Illumination – Supported by vehicle structure – Automobile
Reexamination Certificate
2001-08-29
2004-06-01
O'Shea, Sandra (Department: 2875)
Illumination
Supported by vehicle structure
Automobile
C362S135000, C362S136000, C362S137000, C362S155000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06742917
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an improved vanity mirror and more particularly to a vanity mirror which is capable of involving a fewer number of parts involved as well as reducing the thickness of the vanity mirror.
Some vanity mirrors used in the automobile, particularly those attached to the sun visor therein, use a lamp for illumination purposes during the night operations for the passenger's sake.
FIG.
7
and
FIG. 8
shows a conventional vanity mirror, in which the numeral
20
denotes a vanity mirror composed of a body base
22
centrally attached with a mirror
21
, a cover
23
openably attached to said body base
22
by way of a hinge mechanism and lamp sections
24
attached to the opposite sides of said mirror
21
and adapted to be powered on and off through opening of said cover
23
.
Further, said lamp sections
24
are composed of recesses
221
formed on both sides of said mirror
21
in the body base
22
, lamp holding metal members
25
attached in said recesses
221
from the reverse side thereof and fuse type lamps
26
held by holding pieces
251
attached on the body base
22
to forwardly project therefrom.
Each fuse bulb
26
is connected to bus bars
27
by way of each bulb holding metal member
25
. One of said bus bars
27
is attached a lead wire L connected thereto from an automotive power source (not shown).
Said cover
23
is formed with protuberance
231
, which is adapted to press a bent terminal piece
28
provided at a reverse side of the body base
22
to have a lead wire L connected thereto. Thereby, the fuse bulb
26
is turned on as a result of said terminal piece
28
being brought into contact with the bus bar
27
. Further, the closure of the cover
23
causes the protuberance
231
formed on the cover
23
is detached from the terminal piece
28
such that the terminal piece
28
returns to its original position by virtue of its resiliency to remove the electrical connection and turn off the fuse bulb.
However, the vanity mirror
20
with the above structure has the fuse bulb
26
retained by the holding pieces
251
which are in need of a certain extent of thickness and there is a limit no matter how strenuously an effort is made to produce as thin a vanity mirror as possible.
There is another problem that the need for connection of each fuse bulb
26
to a bus bar
27
by way of the bulb holding metal member
25
causes the manufacturing cost to increase.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention has been made to solve the afore discussed problems and its object is to provide a vanity mirror which is as thin as possible and capable of having the manufacturing cost as low as possible by having a fewer number of parts. Therefore, the vanity mirror of the invention essentially comprises a body base having a mirror attached thereto; a cover plate openably attached to said body base through a hinge mechanism; a switch turned on and off though opening and closing of said cover plate; and an illumination unit composed of a lamp connected to lead wires and a lens plate adapted to be attached and detached to said base plate; said illumination unit detachably attached to body base body base.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4511954 (1985-04-01), Marcus et al.
patent: 4760503 (1988-07-01), VandenBerge et al.
patent: 4947296 (1990-08-01), Takeuchi et al.
patent: 5091831 (1992-02-01), Van Order et al.
patent: 5184888 (1993-02-01), Sakuma et al.
patent: 5203623 (1993-04-01), Viertel et al.
patent: 5651605 (1997-07-01), Corn
patent: 6076947 (2000-06-01), Miller
patent: 6386741 (2002-05-01), Jones et al.
Mochida Tetsuo
Okano Hirofumi
Kabushiki Kaisha T AN T
Nixon & Vanderhye PC
O'Shea Sandra
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