This application claims priority to Taiwanese Invention Patent Application No. 112101589, filed on Jan. 13, 2023, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein.
The disclosure relates to an electronic lock and a method for setting up an electronic lock.
A conventional electronic lock, when being installed on a door, has to be manually configured to a left-open setting or a right-open setting depending on the door type (i.e., a left-hand door or a right-hand door), so that the conventional electronic lock is capable of performing locking and unlocking operation on the door accordingly. However, the method of manually setting up the conventional electronic lock is prone to human error. When the conventional electronic lock is incorrectly set up, the conventional electronic lock may perform the locking and the unlocking operation in a wrong direction, thus causing malfunctions and damages to the conventional electronic lock.
Therefore, an object of the disclosure is to provide an electronic lock and a method for setting up an electronic lock that can alleviate at least one of the drawbacks of the prior art.
According to the disclosure, the electronic lock includes a locking mechanism and a control device.
The locking mechanism includes an electronic driving module, a deadbolt, and a turning-piece module that is connected to the electronic driving module and the deadbolt. The turning-piece module is configured to be manually operated to rotate among a first position corresponding to a first state of the electronic lock, and a second position and a third position both corresponding to a second state of the electronic lock. The turning-piece module is further configured to drive the deadbolt to move between a projection position and a retraction position while rotating.
The control device includes three Hall sensors disposed to surround a rotation axis of the turning-piece module and angularly spaced apart from each other, a magnetic component disposed on the turning-piece module so as to co-rotate with the turning-piece module relative to the Hall sensors, and a control module electrically connected to the Hall sensors and the electronic driving module. The control module is configured to control the electronic driving module to operate for driving the turning-piece module to rotate. Each of the Hall sensors is configured to detect a presence of the magnetic component and to generate a sensing signal upon detecting the magnetic component.
The control module is further configured to operate in an opening-side setting mode for activating one of a left-open setting and a right-open setting according to two of the sensing signals that are first received respectively from two of the Hall sensors without controlling the electronic driving module to drive the turning-piece module to rotate. The control module is further configured to control the electronic driving module to drive the turning-piece module to rotate between the first position and one of the second position and the third position according to one of the left-open setting and the right-open setting that has been activated.
According to the disclosure, a method for setting up the electronic lock includes: the control module operating in the opening-side setting mode and receiving one or more of the sensing signals from the Hall sensors without controlling the electronic driving module to drive the turning-piece module to rotate; the control module analyzing two of the sensing signals that are first received respectively from two of the Hall sensors; and the control module activating one of the left-open setting and the right-open setting based on the two of the sensing signals that are first received.
Other features and advantages of the disclosure will become apparent in the following detailed description of the embodiment(s) with reference to the accompanying drawings. It is noted that various features may not be drawn to scale.
Before the disclosure is described in greater detail, it should be noted that where considered appropriate, reference numerals or terminal portions of reference numerals have been repeated among the figures to indicate corresponding or analogous elements, which may optionally have similar characteristics.
It should be noted herein that for clarity of description, spatially relative terms such as “top,” “bottom,” “upper,” “lower,” “on,” “above,” “over,” “downwardly,” “upwardly” and the like may be used throughout the disclosure while making reference to the features as illustrated in the drawings. The features may be oriented differently (e.g., rotated 90 degrees or at other orientations) and the spatially relative terms used herein may be interpreted accordingly.
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The locking mechanism 3 includes an electronic driving module 31 that is disposed in the housing 2, a deadbolt 33, and a turning-piece module 32 (e.g., a thumb turn) that is connected to the electronic driving module 31 and the deadbolt 33 (see
The electronic driving module 31 is controlled by the control device 4 to drive the turning-piece module 32 to rotate. In this embodiment, the electronic driving module 31 includes a motor 311 that is electrically connected to the control device 4, and a transmission system 312 that is connected between the motor 311 and the turning-piece module 32. Since there is a multitude of available types of electronic driving modules, and since the electronic driving module 31 is not the emphasis of this disclosure, details of the electronic driving module 31 will not be further described hereinafter for the sake of brevity. For example, the transmission system 312 is a set of gears.
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The turning-piece module 32 is further configured to, while rotating, drive the deadbolt 33 to move between a projection position where the deadbolt 33 projects from the door 800 (see
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The Hall sensors 41 are disposed to surround a rotation axis of the turning-piece module 32, and are angularly spaced apart from each other. In this embodiment, for adjacent two of the Hall sensors 41, a difference between angular positions respectively of these two Hall sensors 41 with respect to the rotation axis of the turning-piece module 32 is 90 degrees.
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The control module 43 is configured to control the electronic driving module 31 to operate. When operating, the electronic driving module 31 drives the turning-piece module 32 to rotate. The control module 43 is further configured to operate in an opening-side setting mode for activating one of a left-open setting and a right-open setting based on two of the sensing signals that are first received respectively from two of the Hall sensors 41 without controlling the electronic driving module 31 to drive the turning-piece module 32 to rotate. The control module 43 is configured to operate in the opening-side setting mode when powered on for the first time. The control module 43 may be programmed according to the left-open setting, so as to electrically control the electronic driving module 31 to drive the turning-piece module 32 to rotate only between the first position and the second position when activating the left-open setting. On the other hand, the control module 43 may be programmed according to the right-open setting, so as to electrically control the electronic driving module 31 to drive the turning-piece module 32 to rotate only between the first position and the third position when activating the right-open setting.
The control module 43 is further configured, upon activating the left-open setting, to automatically control the electronic driving module 31 to drive the turning-piece module 32 to switch between the first position and the second position once, while upon activating the right-open setting, to automatically control the electronic driving module 31 to drive the turning-piece 32 to switch between the first position and the third position once.
To install the electronic lock 100 on the door 800, the deadbolt 33 is set to be in the projection position, and the turning-piece module 32 is set to be in the first position. Subsequently, the deadbolt 33 is connected to the turning-piece module 32.
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In step 901, the control module 43 operates in the opening-side setting mode to wait for the sensing signals from the Hall sensors 41 when powered on for the first time. In step 901, the control module 43 is operating without controlling the electronic driving module 31 to drive the turning-piece module 32 to rotate.
At this stage, a user may manually turn the turning piece 321 to make the turning-piece module 32 rotate between the first position and the second position for the left-hand door, or rotate between the first position and the third position for the right-hand door. The magnetic component 42, which co-rotates with the turning-piece module 32, is also moved to be aligned with two of the Hall sensors 41 in sequence. When the two of the Hall sensors 41 detect the presence of the magnetic component 42, the two of the Hall sensors 41 generate the sensing signals in sequence and transmit the sensing signals to the control module 43, and the control module 43 receives the sensing signals.
In step 902, the control module 43 analyzes two of the sensing signals that are first received respectively from two of the Hall sensors 41 (hereinafter referred to as “first-received signals”) in the opening-side setting mode. based on the first-received signals (i.e., signal A and signal B, or signal C and signal B), the control module 43 may determine which two of the Hall sensors 41 sent the first-received signals.
In step 903, the control module 43 activates one of the left-open setting and the right-open setting according to the first-received signals. When the control module 43 determines that the first-received signals are signal C and signal B, the control module 43 activates the left-open setting. On the other hand, when the control module 43 determines that the first-received signals are signal A and signal B, the control module 43 activates the right-open setting.
In step 904, upon activating said one of the left-open setting and the right-open setting, the control module 43 automatically controls the electronic driving module 31 to drive the turning-piece module 32 to switch between the first position and a corresponding one of the second position and the third position once. Specifically, upon activating the left-open setting, the control module 43 automatically controls the electronic driving module 31 to drive the turning-piece module 32 to switch between the first position and the second position once, whereby the deadbolt 33 is driven by the turning-piece module 32 to switch between the projection position and the retraction position once; and upon activating the right-open setting, the control module 43 automatically controls the electronic driving module 31 to drive the turning-piece module 32 to switch between the first position and the third position once, whereby the deadbolt 33 is driven by the turning-piece module 32 to switch between the projection position and the retraction position once. By completing the foregoing operation of step 904, the user may be aware that the electronic lock 100 has been set.
In some embodiments of this disclosure, the control module 43 is configured to operate in the opening-side setting mode when being powered on for the first time. However, it should be understood that in other embodiments, the control device 4 may further include a switch that is operable by a user to activate the control module 43 to operate in the opening-side setting mode. As various ways may be employed to activate the control module 43 to operate in the opening-side setting mode, this disclosure is not limited to the above.
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In this embodiment, to install the electronic lock 100 on the door 800, the deadbolt 33 is set to be in the retraction position, and the turning-piece module 32 is set to be in the first position. Subsequently, the deadbolt 33 is connected to the turning-piece module 32.
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In the description above, for the purposes of explanation, numerous specific details have been set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiment(s). It will be apparent, however, to one skilled in the art, that one or more other embodiments may be practiced without some of these specific details. It should also be appreciated that reference throughout this specification to “one embodiment,” “an embodiment,” an embodiment with an indication of an ordinal number and so forth means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic may be included in the practice of the disclosure. It should be further appreciated that in the description, various features are sometimes grouped together in a single embodiment, figure, or description thereof for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure and aiding in the understanding of various inventive aspects; such does not mean that every one of these features needs to be practiced with the presence of all the other features. In other words, in any described embodiment, when implementation of one or more features or specific details does not affect implementation of another one or more features or specific details, said one or more features may be singled out and practiced alone without said another one or more features or specific details. It should be further noted that one or more features or specific details from one embodiment may be practiced together with one or more features or specific details from another embodiment, where appropriate, in the practice of the disclosure.
While the disclosure has been described in connection with what is(are) considered the exemplary embodiment(s), it is understood that this disclosure is not limited to the disclosed embodiment(s) but is intended to cover various arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and equivalent arrangements.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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112101589 | Jan 2023 | TW | national |