TWI795859B - Lighting keyswitch - Google Patents

Abstract

A lighting keyswitch with low halation includes a base, a keycap, a thin-film circuit board, a light unit, a supporting mechanism and a resilient recovering component. The thin-film circuit board includes a switch. The light unit emits an illumination beam having an emission engle for illuminating a symbol on the keycap and a side of the keycap. The supporting mechanism holds and moves the keycap relative to the base. The resilient recovering component is disposed between the keycap and the thin-film circuit board. The resilient recovering component has a top end and a bottom end opposite to each other. The top end points toward the keycap. The bottom end covers the switch and is located above the light unit. The resilient recovering component further has a stretching portion disposed on the bottom end and adapted to reduce illumination intensity around the keycap.

Description

Illuminated keys

The invention provides a luminous button, especially a luminous button with low halo characteristics.

The traditional luminous keys and their keyboards will have a luminous unit on the circuit board. The illuminating light output by the luminous unit passes through the corresponding holes in the base plate and the thin film circuit board, and then passes through the elastic reset member to irradiate the keycap, so that the characters on the keycap can be decorated. bright. The elastic return part will be made of light-transmitting material to allow the illumination light to penetrate; however, the light-transmitting characteristics of the elastic return part may guide the illumination light to project on both sides of the keycap, which means that although part of the illumination light can be projected on the keycap However, part of the illumination light still leaks from the gap between the keycaps. This situation affects the aesthetics of the luminous keyboard, and is an important goal that the related organization design industry is eager to overcome.

The present invention provides a luminous key with low halo characteristics to solve the above problems.

The patent application scope of the present invention discloses a luminous button with low halo characteristics, which includes a base plate, a key cap, a thin film circuit board, a luminous unit, a supporting mechanism and an elastic recovery member. The film circuit board has a switch. The light emitting unit outputs an illumination light with an emission angle. Part of the illuminating light illuminates the symbols on the keycap, and another part of the illuminating light illuminates the surroundings of the keycap. The support mechanism supports the keycap so that it can move up and down relative to the base plate. This elastic reply is set at Between the film circuit board and the key cap. The elastic recovery member has a top end and a bottom end opposite to each other. The top end faces the keycap, and the bottom end covers the switch and is located above the light emitting unit. The elastic recovery member further has an extension portion disposed on the bottom end to reduce the amount of light around the keycap.

The light-emitting key and its light-emitting keyboard of the present invention use the structure change, material change, and/or coating change of the elastic recovery member to block the illuminating light output by the light-emitting unit and prevent the illuminating light from leaking around the keycap. The structural modification of the elastic recovery element can provide extensions on the inner surface and/or outer surface of the bottom end of the elastic recovery element to reduce the amount of light transmitted around the elastic recovery element to reduce the halo effect. The material change of the elastic recovery element is to make the top, bottom and/or extension of the elastic recovery element with low light transmittance material, and the coating change of the elastic recovery element is to make the top, bottom and/or extension of the elastic recovery element The inner and outer surfaces of the extension part and the inner and outer sides are provided with light-shielding layers, which can effectively reduce the amount of light passing through the periphery of the elastic recovery member. In the present invention, one or more methods of structural change, material change and coating change can be used to design the elastic recovery member, so that the luminous key and its luminous keyboard have better low halo characteristics.

10: Illuminated keyboard

12: Illuminated button

14: Bottom plate

16: Keycap

18: Main circuit board

20: Thin film circuit board

22: Lighting unit

24: Support mechanism

26: Elastic Response

28: Holes

30: opening

32: switch

34: top

36: Bottom

38: Extension

40: Outer surface

42: inner surface

44: inner chamber

46: lower surface

48: shading layer

50: outside

52: inside

A: Symbol

B: Around

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of the appearance of a luminous keyboard according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 2 is an exploded view of components of a light-emitting button according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 3 to Fig. 13 are side views of the structure of the elastic recovery member in different embodiments of the present invention.

Fig. 14 is a side view of the structure of the light-emitting key according to the embodiment of the present invention.

Please refer to Figure 1, Figure 2 and Figure 14. Figure 1 is a schematic view of the appearance of the luminous keyboard 10 of the embodiment of the present invention, Figure 2 is an exploded view of the components of the luminous keypad 12 of the embodiment of the present invention, and Figure 14 based on A side view of the structure of the light-emitting key 12 of the embodiment of the invention. The luminous keyboard 10 may include a plurality of luminous keys 12, and the number and arrangement of the plurality of luminous keys 12 depend on the language specifications of the luminous keyboard 10, and will not be described in detail here. The luminous key 12 can have a low-halation feature, and the purpose of reducing the halo is achieved by changing the internal structure of a part of the luminous key 12 to reduce light leakage.

The luminous key 12 can include a bottom plate 14 , a keycap 16 , a main circuit board 18 , a thin film circuit board 20 , a light emitting unit 22 , a supporting mechanism 24 and an elastic recovery member 26 . The base plate 14 , the main circuit board 18 and the thin film circuit board 20 can be stacked together to be combined; the assembly method of these boards is not limited to the one shown in FIG. 2 , but depends on the design requirements. The light emitting unit 22 can be disposed on the main circuit board 18 and aligned with the hole 28 of the bottom board 14 and the opening 30 of the thin film circuit board 20 . The light emitting unit 22 outputs illumination light having a specific emission angle. The illuminating light can pass through the hole 28 and the opening 30 , partly irradiates the symbol A on the keycap 16 , and another part irradiates the surrounding B of the keycap 16 . The thin film circuit board 20 may have a switch 32 ; the switch 32 will be braked by the support mechanism 24 or the elastic recovery member 26 to output a control command related to the character of the light-emitting button 12 .

The upper end of the supporting mechanism 24 can be connected with the keycap 16 , and the lower end of the supporting mechanism 24 can be assembled on the bottom plate 14 . The support mechanism 24 is used to support the keycap 16 so that the keycap 16 can move up and down relative to the bottom plate 14 . The elastic return member 26 can be disposed between the keycap 16 and the thin film circuit board 20 . The keycap 16 moves downward under pressure, and the elastic recovery part 26 is squeezed and deformed to store the elastic recovery force; when the external force applied to the keycap 16 is removed, the elastic recovery part 26 releases its elastic recovery force to push the keycap 16 on the support. Under the support of mechanism 24, return to the initial position.

After passing through the hole 28 and the opening 30 , the illumination light output by the light-emitting unit 22 also passes through the elastic recovery member 26 to reach the keycap 16 . The elastic recovery member 26 can be made of light-transmitting material, and has a top end 34 and a bottom end 36 opposite to each other. The radial dimension of the top end 34 is relatively small, and its position is towards the keycap 16 . end The radial dimension of the end 36 is larger, and is used to cover the switch 32 and is located above the light emitting unit 22 . In order to prevent partial leakage of the illuminating light when passing through the elastic recovery member 26 , the luminous key 12 of the present invention can have an extension 38 around the bottom end 36 to block part of the illuminating light to reduce the amount of light around the keycap 16 . The shape, size and position of the extension portion 38 are not limited to the one shown in FIG. 2 , but depend on design requirements.

Please refer to Fig. 3 to Fig. 13, Fig. 3 to Fig. 13 are structural side views of the elastic recovery member 26 according to different embodiments of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 3 , the extension 38 can extend outwardly from the outer surface 40 of the bottom end 36 . The angle and length of the extending portion 38 are not limited to the one shown in FIG. 3 ; in addition, the extending portion 38 may be a straight structure, an arc structure or a bent structure. As long as the extension portion 38 can expand the radial dimension of the bottom end 36, it belongs to the design scope of the present invention. As shown in Figure 4, the extension 38 can extend inward from the inner surface 42 of the bottom end 36, the purpose of which is to reduce the amount of light entering the inner chamber 44 of the elastic recovery member 26; the angle and length of the extension 38 extending inward The shape and shape are not limited to those shown in Figure 4, but are determined according to design requirements.

As shown in Figure 5, when the top 34 of the elastic recovery member 26 is made of a general light-transmitting material, the bottom 36 can be made of a low light-transmitting material, which can reduce the amount of light passing through the bottom 36 of the illuminating light; In an embodiment, the bottom end 36 can optionally be provided with the extension portion 38, and the extension portion 38 can be optionally made of a general light-transmitting material or a low-light-transmitting material, as shown in FIG. 6 . Alternatively, both the top 34 and the bottom 36 of the elastic recovery member 26 can be made of low light transmittance materials, which can further reduce the amount of light passing through the bottom 36 of the illuminating light; in this embodiment, the bottom 36 can be optional Whether to set the extension part 38, and the extension part 38 can be selectively made of general light-transmitting material or low-light-transmitting material, as shown in FIG. 7 . The low light transmittance materials shown in Figures 5 to 7 are shown in checkered patterns.

As shown in Figure 8, the present invention can also make the lower surface 46 of the elastic recovery member 26 from a material with low light transmittance; the present invention may only design the lower surface 46 of the bottom end 36 as a material with low light transmittance, or the top end may be made Both 34 and the lower surface 46 of the bottom end 36 are designed as materials with low light transmittance, and its variation depends on design requirements. In particular, the light transmittance of the low light transmittance material may be slightly lower than the light transmittance of the general light transmittance material, or far lower than the light transmittance of the general light transmittance material, so as to achieve the function of no light transmission. The selection of light transmittance of materials depends on the design requirements, so the relevant parameter characteristics of low light transmittance materials will not be described in detail.

As shown in Fig. 9, the present invention can choose to set the light-shielding layer 48 on the inner surface 42 of the bottom end 36 of the elastic recovery member 26; the light-shielding layer 48 can be arranged on The inner surface 42 can be any material with the function of blocking light. Alternatively, in the present invention, a light-shielding layer 48 can be further disposed on the inner surfaces 42 of the top end 34 and the bottom end 36 . Alternatively, as shown in FIG. 10 , in the present invention, a light-shielding layer 48 may be provided on the outer surface 40 and the inner surface 42 of the bottom end 36 respectively. Alternatively, the present invention can also provide a light-shielding layer 48 on both the outer surface 40 and the inner surface 42 of the top end 34 and the bottom end 36 .

In other possible implementation changes, the present invention may only set the light-shielding layer 48 on at least one of the outer surface 40 and the inner surface 42 of the top 34 of the elastic recovery member 26, but these aspects are not drawn in the accompanying drawings .

The embodiments shown in FIGS. 8 to 10 do not have an extension 38 at the bottom end 36 of the elastic return member 26 . As shown in FIG. 11 , if the extension portion 38 is disposed on the outer surface 40 of the bottom end 36 , the present invention may choose to provide a light shielding layer 48 on the outer side 50 of the extension portion 38 . As shown in FIG. 12 , if the extension portion 38 is disposed on the inner surface 42 of the bottom end 36 , the present invention can provide a light shielding layer 48 on the inner side 52 of the extension portion 38 . Alternatively, the embodiment shown in FIG. 11 and FIG. 12 can be combined with the previously disclosed embodiment. If the extension portion 38 is arranged on the outer surface 40 of the bottom end 36, the light shielding layer 48 can be arranged on the outer side 50 and the bottom end of the extension portion 38. 36 inner surface 42; if the extension 38 is disposed on the inner surface 42 of the bottom end 36, the light shielding layer 48 can be disposed on the inner side 52 of the extension 38 and the outer surface 40 of the bottom end 36.

As shown in FIG. 13, regardless of whether the extension portion 38 is disposed on the outer surface 40 or the inner surface 42 of the bottom end 36, the present invention can also choose to set a light-shielding layer on the lower surface 46 of at least one of the bottom end 36 and the extension portion 38. 48. The present invention does not limit the material, thickness and area of the shading layer 48 and other parameters, as long as the shading layer 48 can be quickly and stably attached to the predetermined position, and can provide the illumination light shielding function that meets the actual needs, it belongs to the design of the present invention Therefore, further material and structural features of the light-shielding layer 48 will not be explained in detail.

To sum up, the light-emitting key and the light-emitting keyboard of the embodiment of the present invention use the structure change, material change, and/or coating change of the elastic recovery member to block the illuminating light output by the light-emitting unit, and prevent the illuminating light from the keycap. Spill around. The structural modification of the elastic recovery element can provide extensions on the inner surface and/or outer surface of the bottom end of the elastic recovery element to reduce the amount of light transmitted around the elastic recovery element to reduce the halo effect. The material change of the elastic recovery part is to make the top, bottom and/or extension of the elastic recovery part with low light transmittance material, and the coating change of the elastic recovery part is to make the top, bottom and/or extension of the elastic recovery part The inner and outer surfaces of the extension part and the inner and outer sides are provided with light-shielding layers, which can effectively reduce the amount of light passing through the periphery of the elastic recovery member. In the present invention, one or more methods of structural change, material change and coating change can be used to design the elastic recovery member, so that the luminous key and its luminous keyboard have better low halo characteristics.

The above descriptions are only preferred embodiments of the present invention, and all equivalent changes and modifications made according to the scope of the patent application of the present invention shall fall within the scope of the present invention.

26: Elastic Response

34: top

36: Bottom

38: Extension

40: Outer surface

Claims (9)

A light-emitting button with low halo characteristics, which includes: a bottom plate; a keycap; a thin film circuit board with a switch; a light-emitting unit that outputs an illuminating light with an emission angle, and part of the illuminating light is irradiated The symbol on the keycap, another part of the illumination light illuminates the surrounding of the keycap; a support mechanism supports the keycap so that it can move up and down relative to the bottom plate; and an elastic return member is arranged on the thin film circuit Between the board and the keycap, the elastic recovery member has a top end and a bottom end opposite to each other, the top end faces the keycap and is made of light-transmitting material, the bottom end covers the switch and is located above the light emitting unit, The elastic recovery member also has an extension portion, which is annularly arranged around the bottom end to reduce the amount of light around the keycap, and the bottom end of the elastic recovery member has a light-shielding material. The luminous key according to claim 1, wherein the extension part extends outward from an outer surface of the bottom end, or extends inward from an inner surface of the bottom end. The light-emitting key according to claim 1, wherein the top end of the elastic recovery member has the light-shielding material. The light-emitting key according to claim 1, wherein a lower surface of the elastic recovery member has the light-shielding material. The light-emitting key according to claim 1, wherein the extension part has the light-shielding material. The light-emitting key according to claim 1, wherein the elastic recovery member is provided with a light-shielding layer on at least one of an inner surface and an outer surface of the bottom end. The light-emitting key according to claim 6, wherein the elastic recovery member is further provided with the light-shielding layer on at least one of an inner surface and an outer surface of the top end. The light-emitting key according to claim 1, wherein the elastic recovery member is provided with a light-shielding layer on at least one side of an inner side and an outer side of the extension part. The luminous key according to claim 1, wherein the elastic recovery member is provided with a light-shielding layer on the lower surface of at least one of the bottom end and the extension part.

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