Patent Application
20060220052
This application is based on Japanese Patent Application No. 2005-100973, which is incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an LED lamp apparatus and the manufacturing method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
An example of the LED lamp apparatus is shown in JP-A-2003-258314.
As shown in
According to the LED lamp apparatus 101 configured in this manner, since the metal plate is used instead of an expensive circuit board, the entire cost of the apparatus is cheap.
Another related technology relating to the invention is disclosed in JP-UM-A-5-62059.
The inventors of the invention have made further structural improvement as to the LED lamp apparatus configured in the aforesaid manner thereby to investigate the reduction of the manufacturing cost thereof.
That is, an object of the invention is to provide an LED lamp apparatus with a new configuration.
Another object of the invention is to provide an LED lamp apparatus which can reduce the manufacturing cost thereof to a large extent.
The invention has been made in order to attain the aforesaid object. That is, an LED comprises a sealing member and a plurality of leads, the sealing member surrounding at least a part of the plurality of leads, a circuit portion comprising the plurality of leads being extended from the LED, at least one lead having a gap, and an element being attached to the at least one lead so as to bridge the gap, and a case portion.
According to the LED lamp apparatus configured in this manner, since the leads of the LED are extended to comprise the circuit portion, it is not necessary to provide a board nor a metal plate for configuring the circuit portion. That is, the number of the parts can be reduced and the manufacturing cost of the LED lamp apparatus can also be reduced.
Further, since it becomes possible to lay an arbitrary element over the gap by providing the gap at the lead, the degree of freedom for designing the circuit portion can be secured. Thus, the LED lamp apparatus suitable for the practical use can be obtained.
Such the circuit portion is preferably formed within the case portion. Since the circuit portion is protected by the case portion, the circuit portion is excellent in the durability.
A resistor can be raised as an example of the element laid over the gap. When the light emitting efficiency varies among the light emitting elements, the light emission amount of the light emitting element can be adjusted by adjusting a resistance value of the resistor connected in series with the light emitting element.
The LED lamp apparatus can be manufactured in the following manner.
That is, a method of manufacturing an LED lamp comprises preparing an LED comprising a sealing member and a plurality of leads, at least a part of the plurality of leads being surrounded by the sealing member, at least one lead having a gap and a detour portion which detours the gap, setting the plurality of leads to a case portion, attaching an element to the at least one lead so as to bridge the gap thereby forming a circuit portion, and removing the detour portion.
According to the manufacturing method, even if the lead has the gap, since the lead is provided with the detour portion, the lead has the unit or integral configuration. Thus, the lead can be treated easily and also set easily to the case portion.
In the aforesaid configuration, the detour portion serves to connect the lead portions (the lead portion on the light emitting element side and the lead portion on the free end side) divided via the gap, and so the detour portion may be formed integrally with the lead or formed separately from the lead. When the detour portion is configured so as to be formed integrally with the lead and developed on the same plane as the lead, the lead including such the detour portion can be formed by the single stamping operation.
Preferably, such the detour portion is developed on the same plane as the lead and has a U-shape. Since the detour portion is formed in the U-shape, the element can be laid over the detour portion in a manner that the terminals of the element are respectively joined at the corresponding portions of the opposed parallel transversal sides of the U-shaped configuration. Further, since the remaining longitudinal side of the U-shaped configuration is formed in a linear shape, the detour portion can be formed easily by stamping a metal plate.
Further, preferably, the element is laid on the lead after setting the leads having such the detour portion to the case portion. Thus is because, since the leads are supported by the case portion, the fixing operation of the element to the lead can be performed stably and so the yield can be improved.
Further, preferably, the detour portion is removed after laying the element on the lead. This is because when the detour portion is removed before fixing the element to the lead, the number of parts increases and so the procedure for positioning the parts increases.
In the aforesaid configuration, the type of the LED is not limited to a particular one. That is, in place of the round type exemplarily shown in the embodiments, a chip type may be used.
The light emission color of the LED can be selected arbitrarily. That is, in place of the blue used in the embodiments, an LED having the light emission wavelength of a visible region such as white, red, orange, green may be employed. Further, an LED having the light emission wavelength of an ultraviolet region may be employed. In this case, fluorescent material which fluoresces in response to the light of the ultraviolet region may be used together with the LED, and the fluorescent light can be used as an illumination light. The fluorescent material may be included in the sealing member (a round type portion) disposed on the light emission side of the LED, for example. A layer including the fluorescent material may be provided on the surface of the sealing member.
The combination of different kinds of LEDs and/or the combination of LEDs of different light emission colors may be used.
The sealing member mainly serves to cover the light emitting element and is formed by translucent material which is selected arbitrarily in accordance with a use and a purpose of the sealing member. The sealing member is preferably configured to have a portion of a lens shape in view of converging the light from the light emitting element.
A pair of the leads are provided so as to extend from the LED. One of the leads is coupled to a p-type electrode of the element within the LED and the other of the leads is coupled to an n-type electrode of the element.
The leads are surrounded by the sealing member at a base end side (a light emitting element side) thereof. The portions of the leads protruded from the sealing member are extended than those of the related leads thereby to comprise the circuit portion. The most required element as the element constituting the circuit portion of the LED is the resistor element. The resistor element is disposed in series with the light emitting element of the LED. In order to serially dispose the resistor, the lead is provided with the gap and the resistor element is laid over the gap in a manner that the both ends of the resistor element are joined to the lead portions at the opposite both ends of the gap. A diode may be laid over the gap in place of the resistor element or together with the resistor element.
A plurality of the gaps can be provided at the lead. In this case, the detour portion is provided at each of the gaps. One or at least two gaps and one or at least two detour portions thereof can be provided at each of the pair of leads.
The shape and the material of the leads can be arbitrarily selected so long as the leads have electrical conductivity. The lead is preferably formed by a metal thin plate in view of the mass-productivity and the manufacturing cost.
The circuit portion can be designed arbitrarily in accordance with a use and a purpose of the LED lamp apparatus.
The free end side of each of the leads comprises a terminal. The terminal can be designed arbitrarily in accordance with the specification of a partner-side connector.
Further, the shape and the material of the case portion can be arbitrarily selected in accordance with a use and a purpose of the LED lamp apparatus. The case portion is preferably a die formed product of composite resin in view of the mass-productivity, the light-weight properties and the manufacturing cost, etc.
Embodiments of the invention will be explained hereinafter.
An LED 1 according to the embodiment is shown in
The LED 1 includes a light emitting element 3, a sealing member 5, a lead 11 and a lead 21. As the light emitting element 3, a blue light emitting diode formed by group III nitride compound semiconductor is employed. The sealing member 5 is formed by transparent epoxy resin and die formed in a round type shape.
The lead 11 has a reflection dish 12 and the light emitting element 3 is mounted on the reflection dish 12 via a board 13. A Zener diode is disposed on the board 15 so as to be in parallel to the light emitting element 3 and in a reverse manner with respect to its forward voltage direction.
The lead 11 is provided with a gap 15 on the way thereof and further provided with a U-shaped detour portion 16 which extends around this portion. An element is laid between the opposed sides 17, 18 of the detour portion 16. A reference numeral 19 denotes a terminal.
In this embodiment, although the lead 21 is not provided with a gap nor a detour portion, it is possible to provide the gap and the detour portion at this lead. A reference numeral 29 in the figure denotes a terminal. According to this embodiment, terminals 19 and 29 comprise a terminal which is connected to a not-shown partner-side connector. A reference numeral 26 in the figure denotes a pedestal used for positioning.
In the lead 11, a base end side portion 14 continuing to the reflection dish 12 is formed to have a thin width like the related LED. Similarly, the base end side portion 24 of the lead 21 is formed to have a thin width like the related LED. Each of such the base end side portions 14, 24 has the same structure as the related lead.
In this embodiment, a thin metal plate is provided so as to extend from each of the base end side portions 14, 24 to comprise a circuit portion 30.
Each of the leads 11 and 21 is formed by stamping a thin metal plate.
The base end side portion of each of the leads 11 and 21 is surrounded by the sealing member 5.
The light emitting element 3 is mounted on the reflection dish 12 of the lead 11 and a bonding wire W is provided so as to extend from the light emitting element 3 to the lead 21. These component elements are set within a round type cavity as inserts and material of the sealing member 5 is injected into the cavity thereby to form the LED 1 shown in
The LEDs 1 each formed in this manner as shown in
The LED 1 thus cut is set on the lower case 51 of a case portion as shown in
On the other hand, a resistor element 63, which both ends are respectively fixed to paper tapes 61, 61, is cut out as shown in
Thereafter, as shown in
An assembly of the LED1, the lower case 51 and the resistor element 63 obtained in this manner is inserted into an outer case 55, whereby the LED lamp apparatus according to the embodiment can be obtained.
In this embodiment, the light emitting element is mounted on the lead side having the gap. Alternatively, as shown in
Similarly, the lead 11 may be provided with a notch (cut) 80 as shown by a dotted line in
The invention is not limited to the aforesaid mode and embodiment of the invention. The invention contains various modifications which can be easily thought of for those skilled in the art within a range not departing from the scope of the invention.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| P2005-100973 | Mar 2005 | JP | national |
