Electricity: conductors and insulators – Conduits – cables or conductors – Combined
Reexamination Certificate
1999-03-16
2001-06-12
Reichard, Dean A. (Department: 2831)
Electricity: conductors and insulators
Conduits, cables or conductors
Combined
C174S07100B, C174S0720TR
Reexamination Certificate
active
06245997
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an arrangement structure of a door harness for a vehicle in which a looping portion is expanded or contracted when a vehicle door is opened or closed.
2. Related Art
FIGS. 6-7
show an arrangement structure of a vehicle door which was proposed JP-A-10-217874 laid open Aug. 18, 1998.
This structure includes a harness accommodating structure of synthetic resin assembled with a door inner panel
51
of a motor vehicle, a harness protector
53
which is slidably fit in the harness accommodating case
52
and a cover
54
overlaid on the harness accommodating case
52
.
A wire harness (door harness)
55
is passed through the harness protector
53
. The one end of the wire harness
55
is communicated with a connector
56
at the tip of the harness protector
53
(FIG.
7
). The other end of the wire harness
55
is connected to each of auxiliary machines such as a power window motor or door lock (not shown) within the door and a switch unit of the side of a door trim
68
. The connector
56
(
FIG. 7
) is connected to a connector
60
of a wire harness
59
at a rotatable bracket
58
on the side of vehicle body
57
.
As shown in
FIG. 7
, the harness accommodating case
52
includes a circle portion
61
in which the wire harness
55
is housed in a ring shape and a rectangular portion
62
in which the harness protector
53
is slidably fit. The wire harness
55
is expandable within the circular portion
61
when the door is opened or closed. When the door is opened as shown in
FIG. 6
, the wire harness
55
is pulled to expand, whereas when the door is closed, the wire harness
55
is expanded to make a loop within the circular portion
61
to absorb the slack thus generated.
The harness accommodating case
52
is provided with a harness supporting pin
63
, a harness drawing opening
64
and a pin
65
used to fix a cover
54
. The cover
54
is provided with engagement holes
66
and
67
which are to be engaged with the pins
63
and
65
, respectively. The wire harness
55
is arranged to surround the harness supporting pin
63
in a loop.
However, the above conventional structure has the following disadvantages. Specifically, this structure is accompanied with troublesome operations of assembling the harness accommodating case
52
with the door inner panel
51
and assembling the cover
54
with the harness accommodating case
52
. This structure requires much cost to fabricate components such as the harness accommodating case
52
and cover
54
. In addition, when the wire harness
55
expands or shrinks within the harness accommodating case
52
in door opening or closing, it may be rubbed against the bottom plate
70
of the harness accommodating case
52
to generate foreign sound and may be difficult to expand or contract smoothly.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to provide an arrangement structure of a vehicle door which houses a wire harness in an expanding or contracting manner within a vehicle door and can reduce the man-hours and cost required to assemble the components such as a harness accommodating case and can expand or shrink a wire harness with no foreign sound.
In order to attain the above object, in accordance with the present invention, there is provided an arrangement structure for a door harness for a vehicle comprising: a wire harness which can be curved to form a loop segment; a harness protector in which the wire harness is held; a guide section in which the harness protector is slidably engaged; a harness accommodating section in which the loop segment of the wire harness is accommodated; and a door structure integrated to said guide section and the harness accommodating section. In this configuration, since the guide section is integrally formed to the door structure, it is not necessary to assemble or form the guide section and the harness accommodating section individually, thereby improving the productivity of a vehicle and reducing the cost required to prepare the components.
Preferably, the guide section has a pair of guide components each having an L-shape in cross section, and the harness protector has a pair of plate-like sliding portions which is in slidable-contact with the guide components, respectively. In this configuration, the guide components having a simple L-shape in cross section can be easily formed integrally to the door structure. In addition, the plate-like sliding portion permits the harness protector to slide smoothly.
Preferably, the harness accommodating section has a harness accommodation wall which is successive to the guide section and is uprighted integrally from the door structure.
In this configuration, the harness accommodating wall can surely protect the loop segment of the wire harness.
Preferably, said harness accommodating section has a plurality of harness sliding protrusive strips radially formed to correspond to the loop segment of the wire harness.
In this configuration, when the door is opened or closed, the loop segment of the wire harness expands or contracts while it is in sliding-contact with the harness sliding protrusive strips with low friction, thereby preventing sliding sound from occurring and permitting the smooth expansion/contraction operation of the loop segment.
Preferably, the harness accommodating portion has a harness securing piece formed integrally to the door structure. This configuration reduces the man-hours of mounting the harness securing piece and component cost, and surely secure the wire harness to the door structure to prevent foreign sound from occurring.
Preferably, the harness securing piece has a harness securing arm to form a gap into which the harness is to be inserted. In this configuration, since the wire harness can be easily inserted into the harness securing piece from the gap, thereby simplifying the harness securing operation.
The wire harness includes a straight segment on which a tape is wound and said loop segment, the loop segment is composed of a fixed portion on which the tape is wound and secured to the harness securing piece and an expandable/contractable portion successive to the harness protector. In this confguration, since the portion of the wire harness on which the tape is wound can be smoothly and easily inserted into the harness securing arm of the harness securing piece. In addition, since the expandable/contractable portion of the loop segment on which the tape is not wound is curved flexibly, the expansion/contraction operation can be carried out smoothly and surely.
Preferably, the harness accommodating portion has a harness supporting pin is formed integrally to the door structure so that it is located inside the loop segment. In this configuration, since the shape of the loop segment when the loop segment is contracted is assured by the harness supporting pin integrated to the door structure, the subsequent expansion operation of the loop segment can be smoothly carried out.
Preferably, the harness accommodating section has a cover securing piece formed integrally to the door structure and to be engaged with a cover. In this configuration, the harness accommodating section can be surely closed by the cover.
The above and other objects and features of the present invention will be more apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4907836 (1990-03-01), Ueda et al.
patent: 5092647 (1992-03-01), Ueda et al.
patent: 5584144 (1996-12-01), Hisano
patent: 5879047 (1999-03-01), Yamaguchi et al.
patent: 5884961 (1999-03-01), Serizawa et al.
patent: 5897157 (1999-04-01), Yamaguchi et al.
patent: 5921782 (1999-07-01), Yamaguchi et al.
patent: 6070931 (2000-06-01), Yamaguchi et al.
patent: 6092859 (2000-07-01), Serizawa et al.
patent: 0123456 A2 (2000-01-01), None
patent: 10-217874 (1998-08-01), None
Serizawa Yasuyoshi
Shiraki Kentaro
Armstrong Westerman Hattori McLeland & Naughton LLP
Nguyen Charlie
Reichard Dean A.
Yazaki -Corporation
LandOfFree
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