Patent Application
20140151210
The present invention relates to an illuminated keyboard equipped with light emitting keycaps and particularly to an illuminated keyboard containing a light mask plate overlapped over a holding surface of a press member to mask light projecting to the holding surface and confine the light to project merely to a press surface and a coupling surface.
In a computer system, whether a desktop computer or notebook computer, keyboard is the main command input equipment. Design of the keyboard mainly focuses on making users to enter input commands comfortably and accurately. In a dim environment for users who are not familiar with notations or characters on the keycaps accurate entering of the input commands is difficult. In order to enable the users to clearly distinguish the notations or characters on the keycaps in the dim environment illuminated keyboards have been developed and introduced, such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,284,988, 6,322,229, 6,199,996, 6,554,442 and 6,179,432, and Taiwan patent Nos. 509955, 465777, 535385, 438035, 570235, 468833 and 516671. They all provide an illuminated keyboard with an embedded light emitting sheet to project light to allow users to accurately judge keyboard characters in a dim environment.
The aforesaid prior techniques mostly have the keycaps, elastic elements and driven mechanisms made from transparent material, or the keycap made in opaque with the transparent character notation on the keycap. Light emitting element generates light projection on an entire sheet to project the light evenly to the keyboard. Such a lighting approach creates problems for users in use, as uniform light emission of the keyboard creates too strong of total luminosity that upsets users' vision in a dim environment, and makes distinguishing of character notation on each keycap difficult. Even if light is projected through merely the character notation or masked, light emitted from neighboring keycaps could still create visual interference and make distinguishing difficult. To users who are not familiar with the character notation layout of the keyboard, the aforesaid problem remains an issue to be overcome.
In view of the aforesaid problem, the Applicant proposed a non-uniform light projection illuminated keyboard in R.O.C. patent I230957. It has a mask element located between a keycap and a lighting element. The mask element has a transparent zone corresponding to an individual keycap and an opaque zone below neighboring keycaps but outside the individual keycap, thereby forms non-uniform light projection to overcome the problem of viewing difficulty caused by too strong of luminosity of the total keyboard. However, in addition to the aforesaid concern, nowadays thin and lightweight has become the prevailing trend of the keyboard structure. Aside from reducing the thickness of the keyboard, thinner keyboards without the driven mechanism or elastic element also have been developed.
The primary object of the present invention is to provide a non-uniform lighting illuminated keyboard that also is thinner and lighter in weight.
To achieve the foregoing object the present invention provides an illuminated board equipped with light emitting keycaps. The illuminated keyboard includes a keyboard portion and a light emitting portion. The keyboard portion includes at least one circuit board contained a plurality of keyboard command portions and a plurality of press members located on the circuit board corresponding to the keyboard command portions that are depressible by users to trigger the keyboard command portions. Each press member has a press surface, a holding surface and a coupling surface interposed between the press surface and holding surface. The press surface and circuit board form a light projection zone between them. The light emitting portion includes a lighting unit to provide light to the light projection zone and a light mask plate. The light mask plate has an aperture to expose the press surface and a light mask portion overlapped over the holding surface. The light mask portion masks light projected from the light projection zone to the holding surface to confine light projection merely to the press surface and coupling surface.
In one embodiment the coupling surface is an inclined surface or vertical surface.
In another embodiment the keyboard portion has a connection arm connecting to bottom edges of the coupling surfaces of abutting press members and forming the holding surface.
In yet another embodiment the coupling surface of the press member has a bottom edge horizontally extending toward the abutting press member of the press surface to form the holding surface.
In yet another embodiment the press surface further includes a transparent zone and an opaque zone; more specifically, the transparent zone is a character notation.
In yet another embodiment the coupling surface can be a transparent surface or an opaque surface.
In yet another embodiment the keyboard portion includes an elastic support member to aid the press member to move against the circuit board.
In yet another embodiment the circuit board includes an opaque layer corresponding to the press member and light mask plate; more specifically, the opaque layer is a reflective layer.
Through the aforesaid structure, compared with the conventional illuminated keyboards, the invention can provide advantages of non-uniform illumination and thinner and lighter in weight. The invention, with the light mask plate located above the holding surface, and the light mask portion masked the light projecting to the holding surface, can confine the light to project merely to the press surface and coupling surface to form non-uniform illumination. Moreover, the illuminated keyboard of the invention does not have a driven mechanism, hence the keyboard can be made thinner.
The foregoing, as well as additional objects, features and advantages of the invention will be more readily apparent from the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.
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As a conclusion, the illuminated keyboard equipped with light emitting keycaps of the invention has the light mask plate above the holding surface of the press member, and a light mask portion overlapped over the holding surface to mask the light from projecting to the holding surface, thereby confines light projection merely to the press surface and coupling surface to form non-uniform illumination. The illuminated keyboard thus formed does not have driven mechanisms used in the conventional keyboards, hence can be made thinner.
While the preferred embodiments of the invention have been set forth for the purpose of disclosure, they are not the limitations of the invention, modifications of the disclosed embodiments of the invention as well as other embodiments thereof may occur to those skilled in the art. Accordingly, the appended claims are intended to cover all embodiments which do not depart from the spirit and scope of the invention.
