Claims
- 1. A light-emitting alarm board comprising a board, and
- a plurality of thin-film EL elements adapted to emit light of different colors according to voltages applied thereon, said EL elements being stacked on said board and one on top of another in the direction of light emission therefrom, each of said EL elements being provided with an electrode terminal such that one or more of said EL elements can be selectably caused to emit light of one of said different colors or an intermediate color of said different colors, said alarm board thereby serving as display lamps for indicating the condition of operation of a system being monitored.
- 2. The light-emitting alarm board of claim 1 wherein each of said thin-film EL elements comprises a light-emitting layer and insulating layers sandwiching said light-emitting layer.
- 3. The light-emitting alarm board of claim 1 wherein said plurality of thin-film EL elements are mutually separated by a transparent conductive layer serving as an electrode.
- 4. The light-emitting alarm board of claim 1 wherein each of said thin-film EL elements serves to display a pattern in a selected color.
- 5. The light-emitting alarm board of claim 1 comprising two thin-film EL elements.
- 6. The light-emitting alarm board of claim 5 wherein said different colors are red and green, said light-emitting alarm board being adapted to selectably emit light of red, green, yellowish orange, yellow and yellowish green.
Priority Claims (1)
| Number |
Date |
Country |
Kind |
| 62-23968 |
Feb 1987 |
JPX |
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BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This is a continuation of application Ser. No. 149,637 filed Jan. 28, 1988, now abandoned.
This invention relates to a color light-emitting alarm board which uses multicolor thin-film electroluminescence (EL) elements as display lamps.
Conventionally, light-emitting diodes and pilot lamps have been used as display lamps for alarm boards, control boards and measurement instruments. These lamps are conventionally so operated that green or blue light will be emitted when the apparatus being monitored is switched off or being operated normally and red light will be emitted when the apparatus is switched on or is operating abnormally. In certain applications, yellow lamps are also utilized. Since each display lamp of a conventional type can emit light of only one color, as many lamps are required as the number of different colors in which displays are desired. In the case of a measurement instrument with many switches or a control board for displaying many modes of operation, the total number of required display lamps may become unreasonably large and the user may find it difficult to readily understand the display indicating the detailed condition of the operation.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a light-emitting alarm board with a simplified system of display lamps.
The above and other objects of the present invention are achieved by providing measurement instruments, control boards and the like which use multicolor thin-film EL elements as their display lamps.
US Referenced Citations (6)
Continuations (1)
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Number |
Date |
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| Parent |
149637 |
Jan 1988 |
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Patent Grant
4908603
