Patent Application
20240288154
This application claims the benefit of Korean Patent Application No. 10-2023-0026915, filed on Feb. 28, 2023, and Korean Patent Application No. 10-2024-0006257, filed on Jan. 15, 2024.
The following description relates to a light-emitting diode (LED) connector module for electrically connecting an LED module of a refrigerator and the like to a mainboard and the like, and an electronic device having the LED module.
A refrigerator is typically equipped with a lighting device that illuminates the interior of the refrigerator when the door of the refrigerator is opened. For example, the lighting device is a light-emitting diode (LED) module, and voltage is applied to the LED module by a door switch that operates based on the opening and closing of the door of the refrigerator. The door switch and the LED module are connected to a mainboard inside the inner case of the refrigerator using a wire-to-wire connector. However, when the door switch and the LED module are connected to the mainboard using the wire-to-wire connector, the complexity of a wiring harness increases and the manufacturing process is extended due to an increase in the number of unnecessary wire-to-wire connectors, resulting in a rise in overall costs.
A light-emitting diode (LED) connector module includes a header housing and a plug housing removably attached to the header housing. The header housing is installed on an LED module. The header housing has a tab terminal protruding from a coupling surface. The plug housing has a receptacle terminal and a tab terminal coupling portion. The tab terminal is inserted in the tab terminal coupling portion in contact with the receptacle terminal.
Features of the invention will become apparent and more readily appreciated from the following description of example embodiments, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings of which:
Hereinafter, embodiments will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. However, various alterations and modifications may be made to the embodiments. The embodiments are not meant to be limited by the descriptions of the present disclosure. The embodiments should be understood to include all changes, equivalents, and replacements within the idea and the technical scope of the disclosure.
The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not to be limiting of the embodiments. The singular forms “a”, “an”, and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises/comprising” and/or “includes/including” when used herein, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, or groups thereof, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, or groups thereof.
Unless otherwise defined, all terms used herein including technical or scientific terms have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this disclosure pertains. Terms defined in dictionaries generally used should be construed as having meanings matching contextual meanings in the related art and are not to be construed as having an ideal or excessively formal meaning unless otherwise defined herein.
When describing the embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawings, like reference numerals refer to like components and a repeated description related thereto will be omitted. In the description of embodiments, detailed description of well-known related structures or functions will be omitted when it is deemed that such description will cause ambiguous interpretation of the present disclosure.
Also, in the description of the components, terms such as first, second, A, B, (a), (b) or the like may be used herein when describing components of the present disclosure. These terms are used only for the purpose of discriminating one component from another component, and the nature, the sequences, or the orders of the components are not limited by the terms. When one component is described as being “connected”, “coupled”, or “attached” to another component, it should be understood that one component may be connected or attached directly to another component, and an intervening component may also be “connected”, “coupled”, or “attached” to the components.
A component, which has the same common function as a component included in any one embodiment, will be described by using the same name in other embodiments. Unless disclosed to the contrary, the configuration disclosed in any one embodiment may be applied to other embodiments, and the specific description of the repeated configuration will be omitted.
Hereinafter, a light-emitting diode (LED) connector module 10 according to an embodiment is described with reference to
The LED connector module 10 may be installed on an LED module 1 including a plurality of LEDs illuminating the interior of a refrigerator, as shown in
The header housing 13 may be included in the LED module 1 and may include the tab terminal 14 protruding upward from a coupling surface 131 in which the header housing 13 is coupled to the plug housing 11. For example, as illustrated in
Referring to
The header housing 13 may include a guide flange 132 that guides the coupling of the header housing 13 to the plug housing 11. The guide flange 132 may be provided on the outer side of the tab terminal 14 on the coupling surface 131 and may protrude in an upward direction, which is the direction in which the header housing 13 is coupled to the plug housing 11. For example, the guide flange 132 may be formed as a partition wall along the edge of the coupling surface 131 of the header housing 13. The guide flange 132 may extend in an upward direction on the same plane as a side surface of the header housing 13. The guide flange 132 may be formed along three edges and not a portion corresponding to a first side surface 111 in which the receptacle terminal 12 is coupled to the plug housing 11, as shown in
The receptacle terminal 12 may be included in the plug housing 11 that may be removably attached to the header housing 13. In addition, the plug housing 11 may be simply attached to or detached from the header housing 13 in a plug-in manner.
As shown in
In addition, a guide groove 113b may be formed in the bottom surface 113 of the plug housing 11, as shown in
A locking portion 112a may be formed on a second side surface 112 of the outer side surfaces of the plug housing 11, as shown in
A stopper 112b may be formed on an outer side surface of the plug housing 11, as shown in
A wire W, shown in
The contact slot 123 may be formed to be penetrated by the tab terminal 14, and the contact portion 122 may be formed to be in contact with the tab terminal 14 that passes through the contact slot 123. The receptacle terminal 12 may be attached to the plug housing 11 such that the contact slot 123 corresponds to the tab terminal coupling portion 113a. Accordingly, when the plug housing 11 is coupled to the header housing 13, the tab terminal 14 may pass through the tab terminal coupling portion 113a and the contact slot 123 simultaneously and may be in electrical contact with the contact portion 122 of the receptacle terminal 12.
In addition, a coupling guide 124 that guides insertion may be formed at a leading end of the receptacle terminal 12 in the direction in which the receptacle terminal 12 is inserted into the plug housing 11. Referring to
According to an embodiment, because the wire W, coupled to the receptacle terminal 12, is included in the plug housing 11 and the coupling of the plug housing 11 to the header housing 13 leads to the electrical connection between the receptacle terminal 12 and the tab terminal 14, there may be no need to directly connect the wire W to the LED module 1, simplifying the structure of a wiring harness, facilitating assembly, and reducing cost. In addition, both the plug housing 11 and the header housing 13 have a sealed structure, preventing a foaming member from entering the interior of the LED connector module 10. The effects of the LED connector module 10 and an electronic device having the same according to an embodiment are not limited to the above-mentioned effects, and other unmentioned effects may be clearly understood from the description by one of ordinary skill in the art.
As described above, although the embodiments have been described with reference to the limited drawings, a person skilled in the art may apply various technical modifications and variations based thereon. For example, suitable results may be achieved if the described techniques are performed in a different order, and/or if components in a described system, architecture, device, or circuit are combined in a different manner, and/or replaced or supplemented by other components or their equivalents.
Therefore, other implementations, other embodiments, and equivalents to the claims are also within the scope of the following claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10-2023-0026915 | Feb 2023 | KR | national |
| 10-2024-0006257 | Jan 2024 | KR | national |
