JPH069878B2 - Operation button and its manufacturing method - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to an operation button and a manufacturing method thereof. More specifically, the present invention relates to an operation button for control operation used for input / output to / from a control device such as various consumer devices, industrial machines, automobiles, etc., and a manufacturing method thereof.

[Prior Art] Various household appliances for home use, such as an electric washing machine, have various functions and a control panel for controlling these functions. This control panel is provided with switches and buttons for setting ON / OFF, time and the like. Since water is used, this control panel is required to be waterproof and dustproof. Similar functions are required for the operation buttons of transceivers used outdoors. On the other hand, the actual Kaisho 60-6
No. 7241 and Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 62-167323, in a vehicle operation panel, switch portions such as operation switches, knobs and jacks, and a panel of these switch portions are covered with a coating film integrally molded with a soft material. Things are disclosed.

As it is integrally molded and has no clearance, it prevents rain, dust, and debris from entering the control section. In addition, industrial robots, machine tools, and the like used in factories are becoming electronic and equipped with electronic control devices. Usually, these electronic control units are provided with an operation panel for changing programs and inputting data. In the factory, the environment is generally bad, and dust, oil, etc. scatter, which may enter the electric circuits in the operation panel, contact points of switches, etc., resulting in a failure.

For this reason, recently, a printed circuit board on which electronic components such as switches are mounted is placed in a control box, and the control box is covered with a panel.
The panel is opened to expose the upper part of the switch, and the entire panel is covered with a thin synthetic resin sheet. There is known a flat type operation panel that drives a switch in the opening of the panel from the top of the flat cover. This flat type operation panel is excellent in terms of preventing water, dust, and oil.

In this flat type control panel, symbols and characters are printed on the surface of the sheet for distinction between the switch portion that is pressed by a finger and the panel portion and the position of the panel portion.
Further, there are also known ones in which the switch portion is made slightly convex from the panel portion to distinguish it, and an outer peripheral projection type in which a small projection is provided on the outer periphery of the finger contact portion on the sheet surface. on the other hand,
It is also known that the display portion is manufactured by molding the operation buttons with synthetic resins of two kinds of colors without using a flat type and printing symbols and characters.

For those with comparatively small operation buttons such as audio equipment, telephones, electronic desk calculators, the return force after the switch operation is
Some use the spring force of the protrusion of silicon rubber provided on the printed circuit board (for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 57-
130305 publication).

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] Those that utilize the force of silicon rubber as the return force of the operation button are as follows:
A multi-step process such as a process of assembling these and many parts are required. In the flat type control panel, a display indicating the boundary between the switch portion and the panel portion and characters / symbols such as key types are printed on the surface of the sheet. However, the printed letters and symbols may disappear with an oily solvent such as alcohol. The synthetic resin panel is
The stains on the fingers tend to adhere, and the letters and symbols printed or baked on the surface become invisible.

If this dirt is wiped off with a solvent such as alcohol or rubbed vigorously, the printed characters will disappear. The upper surface of the panel has unevenness depending on the structure and design of the control panel and does not necessarily have the same plane, but has a plurality of planes. Since multiple surfaces cannot be printed at the same time, the printing process involves multiple steps. Further, manufacturing the printed control panel requires multiple steps. For example, many steps are required, such as molding a mold frame which is a frame of a control panel, pasting and fixing a sheet on the frame, and then printing the sheet surface.

When the flat type control box is a metal frame, a rubber sheet is further interposed between the sheet and the metal frame to improve the contact feeling when a person pushes the switch with a finger. Although the display part of the button type control panel which is not a flat type does not disappear easily, it requires a multi-step processing process and an assembling process. The present invention focuses on these problems and achieves the following objects.

An object of the present invention is to provide a structure of an operation button capable of extremely reducing the number of manufacturing processes and assembling steps.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a display unit of a control panel which has a good touch feeling.

An object of the present invention is to provide a display section of a control panel in which characters and symbols are not easily erased.

[Means and Actions for Solving the Problems] In order to solve the problems, the following means are adopted.

a. Operation buttons for input / output to / from control equipment, etc. b. A button body made of hard synthetic resin, which has a finger contact portion for contacting a finger with one surface to perform a switching operation, and c. A button support that is softer than the synthetic resin of the button body and is made of a thermoplastic elastomer of a different material, and that is heat-fused integrally with the button body to elastically support the button body; d. A heat-sealing surface formed on an interface between the button support and the button body, e. A case body for accommodating the control device in which a part of the button support is heat-sealed integrally; f. It is an operation button characterized by having.

Further, it is preferable that the button body is one selected from ABS, nylon, polycarbonate, PBT, and polypropylene, and the button support is selected from one of nylon elastomer, polyurethane elastomer, and olefin elastomer.

Further, it is preferable that the button support comprises (i) a thermoplastic elastic material ... 100 parts by weight, (i) a polyether block amide ... 25 to 185 parts by weight.

Further, in order to support the button body, it is preferable to form a thin portion having a small thickness on the button support.

Further, it is preferable that the button support is partially exposed on the surface of the button body to configure the display unit.

The operation button is manufactured by the following manufacturing method.

The button body and the case body or the button support are put into an injection molding die, and when the injection body is the button body and the case body, the button support and the button support are melted by heating. When the resin material is the button support, the synthetic resin material heated and fused to the button body is press-fitted into the cavity of the injection molding die, and the button body and the case body and the button support are A method for manufacturing an operation button, characterized in that the button body, the case body, and the button support are integrally formed by fusion bonding with the melting heat of the synthetic resin itself to form the heat fusion surface. Is.

[First Embodiment] A first embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 (a) is a plan view of the desk phone 1.
A desk phone 2 and a plurality of dial buttons 3 are provided on the upper surface of the main body of the desk phone 1. The button 3 has a rectangular parallelepiped shape. On the button 3, there is a display unit 4 composed of symbols and numbers. FIG. 1 (b) is a sectional view taken along line bb of FIG.

The button 3 is composed of a box-shaped button body 9, the inside of which is hollow and the lower end of which is open. The button body 9 is made of a relatively hard resin such as ABS resin, polycarbonate resin, PBT resin, polypropylene resin. The upper surface of the button body 9 is the contact portion 11 of the finger.
Is a surface for pressing with a finger. An actuator 10 is formed inside the button body 9. The actuator 10 is made of a thermoplastic elastic synthetic resin having excellent rubber elasticity.

This thermoplastic elastic body comprises a nylon elastomer, a polyurethane elastomer, and an olefin elastomer.
Further, a display portion for characters and symbols, that is, a raised portion 12 is provided above the cylindrical actuator 10. Since the contact portion 11 is made of a relatively hard plastic, it has a good touch feeling and is effective for a user who desires a hard-feeling finger contact. Button body 9 and actuator 10
A heat-sealing surface 8 is provided between and.

The heat-sealing surface 8 is a surface where the polymer of the button body 9 and the polymer of the actuator 10 are mixed or adhered to each other by an intermolecular attractive force. A pressing protrusion 13 is provided on the bottom surface of the actuator 10. The outer periphery of the actuator 10 is
Similar to the actuator 10, it has a thin portion 15 made of a synthetic resin of a thermoplastic elastic body having excellent rubber elasticity, and this thin portion 15 is integrally formed and connected to the actuator 10. The thin portion 15 is higher than the thick portion 17 in a trapezoidal shape.

The thin portion 15 is easily deformed when pushed from above. That is, when the upper surface of the contact portion 11 is pressed with a finger, the thin portion 15 is dented downward. The relationship between the time when the thin portion 15 is dented and the applied pressure is as follows. When a predetermined pressurizing force is applied to the contact portion 11, the thin portion 1 against the pressurizing force is suddenly applied.
The reaction force of 5 decreases. The feeling of the finger at this time is called a click feeling. It is necessary to determine the peak value of the pressing force to an optimum value for a human finger. The peak value of this pressing force is determined by the thickness and shape of the thin portion 15.

On the other hand, a contact circuit 21 made of a conductive material is formed on the printed board 20. The contact circuit 21 is usually formed by printing, plating, or other well-known means for forming an electric circuit on a printed board. An insulating plate 22 made of a synthetic resin or a rubber plate is placed on the printed board 20. The insulating plate 22 is open only in the contact circuit 21 portion. On the insulating plate 22, a thin plate-shaped conductive sheet 23 made of a conductive material is placed. The conductive sheet 23 is a conductor that is made of a rubber material containing an electrically conductive material, a synthetic resin, or the like, and conducts electricity.

With the above configuration, when the contact portion 11 of the button body 9 is pushed, the thin portion 15 bends downward and the actuator 10 descends. The lower end surface 16 of the pressing protrusion 13 of the actuator 10 presses the conductive sheet 23. Conductive sheet 23
Makes the flexure contact circuit 21 electrically conductive. When the pressing on the contact portion 11 is stopped, the thin portion 15 returns to the original shape, and the lower end surface 16 returns to the upper position.

Example 2 FIGS. 2A and 2B show a second example. This is an embodiment in which a matrix frame 25 is provided for each button 3 as shown in FIGS. 2 (a) and 2 (b). The matrix frame 25 is made of the same hard plastic resin as the button body 9. In this example,
By providing the matrix-shaped framework 25 for each button 3, each button becomes independent. Therefore, it is rare that the other adjacent button 3 is erroneously pressed to cause a malfunction.

Further, since the frame 25 is provided, it becomes an accent in terms of design, and the strain during molding can be reduced. A tact switch 26 is provided on the printed board 20 of this example. The tact switch 26 is electrically turned on and off when the upper part is pushed. Tact switch 26
Has a spring inside and is restored to its original position by the spring force of the spring. When the button 3 is pressed, the thin portion 15 also deforms and operates in the same manner as in the above embodiment.

[Embodiment 3] FIG. 3 shows a third embodiment. In the third embodiment, the matrix-shaped frame 25 provided in the second embodiment is used as the thick portion 16
And the printed board 20. The upper portion of the frame 25 and the thick portion 16 are heat-fused in the same manner as described above, and have a heat-fused surface. In this example, since the framework 25 is invisible, the appearance is simpler.

[Embodiment 4] FIG. 4 (a) shows an overview of the desktop electronic computer 30. FIG. 4 (b) is a sectional view taken along line bb in FIG. 4 (a) and shows a fourth embodiment. The body case 31 includes a liquid crystal display 32 and a plurality of buttons 33 for inputting data.
And so on. The body case 31 is made of a relatively hard resin, which is the same material as the button body 9. On the lower surface of the main body case 31, a thick portion 34 and a thin portion 35 made of an integrally molded soft resin are fusion bonded. At the boundary surface between the main body case 31 and the thick portion 34, a heat-sealing surface 36 is provided as in the above-described embodiment.

The lower end surface 36 of the button 33 is fusion-bonded to the upper end of the thin portion 35. The button body 37 of the button 33 is made of a hard resin having the same material as that of the above-mentioned embodiment. The inside of the button body 37 is filled with another resin,
The actuator 38 is made of this resin. In order to make the resin colors of the button body 37 and the actuator 38 different, another pigment is mixed. Therefore, the exposed portion on the button body 37 serves as a display portion showing characters / symbols. A conductive material 39 is provided on the lower end surface of the actuator 38 by a known means such as printing or adhesion.

Since the contact circuit 21 is formed on the printed board 20, the circuit is constructed by driving the button 35 downward as in the above embodiment.

[Manufacturing Method of Control Panel] The four embodiments of the operation buttons of the control panel of the present invention have been described above in detail. Next, the manufacturing method of the present invention will be described.
First, the first embodiment will be described in detail as an example. The button body 9 is molded by a known injection molding method. When molding the button 3, the display is formed as a cavity. The button body may be made of any synthetic resin such as ABS, polycarbonate (PC), polypropylene (PP), PBT, nylon, etc. as long as it has good mechanical strength and moldability.

Further, a metal plate may be used as long as the thermoplastic elastomer, which is a soft material, can be fused. Whether or not both are heat-sealed is well known except for those invented by the present inventors, which will be described later, and it is selected from these and used. For example, it is selected from nylon elastomer, polyurethane elastomer, olefin elastomer and the like. Therefore, the button body 9 is a concept including a metal plate here. The thermoplastic elastomer resin is mixed with a pigment so that the display portion can be seen clearly.

The button main body 9 is injection-molded (in the case of metal, plastic working such as bending and engraving) and then put in the next mold. FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional view showing an example of a mold for injection-molding a button support part. A mold 60 of this example is called a sleep rate mold and is a well-known mold structure often used in injection molding. Is. During molding, the mold is closed as shown in the sectional view of FIG. The cavity part includes the actuator 10 and the thin wall part 1.
5, the thickened portion 17 and the raised portion 12 become spaces before molding. In this state, a thermoplastic elastic body is caused to flow in from the sprue 61.

The resin that has flowed in passes through the sprue 61, the runner 62, the gate 76, and fills the cavity. The material of the actuator 10, the thin portion 15, and the thick portion 16 is selected from thermoplastic elastic bodies to be heat-sealed. A pigment is put in this thermoplastic to make it different from the color of the button body 9 so that the display section 4 is displayed as sharply as possible. Display unit 4
Only the portion of the raised portion 12 is exposed from the surface of the button body 9. The exposed portion directly forms the display portion 4.

The heat-fused thermoplastic elastic body is pressurized and injected from the sprue 61 (nozzle (not shown)). The thermoplastic elastic body flows into the cavity portion 74 through the runner 62 and the gate 76. The thermoplastic elastic body that has flowed into the cavity portion 74 partially melts the surface portion of the mold frame 1 by its own melting heat force, and both are mixed or adhered to each other to form the heat-sealing surface 8. When this molding is completed, the mold 60 is
A surface 67 between the fixed side mounting plate 65 and the liner stripper plate 68 is guided and opened by the guide pin 66. At the same time, the surface 69 between the runner stripper plate 68 and the template 70 opens. Further, the dividing surface 71 between the template 70 and the movable receiving plate 72 is opened.

As a result, the runner stripper plate 68 is
2 is extruded and removed from the mold 60. At the same time, the template 70 also separates from the movable receiving plate 72. At this time, Edectapine 7
The tips of 5, 75 push the integrally molded button 3 out of the movable core 72 and remove it from the mold 60. As mentioned above,
Molding and assembly of the control panel is mainly done by 2-3 of this injection molding.
It is completed only by the process. Since the following examples can be manufactured in substantially the same manner as the example 1, the description thereof will be omitted.

Although this manufacturing method is an injection molding method, the method of heat-sealing the button body 9 and the button support may be any other known means. For example, other methods may be used as long as they are conditions such as an ultrasonic welding method, extrusion molding, blow molding, calendar molding, compression molding, transfer molding, and the like for thermal fusion.

[Other Thermoplastic Elastic Body] The button body 9 is made of ordinary synthetic resin. Normally, synthetic resin products use thermoplastic engineering plastics such as polycarbonate and nylon when high heat resistance and mechanical strength are required. Joining conventionally used thermoplastic elastic bodies to these engineering plastics is limited to relatively hard thermoplastic elastic bodies. There has been no method of heat-sealing a thermoplastic elastic body made of a synthetic resin having excellent elasticity to an engineering plastic. The applicant of the present invention has disclosed this method in Japanese Patent Application No. 62-300036 (JP-A-1-139240).
No.). The gist of the invention is as follows.

A thermoplastic resin composition of a molded body having a hardness (JIS Shore altitude A) lower than that of the synthetic resin molded body, which is molded in advance and has a relatively high hardness, is bonded by heat fusion, or This is a method for producing a composite molded body by giving a molded body made of the thermoplastic elastic composition to the molded body having a hardness higher than that of the molded body made of the thermoplastic elastic composition and bonding the two by heat fusion.

This thermoplastic elastic composition is a method for producing a composite molded body comprising (i) thermoplastic elastic body ... 100 parts by weight (ii) polyether block amide ... 25 to 185 parts by weight.

The hardness of the thermoplastic elastic body is 70 to 35 degrees, and the thermoplastic elastic body is a hydrogenated SBS block copolymer,
It is selected from olefin elastomers, diene elastomers, urethane elastomers and plasticized polyvinyl chloride.

The hardness of the molded body having a hardness higher than that of the molded body made of the thermoplastic elastic composition is 70 degrees or more. This synthetic resin is a kind selected from polycarbonate, nylon 11, nylon 12, ABS resin, and methacrylic resin. An injection molding method is preferable as the means for joining by heat fusion in terms of productivity.

If this manufacturing method is used for the display portion of the control panel of the above-mentioned embodiment, a control panel having a good clicking feeling can be manufactured because it has excellent mechanical strength and elasticity. That is, the button main body and the control panel main body are formed of the thermoplastic elastic composition, and the button main body and the actuator are used for the molded portion having high hardness.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above in detail, the operation button and the manufacturing method thereof according to the present invention have the following effects.

a. Since the button body and the button support are heat-sealed together, the click feeling is good during operation.

b. Since the button body, the button support body and the case body are assembled and molded in the injection molding die, the number of manufacturing steps can be reduced.

c. Since the button body, the case body, and the button support are all integrally heat-sealed, they are highly waterproof, dustproof, and shock resistant.

[Brief description of drawings]

1 (a) and 1 (b) are diagrams showing the first embodiment, FIGS. 2 (a) and 2 (b) are diagrams showing the second embodiment, and FIG.
FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention, FIGS. 4 (a) and 4 (b) are diagrams showing a fourth embodiment, and FIG. 5 is a sectional view showing an example of an injection molding die. 4 ... Display part, 3, 40 ... Button, 9, 50 ... Button body, 10, 38 ... Actuator, 11 ... Contact part, 35, 15 ... Thin part, 34, 17 ... Thick part Two
0 ... Printed board, 22 ... Insulation board, 23 ... Conductive sheet, 25 ... Frame, 60 ... Mold

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A. Operation buttons for input / output to / from control equipment, etc. b. A button body made of hard synthetic resin, which has a finger contact portion for contacting a finger with one surface to perform a switching operation, and c. A button support that is softer than the synthetic resin of the button body and is made of a thermoplastic elastomer of a different material, and that is heat-fused integrally with the button body to elastically support the button body; d. A heat-sealing surface formed on an interface between the button support and the button body, e. A case body for accommodating the control device in which a part of the button support is heat-sealed integrally; f. An operation button characterized by having. 2. The button body according to claim 1, wherein the button body is one selected from ABS, nylon, polycarbonate, PBT, and polypropylene, and the button support is one of nylon elastomer, polyurethane elastomer, and olefin elastomer. Operation button characterized by being selected from. 3. The button support according to claim 2, wherein the button support comprises (i) a thermoplastic elastic material ... 100 parts by weight (i) a polyether block amide ... 25 to 185 parts by weight. Characteristic operation button. 4. The operation button according to claim 1, wherein the button support is provided with a thin portion having a small thickness for supporting the button body. 5. The operation button according to claim 1, wherein the button support is partially exposed on the surface of the button main body to form a display unit. 6. The button main body, the case main body, or the button support body is placed in an injection molding die according to claim 1, and when the button main body and the case body are put in the injection molding die. In the case of the button support, the synthetic resin material heated and fused of the button support is press-fitted into the cavity portion of the injection molding die when the button support is the synthetic resin material, The case body and the button support are integrally fusion-bonded by the heat of fusion of the synthetic resin itself, and the button body and the case body and the button support are integrally molded to form the heat-fusion surface. A method for manufacturing an operation button, which is characterized by the above.