Electricity: transmission to vehicles – Flexible extensions – Reels
Reexamination Certificate
2001-05-31
2002-11-19
Le, Mark T. (Department: 3617)
Electricity: transmission to vehicles
Flexible extensions
Reels
Reexamination Certificate
active
06481547
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for taking up the slack of a wire harness which is drawn out when the door of an automobile, for example, is opened for preventing the occurrence of the slack between the door and the vehicle body when the door is closed.
2. Related Art
Among vehicles such as automobiles, there is a type in which lights and switches are provided on a rear window or door side, and the lights and switches are connected to a control apparatus provided on the vehicle body side by a wire harness or the like. Therefore, if, for example, the door is opened, the wire harness is drawn out from the vehicle body side in accordance with the angle of its opening.
On the other hand, in a case where the door is closed, unless the wire harness is taken up on the vehicle body side, the wire harness remains in the slackened state at the opening/closing position, so that there are possibilities that the wire harness can become disconnected due to being pinched between the door and the vehicle body, or the sheath portion exfoliates, resulting in short-circuit.
To prevent the above-described situation, a “movable wire harness” disclosed in, for example, Japanese unexamined Patent Publication No.hei.9-20189 has been proposed.
This movable wire harness is arranged such that a flat harness is accommodated in an accommodating box in a slackened state, and one end thereof is urged in one direction by a spring. According to this arrangement, if a rear window is opened, the wire harness is drawn out in opposition to the spring, whereas if the rear window is closed, the wire harness is drawn into the accommodating box by the resilient action of the spring, thereby taking up the slack of the wire harness.
However, since the wire -harness is not protected at its drawn-out portion, and since the aforementioned sheath portion is likely to undergo peeling or the like, and a slack is formed in the accommodating box, there has been a problem in that abnormal noise can occur during the traveling of the automobile.
Accordingly, an apparatus for taking up the slack of a wire harness such as the one shown in
FIG. 11
has been proposed. It should be noted that the illustrated apparatus for taking up the slack of a wire harness is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Hei.10-76887 as an “expanding and contracting structure for a circuit member for a door.”
Namely, a pair of elongated guide slots
71
for guiding the sliding of a harness protector
67
are respectively formed longitudinally in a pair of upper and lower walls
62
of a harness accommodating case
61
, and a pair of short guide holes
72
for respectively supporting two guide rollers
63
are formed in the upper and lower walls
62
at positions close to front ends thereof slightly arcuately in a direction perpendicular to the guide slot
71
. Each of the upper and lower walls
62
is gradually enlarged in width toward the front along a tapered wall
65
, and is substantially enlarged on the front end side to form the guide hole
72
. In addition, the upper and lower walls
62
have the function as guide members with respect to the protector
67
.
A pair of guide roller assemblies
80
are respectively disposed on the upper and lower sides of the protector
67
. In addition, a flat wire harness
64
is bent substantially in an S-shape via a fixing portion
66
, is passed through the guide rollers
63
and support rollers
75
, is wired along the inner surface of a side wall of the protector
67
, and is connected to a connector
68
at the tip of the protector. In addition, the support rollers
75
are in contact with the outer surface of a protector side wall
77
, while the guide rollers
63
are in contact with the wire harness
64
.
A pair of upper and lower slide shafts
81
for the harness accommodating case
61
are respectively provided so as to project from rear ends of upper and lower walls
78
of the protector
67
. In addition, the connector
68
is connected to a connector
98
of a wire harness
97
on a vehicle body
96
side. When the door is opened or closed, the protector
67
is swung to the left and right with the rear-end slide shafts
81
as fulcrums. Accordingly, the elongated guide holes
72
for shafts
76
of a pair of brackets
73
which swing integrally with the protector
67
are required.
In accordance with the above-described construction, when the protector retracts into the harness accommodating case
61
along the guide slots
71
during the closing of the door, a rack
79
rotates a pinion gear (provided at one end of the guide roller
63
), so that the guide roller
63
rotates integrally with the pinion gear. Consequently, the wire harness
64
is forcibly pulled into the harness accommodating case
61
. The guide roller
63
rotates without imparting a gap between the wire harness
64
and the protector
67
, and smoothly accommodates the wire harness
64
with practically no frictional resistance at the time of accommodation.
However, the above-described expanding and contracting structure for a circuit member for a door has the following problem. Namely, to accommodate the protector, the housing for accommodating the aforementioned expanding and contracting structure, i.e., the housing making up the apparatus for taking up the slack, becomes equal to or greater in length than the expanding and contacting stroke of the wire harness, so that there is a problem in that it is difficult to make compact the apparatus for taking up the slack.
In addition, since the positioning is effected by making use of the resiliency of the wire harness itself, if vibrations are applied to the wire harness in conjunction with the traveling of the automobile, for example, there are cases where the wire harness vibrates and the abnormal noise occurs. Furthermore, there has been a problem in that the structure is complex and the number of component parts is large, leading to higher cost.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention has been devised in view of the above-described problems, and its object is to provide an apparatus for taking up the slack of a wire harness which makes it possible to make compact the overall apparatus for taking up the slack of a wire harness, simplify its structure, prevent the occurrence of abnormal noise due to the slackening of the wire harness, and improve the assembling efficiency.
The above object of the invention is overcome by the apparatus for taking up the slack of a wire harness described in (1) to (9) below.
(1) An apparatus for taking up the slack of a wire harness which is formed by a housing including a first opening for introducing a wire harness, a second opening for leading out the wire harness, and a wire-harness accommodating space for accommodating therein the wire harness in a bent state, characterized in that
the second opening of the housing is formed at an end portion of the housing Where a first side plate for forming a bottom surface of the housing and a second side plate for forming an inclined surface are brought close together; that
the second side plate is formed in such a manner as to gradually approach the first side plate from a first opening side toward the second opening; and that
the extension of the wire harness and the taking up of the slack of the wire harness are effected in a state in which the wire harness in the housing is in resiliently sliding contact with an inner side surface of the first side plate or the second side plate as an end portion of the wire harness led out from the second opening is drawn out or pushed in.
(2) In the apparatus for taking up the slack of a wire harness according to (1) above, the above-described apparatus for taking up the slack of a wire harness is characterized in that a portion of the wire harness led out from the first opening is secured to the inner side surface of the first side plate, and that the end portion thereof is folded back toward the first opening side and is turned back in a curved state toward a seco
Le Mark T.
Morgan & Lewis & Bockius, LLP
Yazaki -Corporation
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