The present invention relates to a backlight keyswitch and a backlight module thereof, and more specifically, to a backlight keyswitch utilizing a reflecting ink layer to reflect at least partial light emitted upward by a backlight source back to a light guide plate and a backlight module thereof.
In general, a backlight module of a backlight keyboard includes a light guide plate and a backlight source. A board of the backlight keyboard is disposed on the light guide plate and has hole regions formed corresponding to a plurality of backlight keyswitches of the backlight keyboard. The light guide plate has an optical microstructure formed corresponding to each hole region for guiding light to be incident to symbols on the backlight keyswitch through the hole region, so as to generate the symbol lighting effect.
A conventional backlight design involves disposing a backlight circuit board, which has a plurality of light emitting diodes corresponding to the plurality of backlight keyswitches, under the board. As such, the light emitting diode can emit light to the symbols on a keycap of the backlight keyswitch for generating the symbol lighting effect. However, since light emitted upward by the light emitting diode would be incident to the backlight keyswitch directly, it may cause the problem that center symbols on the keyswitch are too bright but side symbols on the keyswitch are not bright enough, so as to influence the brightness uniformity and the symbol lighting effect of the backlight keyswitch.
Therefore, one objective of the present invention is to provide a backlight keyswitch utilizing a reflecting ink layer to reflect at least partial light emitted upward by a backlight source back to a light guide plate and a backlight module thereof to solve the aforesaid problems.
According to an embodiment, a backlight keyswitch of the present invention includes a keyswitch body, a board, a membrane circuit board, and a backlight module. The board is disposed under the keyswitch body and connected to the keyswitch body to make the keyswitch body movable relative to the board. The board has at least one hole region corresponding to the keyswitch body. The membrane circuit board is disposed between the keyswitch body and the board. The backlight module is disposed under the board. The backlight module includes a light guide plate, a backlight circuit board, a light-blocking sheet, and a first reflecting ink layer. The light guide plate has a containing hole corresponding to the keyswitch body and has an optical microstructure corresponding to at least one hole region. The backlight circuit board is disposed under the light guide plate and has a backlight source disposed in the containing hole. The light-blocking sheet is disposed between the board and the light guide plate and has a light-permeable region corresponding to the keyswitch body. The first reflecting ink layer is formed on one of the board, the membrane circuit board, and the light-blocking sheet and located above the backlight source, for reflecting at least partial light emitted upward by the backlight source back to the optical microstructure, such that light can pass through the light-permeable region, the at least one hole region, and the membrane circuit board sequentially via scattering of the optical microstructure to be incident to the keyswitch body.
According to another embodiment, a backlight module of the present invention is applied to a backlight keyswitch. The backlight keyswitch has a keyswitch body, a board, and a membrane circuit board. The board is disposed under the keyswitch body and connected to the keyswitch body to make the keyswitch body movable relative to the board. The board has at least one hole region corresponding to the keyswitch body. The membrane circuit board is disposed between the keyswitch body and the board. The backlight module includes a light guide plate, a backlight circuit board, a light-blocking sheet, and a first reflecting ink layer. The light guide plate has a containing hole corresponding to the keyswitch body and has an optical microstructure corresponding to at least one hole region. The backlight circuit board is disposed under the light guide plate and has a backlight source disposed in the containing hole. The light-blocking sheet is disposed between the board and the light guide plate and has a light-permeable region. The first reflecting ink layer is formed on one of the board, the membrane circuit board, and the light-blocking sheet and located above the backlight source, for reflecting at least partial light emitted upward by the backlight source back to the optical microstructure, such that light can pass through the light-permeable region, the at least one hole region, and the membrane circuit board sequentially via scattering of the optical microstructure to be incident to the keyswitch body.
In summary, the present invention adopts the light guide design in which the reflecting ink layer is disposed above the backlight source to reflect at least partial light emitted upward by the backlight source back to the light guide plate (for preventing the center symbols from being too bright) and the light can be incident to the keyswitch body via scattering of the optical microstructure in the light guide plate (for increasing the brightness of the side symbols), for solving the prior art problem that the center symbols are too bright but the side symbols are not bright enough when light emitted upward by the light emitting diode is incident to the backlight keyswitch directly. In such a manner, the brightness uniformity and the symbol lighting effect of the backlight keyswitch can be improved greatly.
These and other objectives of the present invention will no doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after reading the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment that is illustrated in the various figures and drawings.
The present invention will now be described more specifically with reference to the following embodiments and the accompanying drawings. Other advantages and effects of the present invention can be easily understood by a person ordinarily skilled in the art in view of the detailed descriptions and the accompanying drawings. The present invention can be implemented or applied to other different embodiments. Certain aspects of the present invention are not limited by the particular details of the examples illustrated herein. Without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention, the present invention will have other modifications and changes. It should be understood that the appended drawings are not necessarily drawn to scale and the configuration of each component (e.g., a size ratio of ink layers) in the drawings is merely illustrative, not presenting an actual condition of the embodiments.
Please refer to
More detailed description for the backlight module 18 is provided as follows. The backlight module 18 is disposed under the board 14 and includes a light guide plate 26, a backlight circuit board 28, a light-blocking sheet 30, and a first reflecting ink layer 32. The light guide plate 26 has a containing hole 34 corresponding to the keyswitch body 12 and has an optical microstructure 36 corresponding to the hole region 15. The backlight circuit board 28 is disposed under the light guide plate 26 and has a backlight source 38. The backlight source 38 (preferably a light emitting diode, but not limited thereto) is disposed in the containing hole 34. The light-blocking sheet 30 is disposed between the board 14 and the light guide plate 26 and has a light-permeable region 31 corresponding to the keyswitch body 12. The first reflecting ink layer 32 could be preferably a white ink layer (but not limited thereto) and formed on the light-blocking sheet 30. The first reflecting ink layer 32 is located above the backlight source 38. To be more specific, in this embodiment, as shown in
Via the aforesaid configuration, the first reflecting ink layer 32 can reflect at least partial light emitted upward by the backlight source 38 back to the optical microstructure 36 of the light guide plate 26 (as shown in
To be noted, the aforesaid ink layer configuration could be also applied to the backlight circuit board 28. For example, as shown in
In summary, the present invention adopts the light guide design in which the reflecting ink layer is disposed above the backlight source to reflect at least partial light emitted upward by the backlight source back to the light guide plate (for preventing the center symbols from being too bright) and the light can be incident to the keyswitch body via scattering of the optical microstructure in the light guide plate (for increasing the brightness of the side symbols), for solving the prior art problem that the center symbols are too bright but the side symbols are not bright enough when light emitted upward by the light emitting diode is incident to the backlight keyswitch directly. In such a manner, the brightness uniformity and the symbol lighting effect of the backlight keyswitch can be improved greatly.
The ink layer configuration is not limited to the aforesaid embodiment, meaning that the present invention could adopt other ink layer stacking design and the size ratio relationship and the ink colors and types of the ink layers could vary with the practical lighting application of the backlight module 18. For example, as shown in
In addition, the forming position of the reflecting ink layer could be not limited to the aforesaid embodiments. For example, please refer to
Furthermore, please refer to
In the practical application, for avoiding the problem of insufficient brightness at a position of the keycap corresponding to the reflecting ink layer, the present invention could selectively adopt the light supplement hole design. For example, please refer to
Moreover, please refer to
Those skilled in the art will readily observe that numerous modifications and alterations of the device and method may be made while retaining the teachings of the invention. Accordingly, the above disclosure should be construed as limited only by the metes and bounds of the appended claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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112109798 | Mar 2023 | TW | national |
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 63/325,623, filed on Mar. 31, 2022. The content of the application is incorporated herein by reference.
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