Card – picture – or sign exhibiting – Changing exhibitor – Alphanumeric device
Patent
1995-02-16
1997-02-11
Silbermann, Joanne
Card, picture, or sign exhibiting
Changing exhibitor
Alphanumeric device
G09F 930
Patent
active
056009089
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to a display element according to the preamble of the appended claim 1.
Such elements are used to construct different types of display tables intended to deliver information of different types, said information may be communicated in the form of one single sign (letter, figure or the like) of an amount of alphanumeric or other signs. For the sake of examplifying but in no way limitating information tables used in local traffic, such as in buses, undergrounds and the like, may be mentioned, which are intended for departure times, destinations, line number and the like. A matrix, i.e. a two dimensional field, of identical display elements is as a rule arranged for each sign to be displayed, so that for instance 5.times.7 display elements are arranged to display a letter, but any row and column combinations may of course be possible.
Display elements of this kind are previously known through U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,518,664 and 4,860,470. When these prior display elements are used for producing a display table having at least one matrix for displaying signs each end of the coil of the respective display element has to be connected, preferably by soldering, to an interconnecting line for a row or a column of the matrix arranged on an underlaying printed circuit card in common. It is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,069,480 how this connection may be achieved, from which it appears that means for assisting in selecting a certain display element from the other, diodes in the described case, are arranged on the printed circuit card or control card and have to be connected in couples on one hand to the respective coil and on the other to an interconnecting line each running substantially perpendicularly to the interconnecting line for the interconnection of the coils. A construction of a matrix in this way enables a control of different display elements included in the matrix by sending an activating signal to an interconnecting line, to which the coil of the element in question is connected, and a signal to one of the two interconnecting lines to which the diodes connected to this coil are connected, whereby the magnetizing direction and thereby which of the two surfaces the surface element of the display element shows depends on which one of said two interconnecting lines is selected. By means of the two diodes it is achieved that only display elements receiving such a signal both on the column and the row thereof may be activated, since the barrier layer of the respective diode prevents a magnetizing of a coil belonging to a display element which has only received an activating signal on an interconnecting line for a row or a column.
Thus, by a displaying table constructed in the way described above a control electronic circuit required for controlling the display element may be considerably simplified with respect to the case in which each separate display element had to be subjected to a separate control, and manufacturing costs are saved as well as the risk of future failures of the displaying table is reduced.
However, a disadvantage with this type of displaying tables consists in that the manufacturing of said matrices by control cards in spite of all gets comparatively timeconsuming and complicated, since a considerable amount of connections between the different components on the control card and the display elements are required. Another disadvantage consists in that it is necessary, should the display elements be delivered separately for connection on a control card later on, that the latter is well adapted to the design and number of the display elements, so that there is no longer any flexibility desired in the assembling of the control card and the display elements in the final assembling of the displaying matrix.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The object of the present invention is to provide a display element of the type mentioned in the introduction and described by U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,518,664 and 4,860,470, which makes it possible to simplify the construction of displaying
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Mobitec AB
Silbermann Joanne
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