change in contact pressure, and multi-step detection of pen pressure is performed without the need for strokes of the pen/tip.

DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view of a main part of a contact detection unit with an input panel surface at the tip of a pen for an input device in an embodiment of the present invention.

In Fig. 3, 10 is a pickup coil for detecting the magnetic field generated from the input panel surface, 11 is a pen shaft, and 1
2 is a rubber-based elastic body; 13 is a disc-shaped piezoelectric vibrator, which is a type of mechanical-electric conversion element; 14a, 14b, 14c
are drive electrodes provided on both sides of the piezoelectric vibrator.

In this case, the drive electrodes 14a, 14b are divided, and the drive electrodes 14c
15a, 15b, and 15c, which form a common electrode, are lead wires for external extraction of the electrodes, 16 is an elastic body similar to 12, 17 is a plastic elastic body, 18 is a resin storage container, and 19 is a resin storage container. The pressure adjustment screw also serves as a holding body, and 2o is a pen case. As shown in the figure, both principal surfaces of the piezoelectric vibrator 13 are in contact with the elastic body 12.degree. 16.17, and the pressure adjustment state is adjusted by operating the pressure adjustment screw 19.

FIG. 4 shows the elastic bodies 12, 16, 17 in FIG. 3,
FIG. 2 is an exploded perspective view showing an assembled configuration of a piezoelectric vibrator 13, a pen shaft 11, and a pressure adjustment screw 19. As shown in the figure, the elastic member 12.16° 17 in contact with the piezoelectric vibrator 13 has a ring shape for drawing out the lead wire. On the other hand, the elastic bodies 16 and 17 are rubber-based ones and plasti...? It has a function of separating detection characteristics based on pen pressure.

In the above configuration, the pressure adjustment screw 19 includes the overlapping pen shaft 11, piezoelectric vibrator 13, and elastic body 12°16.17.
It is adjusted so that a light contact force is applied to simply hold the piezoelectric vibrator, and the mechanical vibration of the piezoelectric vibrator is not substantially affected. When pressure is applied through the pen shaft 11 from this state, the stress is applied to the piezoelectric vibrator 13,
The pressure contact force with the elastic body 12°16.17 increases, and vibrations are mechanically absorbed. However, the absorption effect depends mainly on the hardness of the elastic body, and the higher the hardness, the smaller the absorption effect. In this embodiment, the elastic body 17 is replaced by the elastic body 12.
Since the hardness is higher than that of 16, vibration on the side where the drive electrode 14a is provided is prevented with lower writing pressure, and with higher writing pressure,
Vibration on the side where the drive electrode 14b is provided is prevented.

FIG. 5 is a circuit diagram showing an example of a contact detection circuit for detecting contact between the input device pen having the above structure and the input panel surface. In the figure, a piezoelectric vibrator 13 with a divided electrode '5,
The transistor 30a, the capacitors 31a and 32a, and the piezoelectric vibrator 13, the transistor 30b1, and the capacitors 31b and 32b constitute an oscillation circuit, respectively. The oscillation output of this oscillation circuit is transmitted through amplifiers 33a and 33.
b and rectified by diodes 34a and 34b to obtain DC voltages vO and Vo'. In addition, 35a, 3
θa.

35b and 36b are bleeder resistors for base bias of the transistors 30a and 30b (7), and 37a and 37b are smoothing capacitors. The element constants of this oscillation circuit are determined so that it oscillates at least when the tip of the pen shaft 11 does not touch the input board surface. Therefore, in this case, positive DC voltages Vo, Vo' are obtained. Now, when the first writing pressure is applied to the tip of the pen shaft, the electrode 14a of the piezoelectric vibrator 13.

The vibrations that are pressed into contact with 14c are absorbed, and therefore the vibrations are suppressed, and the equivalent impedance is extremely increased (Q is extremely decreased). This decrease in Q causes oscillation to stop, and DC voltage Vo becomes zero.

When a second pen pressure is further applied, the electrode 14b of the piezoelectric vibrator 13
The plastic elastic body 17 in contact with absorbs vibrations and suppresses the vibrations of the piezoelectric vibrator 13, lowering the Q. As the Q decreases, oscillation stops and the DC voltage Vo' becomes zero.

In this way, the split electrode surface has a rubber-based elastic material with a large vibration-absorbing effect and a plastic-based elastic material with a small vibration-absorbing effect. It is possible to divide the characteristics of

In the above operation, the first
．． It is only necessary to apply the second pen pressure, and vertical movement of the pen shaft is essentially unnecessary.

FIG. 6 is a circuit diagram showing another example of the contact detection circuit,
First, the piezoelectric vibrator. This is a case where the resonant frequency changes when the second stress is applied. In the figure, a voltage with a frequency equal to the series resonance frequency is applied to the piezoelectric vibrator 13 from an oscillator 39 via a resistor 38. The terminal voltage of the piezoelectric vibrator 13 is input to amplifiers 40a and 40b.
It is sufficient to amplify the voltage with the diodes 41a and 41b, rectify it with the diodes 41a and 41b, and monitor the DC voltages Vo and Vo'. In addition, 42a,
42b is a smoothing capacitor. When no pen pressure is applied to the piezoelectric vibrator, the terminal voltage of the piezoelectric vibrator 13 is extremely small, and therefore the DC voltages Vo and Vo' are also extremely small. Now, when the first pen pressure is applied to the piezoelectric vibrator, the resonance frequency of the side pressed against the rubber-based elastic body shifts and the DC voltage ■0
increases. Next, when the second pen pressure is applied as it is, the resonance frequency on the side pressed against the plastic elastic body shifts, and the DC voltage Vo' increases. Therefore, two-step contact detection is possible by monitoring the DC voltages of vO and Vo'.

FIG. 7 shows the amount of change in the equivalent impedance obtained with the split-electrode vibrator element 13 in an embodiment of the present invention. The equivalent impedance was determined while applying pressure to the pen tip with a dial tension gauge. It is something that

Here, when the writing pressure is zero, the equivalent impedance between the terminal 15c of the common electrode, the terminal 16a of the electrode in contact with the rubber-based elastic body, and the terminal 1sb of the electrode in contact with the plastic-based elastic body is around 30Ω. In the circuit shown in FIG. 5, the equivalent impedance constant when Vo and Vo' become zero is set to 100Ω. Then, when pen pressure is applied to the piezoelectric vibrator, the electrode terminal 1 on the side that is pressed against the rubber-based elastic body
5a, ■ becomes zero when the pen pressure is approximately tsog. When further pressure is applied to the terminal 1sb of the electrode that is in pressure contact with the plastic elastic body, Vo' becomes zero at approximately 100 S of pen pressure, and a two-stage pen is applied using one split-electrode vibrator. Pressure detection can be realized.

Figure 8 (IQ, (Bl) is a disk-shaped and square plate-shaped piezoelectric vibrator with divided electrodes formed in a ring shape. In the above embodiment, the electrodes of the disk-shaped piezoelectric vibrator are 2 from the center
Although the piezoelectric vibrator is divided into parts, the effect is the same even if the piezoelectric vibrator shown in FIG.

Effects of the Invention As is clear from the above explanation, according to the present invention, a divided electrode is formed on one side of a plate-shaped mechanical-electrical conversion element,
By configuring elastic bodies with different elastic absorption effects to be brought into pressure contact with the divided electrode surfaces, it is not only possible to detect pen pressure without vertical movement of the pen tip, but also to
Since multi-stage detection of pen pressure can be realized, a pen for an input device with excellent operability and multifunctions can be obtained.

FIG. 3 is an exploded perspective view showing the assembled configuration; FIG. 6 is a circuit diagram showing an example of the contact detection circuit used in the present invention; FIG. 6 is a circuit diagram showing another example of the contact detection circuit; FIG. FIG. 8 is a characteristic diagram showing the relationship between pen pressure and equivalent impedance in one embodiment of the present invention (^.

(This is a perspective view showing another example of a piezoelectric vibrator used in the present invention.

11...Pen barrel, 12,16.17...
・Elastic material, 13...Piezoelectric vibrator, 14a, 1
4b, 14C... Drive electrode, 15a, 15b,
15c...I7-wire, 18...Storage container, 19...Pressure adjustment screw.

Name of agent: Patent attorney Toshio Nakao and 1 other person No. 1
Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure i4 Figure 5 Figure 6 Figure WJ7 Rod and (1) Figure 8 (A) (B) /4C#c

Claims (1)

[Claims] A plate-shaped mechanical-electrical transducer having a common electrode provided on one surface and a plurality of divided electrodes provided on the other surface; a pen tip and a holding body, an elastic body is interposed so as to be in contact with a common electrode provided on one surface of the mechanical-electrical conversion element, and each of the divided electrodes provided on the other surface An elastic body having a different vibration absorption effect is interposed so as to be in contact with each other, and the mechanical-electrical conversion element is held between the pen tip and the clamping body, and the pressing force applied to the pen tip due to an input operation is applied to the mechanical - said mechanical finger by applying it to an electrical transducer element. A pen for an input device, characterized in that the characteristics of the air conversion element are changed and the plurality of divided electrodes are used to detect the contact of the vane tip with the input panel surface and the change in contact pressure. .