Communications: electrical – Visual indication
Reexamination Certificate
2001-07-23
2004-03-23
Crosland, Donnie L. (Department: 2636)
Communications: electrical
Visual indication
C340S815450, C340S815780, C340S461000, C340S525000, C116S047000, C116S284000, C116S289000, C116S290000, C116S305000, C361S760000, C362S023000, C362S029000, C073S29000R, C073S293000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06710718
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an indicating instrument assembly of any type and more directly to an assembly structure that decreases the depth required for the instrument assembly.
2. Description of the Related Art
Indicating instruments are used for numerous applications across a variety of industries and within innumerable types of machines, systems, and vehicles. Indicating instruments can, for example, measure the speed of a vehicle, such as an automobile or airplane, or measure the rotational speed of an engine shaft or turbine to indicate a need to switch to an appropriate gear ratio so that the motor is not overworked. Indicating instruments can also be fuel, pressure, and temperature gauges, which are found, for example, on vehicles, heavy equipment, assembly line apparatuses, and other industrial equipment. Complex vehicles and other equipment may have a variety of other special purpose indicating instruments to measure any recordable or gaugable activity or condition. For example, airplanes and submarines may have altitude and depth gauges, respectively.
In many situations it is desirable to construct an indicating instrument as small as possible because of size constraints of the environment in which it is used. For example, in an airplane cockpit a large number of instruments must be placed in an extremely limited area. The size of the indicating instrument is considered not only as a factor of its exposed surface area as viewed by an operator, but also in terms of the amount of space taken, for example, under a mounting surface or behind a panel, by the instrument's functional and mounting components.
In other instances, it is desirable that the exposed portion of the indicating instrument be quite large so that the operator can easily perceive the presentation of the gauged information. In these situations, although it may be desirable to provide a large display for the information, it may be equally desirable that the indicating instrument be otherwise small in size due to similar constraints of space for housing or mounting the underlying functional components. An example of these competing needs may be seen in the dashboard instruments of an automobile such as speedometers and tachometers where the dial size is desired to be large for easy reading, but the mounting and housing space within the dashboard is limited.
Indicating instruments may also be manufactured for sale on the “aftermarket,” wherein additional instruments or devices, which were unavailable as options on the vehicle or other equipment at the time of original purchase, are provided for installation by the operator. In the case of aftermarket indicating instruments such as speedometers or tachometers, these gauges may be provided for mounting on top of the dashboard or at another location in the vehicle for ease of viewing by the operator. For example, many aftermarket tachometers are sold to automobile operators involved in stock car racing. In such racing it is important for the operator to know when to shift, but it is imperative that the operator be able to concentrate on the raceway and the competitor vehicles in order to avoid a collision. Many of these racing operators prefer to mount an aftermarket tachometer on top of the dashboard, or otherwise in the area of the windshield, so they do not have to lower their eyes from the road to read an original equipment tachometer mounted within the dashboard.
Prior art indicating instruments
200
, such as those shown in
FIGS. 1A
,
1
B,
2
A, and
2
B, depict aftermarket tachometers with their own housings for dashboard mounting applications. Because of standard design configurations, these indicating instruments
200
are relatively deep in body thickness from the face of the instrument to the back of the housing. The thickness of these instruments
200
is dictated in large part by the size of the meter movement
210
, the rear end of which is generally mounted to a printed circuit board (PCB)
230
. The meter movement
210
and PCB
230
assembly is then mounted to and within the housing
240
of the indicating instrument
200
, generally by mounting screws
220
a
and
220
b
, to provide a firm support for the meter movement
210
, PCB
230
, and related display components of the indicating instrument.
The indicating instrument of
FIG. 2B
is configured with dual PCBs
230
and
230
′, which further increases the necessary depth of the housing to enclose the additional PCB components. Generally a gap is also needed between the PCB
230
′ and the rear of the housing
240
in order to allow room for the circuit components mounted on and extending from the PCB
230
′, again deepening the housing. The design of mounting screws
220
a
and
220
b
, which extend beyond the housing in
FIG. 2B
, further increase the overall depth of the indicating instrument.
In aftermarket applications, such significant depth of an indicating instrument can make it difficult to fit and install on the dashboard of a vehicle, especially in the case of a narrow dashboard or a steep windshield slope. In applications where the indicating instrument is integrated into the original design of the vehicle, machine, or other system control, the prior art designs of indicating instruments require relatively deep spaces to house their functional components.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention concerns the structure of and methods of constructing indicating instruments with slim profiles. What is meant by “slim profile” is that indicating instruments according to this invention are of shallow depth or are relatively thin between the face of the indicating instrument and the rear most component or the back panel of any housing enclosing the indicating instrument.
At a base level, an indicating instrument according to this invention may comprise a meter movement and a circuit board. In order to achieve the slim profile, the main body of the meter movement is situated in an aperture in the circuit board. With this placement, the front end of the body of the meter movement extends a distance in front of the circuit board and the back end of the meter movement body extends a distance behind the circuit board. Through appropriate selection and arrangement of any components on the circuit board, the circuit board can be constructed such that none of its components extend beyond the distance that the meter movement extends on either side of the circuit board. In this manner the space needed for the meter movement and the circuit board and its components collapses into the same area.
In a further embodiment, a light plate may be added to the circuit board and meter movement. The light plate may be seen as a structural framework for the indicating instrument. The light plate is a rigid, refractive material, and in one embodiment is a molded plastic plate with boss mounts and boss extensions molded as protrusions from the back side of the light plate. The circuit board is mounted to the boss mounts extending from the light plate. In this way, the boss mounts provide appropriate spacing between the light plate and the circuit board to allow room for the front end of the main body of the meter movement and any components of the circuit board to reside. The meter movement may also be mounted to the back side of the light plate to provide secure positioning of the meter movement relative to the rest of the components of the indicating instrument. In this manner, the internal components of the indicating instrument are all held together and can be calibrated and tested without the addition of any further components. This provides a benefit in that significant disassembly is avoided in the event that a functional component is bad and needs to be replaced.
In an alternative embodiment, the indicating instrument may have a second circuit board. This second circuit board may be positioned between the light plate and the first circuit board and similarly mounted to boss mounts extending from the light plate. In
Crosland Donnie L.
Dorsey & Whitney LLP
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