JPH0235560Y2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed explanation of the invention] Purpose of the invention (industrial application field) This invention relates to a steering wheel used for vehicles such as automobiles, and more specifically, a steering wheel that is equipped with a slip ring between a rotating part and a non-rotating part. This relates to the structure of the steering wheel.

(Prior Art) Conventionally, as this type of slip ring for a steering wheel, one having a structure as shown in FIGS. 7 and 8 has been proposed.

That is, a plurality of annular grooves 53 arranged concentrically by a plurality of partition walls 52 are formed in a base 51 made of an insulating material. A conductive plate contact 54 is fixed to the inner bottom surface of the annular groove 53.

a cover 5 rotatably engaged with the base 51;
5 is formed with a plurality of annular grooves 56 facing each of the annular grooves 53. Furthermore, each of the annular grooves 53
An annular wire contact 57 having a corrugated shape in the axial direction is housed in the space formed by the groove 56 and the groove 56 . Further, a bent protrusion 58 is formed in a part of the line contact 57, and the cover 5 is formed at that part.
It is locked at 5. Therefore, when the cover 55 is rotated, the wire contact 57 slides while maintaining contact with the plate contact 54, and furthermore, the elastic force of the waveform ensures reliable contact.

(Problems to be solved by the invention) However, the slip spring described above has the following problems.

That is, the wire contact 57 itself is formed into a corrugated shape and is designed to maintain constant contact with the plate contact 54 as an elastic body.
The wire contact 57 and the annular groove 5 must be accommodated in the wire contact 57 and the annular groove 5 to be elastically deformed by being pressed from both sides by the annular grooves 53 and 56 to generate an elastic force.
Processing accuracy and assembly accuracy of 3.56 were required.

Further, the line contact 57 is connected to the annular groove 5.
3 and 56 to elastically deform and apply elastic force, but since the line contact 57 itself does not have a part to adjust the elastic force, the wave height of the line contact 57 itself, manufacturing error, etc. Therefore, an unnecessarily large elastic force may be applied in the axial direction. For this reason, the wire contact 57 is strongly pressed against the plate contact 54, resulting in problems such as a decrease in durability and wear resistance, and an increase in operating force.

Structure of the invention (means for solving the problems) Therefore, in order to solve the above problems, the present invention has the following features:
A configuration is adopted in which an elastic force adjustment means is provided for adjusting the elastic force in the axial direction to an appropriate state by displacing the wire contact in the circumferential direction or radial direction.

(Function) Since the wire contacts installed in the annular grooves of the fixed member and the rotating member are pressed by the bottom surfaces of both members, the wire contacts formed in a corrugated shape will try to lower the height of the corrugation. Displaced circumferentially or radially. Of this displacement, the displacement that causes unnecessary resistance is absorbed by the elastic force adjusting means, that is, the notch provided in the wire contact or the annular groove with a widened width. Only a certain amount of elastic force is always applied to the contact, and it makes contact with the fixed contact while maintaining an appropriate amount of elastic force.

(First Embodiment) Hereinafter, a first embodiment in which the present invention is embodied in a non-rotating pad portion type steering wheel of an automobile will be described.
This will be explained according to Figures 4 to 4.

Steering shaft 3 is in column 1 of the car.
is penetrated. A boss 4 is fastened to the front end of the steering shaft 3 with a nut 5, and a boss plate 6 is fixed to the boss 4 by welding or the like. Two spokes 7 are integrally formed on the outer peripheral edge of the boss plate 6 and extend in a V-shape.
A ring portion 8 is supported at the tips of the spoke portions 7.

A column side sun gear 9 made of synthetic resin is attached to the outer periphery of the boss 4 on the column side below the boss plate 6 so as to be rotatable relative to the boss 4 via a bearing 10. It is fixed so that it does not rotate. Similarly, a pad side sun gear 12 made of synthetic resin is attached to the pad side outer periphery of the boss 4 above the boss plate 6 so as to be rotatable relative to the boss 4 via a bearing 13. , 12 are formed to have the same diameter and the same number of teeth.

Bearing members 14 made of synthetic resin such as polyacetal are attached to locations on the outer periphery of the boss plate 6 that are opposed to each other by 180 degrees, and a planetary shaft 15 is rotatably supported on each bearing member 14. Column and pad side planetary gears 16 and 17 made of synthetic resin and having the same diameter and the same number of teeth are fixed to the column and pad side ends of each planetary shaft 15, respectively. It is meshed with 12. Therefore, the column-side and pad-side planetary gears 16 and 17 revolve around the sun gears 9 and 12 while simultaneously and similarly rotating.

A box-shaped pad portion 18 is attached to the front end surface of the pad side sun gear 12 with bolts 19. On the front side of the pad portion 18 are switches for the crankshaft, constant speed traveling device, communication device, radio, headlight, etc. 20, electronic devices such as a sound generator and a display (not shown) are attached.

Furthermore, the switch 2 is located inside the pad portion 18.
A transmitting device 22 connected to an electronic device such as 0 or the like is attached. In this device, a voltage signal having a length depending on the type of electronic equipment is generated by a microcomputer (not shown), and is transmitted to the column 1 side via a slip ring, which will be described below.

A pair of slip ring members 23, 24 are arranged on both front and rear sides of the boss plate 6, and the pad is connected to the main body of the device such as a radio, headlight, etc. on the column 1 side via the slip ring members 23, 24 and a lead wire 25. The switch 20 of the section 18 is connected. Each of the slip ring members 23 and 24 is configured to include a base 26 as a fixed member and a cover 27 as a rotating member, which are engaged with each other so as to be able to rotate relative to each other and are electrically connected to each other. Then, the base 26 is attached to the boss plate 6 by screws 28.
The cover 27 is housed in the accommodation recesses 29a, 29b of each sun gear 9, 12, and is fixed to each sun gear 9, 12 by screws (not shown) or the like. The base 26 of both slip spring members 23 and 24 is connected to the lead wire 3.
They are connected to each other through 0. Further, an insertion groove 31 whose outer circumferential side is open is formed on the outer periphery of the boss plate 6, and the lead wire 30 is inserted into this groove 31.

Further, the slip ring members 23 and 24 will be explained in detail with reference to FIGS. 3 and 4.

The base 26 is made of an insulating material such as synthetic resin, and has a protrusion 33 with a screw hole 32 integrally formed on its outermost wall 26a.
The screw hole 6a screwed into the screw hole 6a and the screw hole 32 are overlapped with each other and fixed to the boss plate 6 by a screw 28.

A plurality of partition walls 34 are concentrically protruded from the inside of the base 26, and a plurality of annular grooves 35 are formed between each partition wall 34. Also, in one place of this groove 35 there is a hole 36 communicating with the rear surface.
is transparently provided, and serves as a locking portion for locking a plate contact, which will be described next. A conductive annular plate contact 37 is provided on the inner bottom surface of the annular groove 35.
is housed, and a protrusion 3 provided on the back side of the
7a is inserted into the hole 35 to lock them together.

The cover 27 is made of the same synthetic resin as the base 26, and the cover 27 is provided with a plurality of annular grooves 38 facing the annular grooves 35 of the base 26. Further, a hole 39 communicating with the rear surface is provided in the annular groove 38, and serves as a locking portion for preventing rotation of a wire contact 40, which will be described below. The annular groove 38 accommodates a planar annular wire contact 40 which is given elasticity by forming a corrugated shape in the axial direction, and a bent protrusion 40a formed by bending a part of the back surface of the wire contact 40 is inserted into the hole. 39 and lock the two together.

A notch 41 serving as an elastic force adjusting means is formed at one location of the line contact 40 and has a width of about 1/5 to 1/10 of the entire circumference. This notch 41 is located between the cover 27 and the base 26.
Among the displacements of the wire contact 40 caused by the pressing force of the bottom surfaces of both the annular grooves 35 and 38 when the two are engaged, it plays a role of absorbing the displacement that causes more elastic force than necessary. Therefore, unnecessary displacement is absorbed by reducing the length of this notch 41.

Further, the outermost wall 26a of the base 26 is provided with a step portion 42 that protrudes from the partition wall 34,
Similarly, an engaging pawl 43 is formed protruding from the innermost wall 26b. Therefore, the engaging claw 43 is connected to the cover 27.
By inserting and engaging the base 26 into the innermost wall 27a of the base 26 and the cover 27, the base 26 and the cover 27 can be freely rotated without coming apart.

Next, the functions and effects of the steering wheel configured as described above will be explained.

Now, when the ring portion 8 of the steering wheel is rotated, the boss plate 6 is rotated via the spoke portions 7, and the steering shaft 3 is also rotated in the same direction. According to the rotation of the boss plate 6, each planetary gear 16, 17
are column side sun gear 9 and pad side sun gear 12.
It revolves around the pad side sun gear 1 at the same period.
2 and the pad portion 18 are not rotated relative to the column 1 and are held stationary.

On the other hand, as the boss plate 6 rotates, the bases 26 of the pair of slip ring members 23 and 24 are rotated integrally with the boss plate 6 together with the lead wires 30 connecting them, and the base 26 is rotated integrally with the boss plate 6.
6 and the cover 27, electrical signals are transmitted.

At this time, the wire contact 40 is pressed against the bottom surfaces of the annular grooves 35 and 38 and is elastically deformed, and an elastic force is applied thereto. If an unnecessarily large elastic force is applied to the wire contact 40, the unnecessary displacement is absorbed by the notch 41 provided in the wire contact 40 as an elastic force adjusting means. Said annular groove 3
Even if too much elastic force is applied by the bottom surfaces of the notches 5 and 38 in the axial direction, the excess elastic force is absorbed by the displacement in the direction of shortening the length of the notch 41.

Therefore, the elastic force applied to the line contact 40 becomes difficult to increase beyond a certain value, and is kept at a substantially constant elastic force. Therefore, the wire contact 40 comes into contact with the plate contact 37 with a constant pressing force, and when pulled, the wear resistance and durability can be improved and the operating force can be kept constant.

Furthermore, since the length of the line contact 40 can be shortened, less expensive conductive material is required, and therefore material costs can be reduced.

(Second Embodiment) Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.

This embodiment is based on the line contact 4 of the first embodiment.
In place of the notch 41 as the elastic force adjusting means provided in the base 26 and the cover 27, the width of the annular grooves 35, 38 is made larger than the diameter of the wire contact 40 to provide a gap 44, This embodiment differs from the previous embodiment only in that it uses force adjustment means.

That is, the gap 44 may be provided to be about one-third of the diameter of the wire contact 40, and in this embodiment, when the diameter of the wire contact 40 is 5 mm, the gap 44 of 1 mm is provided on each side of the wire contact 40. .

Therefore, even if an unnecessary large elastic force is similarly applied, the extra elastic force is absorbed by displacement in the direction of the gap 44, so that the same effect as in the first embodiment is achieved. .

Note that this invention is not limited to the above-mentioned embodiments, and can be embodied as shown below, for example.

(1) The slip ring members 23 and 24 of the present invention are not limited to the non-rotating pad type steering wheel of the above embodiment, but may be embodied in a normal steering wheel with rotating pad parts. .

(2) The plate contact 37 may be constructed using a printed circuit board.

(3) The line contact 40 and the plate contact 37 may be arranged oppositely, that is, the line contact 40 may be provided on the base 26 side and the plate contact 37 may be provided on the cover 27 side. Furthermore, as shown in FIG. 6, plate contacts 37 may be provided on both the base 26 side and the cover 27 side, so that the wire contacts 37 are sandwiched therebetween. In this way, it is not necessary to provide the protrusion 37a on the line contact 37, and the line contact 37 can be manufactured easily.

Effects of the invention As detailed above, the invention provides an elastic force adjustment means to absorb unnecessary elastic force applied to the wire contact and maintain an appropriate elastic force in the axial direction. Among the elastic forces generated in the wire contact, only the effective constant elastic force can be used, which in turn improves durability, wear resistance, and operability due to the contact between the wire contact and the fixed contact. It has excellent effects.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Figures 1 to 4 show a first embodiment of the present invention in a non-rotating pad type steering wheel, Figure 1 is a side partial sectional view, and Figure 2 is an exploded view of the boss plate and slip ring member. FIG. 3 is an exploded perspective view of the slip ring, FIG. 4 is a side sectional view of FIG. 3, FIG. 5 is a side sectional view showing the second embodiment, and FIG. 6 is a side sectional view of the second embodiment. A partial sectional view showing another example, and FIGS. 7 and 8 are an exploded perspective view and a side sectional view showing a conventional example. 40: Line contact, 41: Notch, 44: Gap.

Claims (1)

[Claims for Utility Model Registration] 1. A fixed member and a rotating member are respectively attached to the non-rotating part or rotating part of the steering wheel, and a large number of annular fixed contacts are attached to either the fixed member or the rotating member. and a planar substantially annular shape that contacts the fixed contact on the other side,
A steering wheel having a slip ring in which a large number of wire contacts each having elasticity formed in a corrugated shape in the axial direction are housed concentrically and partitioned by insulating partitions, and the fixed contacts and the wire contacts are connected to a switch side and a load side, respectively. A steering wheel characterized in that elastic force adjustment means 41 and 44 are provided for adjusting the elastic force in the axial direction to an appropriate state by displacing the line contact 40 in the circumferential direction or radial direction. . 2 The elastic force adjusting means 41 is a wire contact 40
The steering wheel according to claim 1 of the utility model registration, characterized in that the steering wheel is provided as a notch in the steering wheel. 3. The elastic force adjusting means 44 has the annular groove 35,
3. The steering wheel according to claim 1, which is provided as a utility model by widening the width of the steering wheel.