The present invention relates to a shield structure for an electric cable and more particularly, the present invention relates to a shield structure including magnesium as the major component thereof used for an electric cable.
Generally, various electric cables for signal communication and power supply etc. to an electronic apparatus are used in the condition where the electric cables are exposed to steady noises such as electro-magnetic wave and/or vibrations. When the electric cable receives such external noises, the signals under communication may be disturbed and erroneous actions may take place in a precise electronic apparatus such as a computer in the worst case.
In order to suppress the influence of the external noises as describe above, it has been so far proposed to shield the electric cable. In this regard, Japanese Patent (Laid-Open) No. 2004-63418 (Patent Literature 1) discloses a parallel dual line shielded cable to which a shield layer is formed by winding spirally thereon a metal sheet tape such as an Al-PET tape or a copper-deposited PET tape. Such metal sheets could provide certain shield effects for the electro-magnetic wave; however, it has been insufficient with respect to a vibration absorption effect. An improved shield performance has still been expected as a performance of electronic apparatuses, a speed of the signal communication, and a high density implementation of wirings in the apparatus and the like are improved.
In addition, for the electric cable such as an AV (Audio Visual) cable, which is required to transmit delicate analog signals as faithfully as possible, influence of the external noises is clearly reflected to qualities of outputs (sound quality and/or image quality), and then the external noises must be reduced to the limit as low as possible. Moreover, when the shield layer of the audio cable is constructed by using a copper sheet or an aluminum sheet, the technical problem that incongruity on timbre of the output sounds (i.e., so called overlap of metallic sounds) has been caused because resonance components being unique to the above metal materials are migrated to the sound signals.
The present invention has been completed by considering the above problem of the conventional art and an object of the present invention is to provide a novel shield structure for an electric cable which is able to cut-off the influence of the external noises as low as the limit thereof.
The inventors have obtained an idea from the material property of magnesium having high electro-magnetic shield performance, high vibration absorption performance as well as high heat conductivity and the inventors have reached the construction to complete the present invention in which a shield layer is formed on an outer circumference of an electric cable by winding spirally a metal sheet tape, which includes magnesium as a major component.
Also the inventors have found the fact to complete the invention that original sounds may be play-backed with extremely high faithfulness by forming a shield layer with winding spirally the metal sheet tape including magnesium as the major component in the counter clock wise (CCW) direction when viewed from an IN end to an OUT end of an AV cable.
As described above, according to the present invention, the electric cable structure which is able to cut-off the effect of the external noises as low as the limit thereof may be provided.
Hereinafter, the shield structure for the electric cable of the present invention including magnesium as the major component (hereinafter simply referred to magnesium shield structure) will be explained using embodiments depicted in drawings; however, the present invention must not limited to the embodiments depicted in the drawings.
As shown in
In the shield cable 10 of the present invention, the outer circumference of the copper wire blaid 18 is further covered by the magnesium shield layer 20 and the outermost circumference is covered by the sheath 22 made from synthesized polymer.
In
In the present embodiment, a magnesium alloy sheet may be used as a tape-shaped strip and it is most preferred to use a pure-magnesium sheet as the shield layer. When the magnesium alloy sheet is used, higher contents of the magnesium in the alloy is preferred; the content percentage of magnesium not less than 95% may be preferred; the content percentage of magnesium not less than 96% may be more preferred; the content percentage of magnesium not less than 97% may be most preferred.
Next, the method for forming the magnesium shield structure of the present invention will be explained based on the structure of the shield cable 10.
In addition, when the metal sheet tape 20a is wound on the outer circumference of the sheath 18, it is preferred to wind the tape spirally such that about one half of a tape width of the metal sheet tape 20a is mutually and evenly overlapped so as not remain of spacing between lateral edges of the tape. By winding spirally the metal sheet tape 20a under such winding process, the formation of the spacing together with the break-off of the metal sheet due to the stress of tape 20a may be prevented even when the shielded cable 10 is bent under a particular usage.
Heretofore, the formation method of the magnesium shield layer 20 has been described based on the shield cable 10 of the present embodiment. Now, the electric connection condition of the magnesium shield layer 20 in the shield cable 10 of the present embodiment will be explained with referencing
In turn, as shown in
Heretofore, the electric connection condition of the magnesium shield layer 20 in the present embodiment has been described and now the work and the advantage of the magnesium shield structure of the present invention will be explained based on the shield cable 10 as well.
On the other hand, the shield cable 10 is exposed to the external noises, i.e. the electro-magnetic wave and/or the vibration from the outside of the shielded cable 10 during the propagation. The external noise (N) may reach to the magnesium shield layer 20 with passing through the sheath 22. Here, the magnesium shield layer 20 of the present invention is crafted by the metal sheet including magnesium as the major component and magnesium has extremely high electro-magnetic wave shield performance and furthermore the vibration absorption ratio thereof is the highest one among the practically used metals such that the electro-magnetic wave invaded to the shield cable 10 from the outside is shielded properly by the magnesium shield layer 20 and the vibration carried from the outside is also absorbed properly by the magnesium shield layer 20.
In the shield cable 10 according to the present embodiment, when the magnesium shield layer 20 is crafted using one continuous metal sheet tape 20a while insulating the IN end thereof from the pin plug 13 and connecting electrically the OUT end thereof to the body 12b of the pin plug 12, i.e. the cold terminal (−) as described above, the direction of propagating the noises is aligned from the IN end to the OUT end. Then, the noises picked-up from the outside by the magnesium shield layer 20 may be directed to the ground (earth) of the amplifier connected at the OUT end through the body 12b of the pin plug 12, i.e. the cold terminal (−) without any feedback the picked-up noise from the outside to the CD player apparatus placed at the IN end. As explained above, the magnesium shield structure of the present invention adopts magnesium as the element material which has excellent properties both of the electro-magnetic wave shield and the vibration absorption so that the present invention may reduce the interference of the external noises to the propagating signals almost in the maximum level.
While the present magnesium shield structure has been described by using practical embodiments depicted in
In the above described descriptions, the present invention has been explained using the RCA cable for simplifying the description. The application range of the present magnesium shield structure should not limited to electric cables and/or lines for particular applications and/or specifications and hence, the present magnesium shield structure may be applied to various cables and/or lines being potentially connected between any electronic apparatus as well as connection cables for apparatuses relating to a computer and/or for an AV relating apparatus.
Such connection cables relating to a computer may include a single electric line, paired lines, IDE cables, ultra ATA cables, serial ATA cables, HDMI cables, LAN cables, monitor cables, USB cables, IEEE cables, SCSI cables, printer cables, or main power supply cables for computer related apparatuses. More particularly, it is expected beneficial to apply the present magnesium shield structure to SCSI, ultra ATA cables, and/or serial ATA cables for high rate data transmission.
In addition, such connection cables for an AV related apparatus may include general purpose AV cable (audio cables and/or video cables), cables for electric instruments such as, for example, speaker cables, microphone cables, D terminal cables, HDMI cables, guitar cables, etc., and/or main power supply cables for AV related apparatuses. In other applications, the present magnesium shield structure may be applied to connection cables for various electronic apparatuses, main power supply cables, antennae, telephone cables, and the like.
Furthermore, the present magnesium shield structure may be applied to inner wirings of the electronic apparatuses as well as external connection cables between the electronic apparatuses. For instance, about inner wirings of a personal computer, such inner wirings may include power supply cables for a cooling device such as a CPU fan or a casing fan, a hard disk drive or a DVD drive and/or various data cables etc. While the applicable range of the present magnesium shield structure has been exemplified, the present magnesium shield structure may provide particularly significant advantages when applied to electric cables being required to communicate delicate analog signals faithfully. Among such applications, when the present magnesium shield structure is applied to AV apparatus connections, the following advantages may be expected:
When copper (Cu) or aluminum (Al) etc, and other metals are used as the shield materials for AV cables as conventional arts, it may be possible to cancel the external noises depending on material properties thereof. However, the conventional shield metals themselves are not entirely neutral to the acoustic signals and hence, the vibrations unique to the metals inevitably interfere the acoustic signals. Such interference by the metal material for the shield layer results in mixing of complex resonant vibration on the acoustic signals and then, the mixed noises being not recorded in the sound source may transferred to the amplifier so that incongruity about the sense of hearing may be generated on the final outputs (sound timbre).
In relation to the above defect, the present magnesium shield structure includes magnesium as the major component thereof and the unique vibration of magnesium may interfere to the acoustic signals as well. Now it is known that the influence of the complex resonance vibration on the acoustic signals is quite similar to the influence of complex resonance to the acoustic signals by wood. Then, the incongruity in the sense of hearing may be suppressed on the final outputs (sound timbre) as low as possible. That is to say, because the acoustic components of the recorded original sounds in a music CD generally include the complex resonance component originated from the wood beforehand; instruments and/or a recording studio may include wood materials to some extent. It is supposed that such magnesium having the sound timbre similar to that of wood shows good matching to the sound signals. As the results, the magnesium shield structure of the present invention could provide the significant advantages in that the sound signal can not be disordered but also the feel of the original sounds can not be changed.
With respect to the application for the AV cable, the direction of the magnesium metal tape winding is preferred as shown in
Heretofore, the present invention has been described using the particular embodiment; however, the present invention must not be limited to the above described embodiments and other embodiments thought by a person skilled in the art and providing the work and advantage of the present invention are included in the scope of the present invention.
Hereafter, the present invention will be detailed more concretely using practical examples; however, the present invention must not be limited to the examples described hereafter.
To evaluate the shield effect of the magnesium shield of the present invention, several experiments were conducted. The evaluation examinations described hereunder were conducted by using Absorption Clamp Test specified in IEC SPECIFICATION (IEC1196-1, IEC61196-1).
Commercially available LAN cable (category 6, total length 7 m, available from SANWA SUPPLY INC., Type Number KB-T7E-07) was used as the electric cable.
An aluminum alloy tape (width 20 mm, thickness 45 micro-meters, magnesium content percentage 95-96%, Aluminum 3%, Zinc 1%, Product Serial Number AZ31B, available from NIPPON KINZOKU CO., LTD.) was wound spirally to the above LAN cable such that the spiral was developed to be counter clock wise when viewed from the IN end. The tape winding was performed by evenly overlapping about one half of the tape width each other with starting from the IN end and finishing the OUT end direction so as not to remain openings between lateral edges of the tape. As comparative samples, the LAN cables were wound with an aluminum sheet tape (Comparative sample 1) and a copper sheet tape (Comparative sample 2) instead of the magnesium sheet tape while keeping other processes for forming the objective sample to be same.
a)-(c) each shows the results for the LAN cable wound with the aluminum sheet (in
In each graph, the abscissa represents a radiation power amount (dB micro-V) and the ordinate represents a frequency (MHz). Also in the lower region of the graphs, a sensitivity level of the measurement system is shown as the reference data among the measurements. In the upper region of the graphs, four measured curves are provided and the curves indicate the results of the measurement for each of 4 cable pairs included in the used LAN cable (each of the cable pair has different impedance).
As shown in
From the results described above, it was observed that the magnesium shield of the present invention has a significantly higher shield effect than the conventional shields.
A sense of hearing test was conducted by connecting audio apparatuses with the cables implemented with the magnesium shield structure of the present invention.
The magnesium shield cable of the present embodiment was prepared by using a conventional audio cable.
As shown in
b) shows the process stage in which the magnesium alloy sheet tape 32 has completely wound to the Audio cable. As shown in
At last, as shown in
The above SAMPLE 1, SAMPLE 2, and the popular audio cable 30 (comparative example) were subjected to a sense of hearing test. Particularly, common CD sound sources were played in a same stereo apparatus comprising a CD player apparatus and an amplifier connected by the above described cable. The sound timbre was examined by trial hearing of a volunteer selected from audio apparatus development engineers.
As the trial hearing test, SAMPLE 1 obtained excellent evaluation results in all aspects of sound granularity, S/N ratio and topological feeling of instrument locations as well as results of improvement of the sound quality turning lighter when compared to the corresponding aspects of the comparative example. SAMPLE 2 (CCW) further obtained additional excellent results in faithful reproduction of sound in the aspects of highness and depth of the sounds when compared with SAMPLE 1 with maintaining the excellent aspects obtained for SAMPLE 1 (CW) so that the playing stage may be more easily imaged from the play-backed sounds.
By the test results, when the magnesium shield structure of the present invention is applied to the AV cable, it is confirmed that the influence of the external noises invading the cable may be reduced to the limit for realizing the faithful reproduction of the original sounds.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
2009-022091 | Feb 2009 | JP | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
---|---|---|---|---|
PCT/JP2010/000422 | 1/26/2010 | WO | 00 | 8/18/2011 |
Publishing Document | Publishing Date | Country | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
WO2010/089968 | 8/12/2010 | WO | A |
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
5349133 | Rogers | Sep 1994 | A |
7601915 | Lumachi et al. | Oct 2009 | B2 |
20060048966 | Takahashi et al. | Mar 2006 | A1 |
Number | Date | Country |
---|---|---|
0344838 | Jun 1989 | EP |
0344838 | Jun 1989 | EP |
2004-063418 | Feb 2004 | JP |
0079545 | Dec 2000 | WO |
Number | Date | Country | |
---|---|---|---|
20110290556 A1 | Dec 2011 | US |