Patent Application
20230378779
The embodiments described herein relate to mounting bracket for a charging cable, specifically a self-biasing mounting bracket.
Charging devices often requires a conscious effort and thus the user can find that their device is not charged at inopportune times and must take up space in their minds about remembering to charge their many devices. By integrating charging into a “home base” the charging becomes automatic and thus removes the need to think about charging.
Charging a device with a cable involves fumbling for a cable, which may not be held in a certain place, and then searching for the port and placing it in. It also usually inhibits one handed removal of the device, which is especially important for portable devices.
Wireless charging can address some of these issues but only if it's already built into the product. Wireless charging also has more energy loss than cabled charging and also charges devices at slower rates. Wireless charging can even be impractical for larger current drawing devices, or devices that require high current output while in operation and simultaneous charging.
Devices exist with built in charging into their mechanisms themselves, but a solution is needed to allow devices to be both mechanically connected to a supportive mount while also routing power to the device without additional user interaction, particularly where routing power through the supportive mount connection is impractical
A mounting bracket for quick connect magnetic charging cable. This bracket facilitates the holding and self-positioning of a self-biasing cable (i.e., magnetic cable), such that it can quickly and easily connect the charging port of an electronics device, when the device is placed in proximately to the cable, thus removing the need for the user to insert the charging cable themselves with a separate action. The cable holding mechanism is mounted onto another mount designed to mechanically hold the electronic device in a specific orientation. One single action can be taken by the user (mounting the device) and thus enabling the wired charging.
This disclosure discloses a cable mounting bracket for an electronic device for secure mounting and rapid charging.
Alternate embodiments could have one side of the electrical connection (for example ground) through the mechanical portion of the bracket assembly (speaker mount 104) and a power and/or data connection through the cable. This would allow simplification of the cable to be one conductor. The conductor may be a metallic contact, including one of several widely known spring mounted electrical contacts. The contact mate may include a simple metal pad, or a more complex mechanical design, to maximize the contact area of the connection. The materials used in such spring mounted contacts are typically gold plated to provide resistance to corrosion, but many other metal types may be practical depending on the environment where the system is used.
Magnetically coupled electrical connectors are well known in the industry and are used on such devices as the Apple MacBook® laptops. A further advantage of having providing the cable separable from the mounting bracket is that the cable may be used with other brackets of different mounting design, or can be used with no bracket at all. The magnetic connector can be fashioned with a magnet of opposite polarities facing the mating face, or alternatively a magnet on one or the other of the mating faces, and a ferrous element on the other mating side.
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When the electronic device is used together with the aligning element, the mounting bracket ensures that the charging cable is placed in close enough proximity to the charging port such that charging can commence. This charging port would have a self-finding element, such as a magnet, or funnel guides that helps to guide the charging cable to the port to make the connection.
This alignment element can be a second device or built into the cable mounting bracket. The mounting bracket may have a feature such that it has enough forgiveness such that it can flex or articulate to help the cable find the charging port, thus integrating more forgiveness into the system.
According to embodiments of this disclosure, a mounting bracket for quick connect between an electronic device and a magnetic charging cable is disclosed. The mounting bracket comprises a mount for mounting the bracket to a fixed feature of the environment and a vertical cable mount. The vertical cable mount further comprising a cable channel for a magnetic charging cable to run therethrough and a magnetic or ferrous element configured to provide connecting force to complete and maintain an electrical connection between the device and the cable.
According to the disclosure, the mounting bracket facilitates the mounting of a device and connection of a magnetic wired charging connection in a single action. The mounting bracket is formed from injection molded plastic. The mounting bracket is formed from stamped or cast metal.
According to the disclosure, the mounting bracket of claim 1 wherein the device is a speaker system and the device may be a powered speaker system with a battery.
According to further embodiments of the disclosure, a system of providing a simultaneous mechanical and electrical quick disconnect with an electronic device is disclosed. The system comprises a mechanical quick disconnect system that mechanically couples the device to a bracket, a vertical cable mount fixed to the mechanical bracket. The mechanical bracket further comprises a cable channel to hold a charging cable with a magnetically attractive termination and a means to allow the attractive force of a magnet to complete an electrical connection with at least one conductor.
According to the disclosure, the mounting bracket facilitates the mounting of a device and connection of a magnetic wired charging connection in a single action. According to the disclosure, the device is a speaker system and the mounting bracket is designed to be mounted to at least one of a mounting pole, bicycle frame, handlebars, or a mounting stand.
The functions described herein may be stored as one or more instructions on a processor readable or computer-readable medium. The term “computer-readable medium” refers to any available medium that can be accessed by a computer or processor. By way of example, and not limitation, such a medium may comprise RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory, CD-ROM or other optical disk storage, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium that can be used to store desired program code in the form of instructions or data structures and that can be accessed by a computer. It should be noted that a computer-readable medium may be tangible and non-transitory. As used herein, the term “code” may refer to software, instructions, code or data that is/are executable by a computing device or processor. A “module” can be considered as a processor executing computer-readable code.
The methods disclosed herein comprise one or more steps or actions for achieving the described method. The method steps and/or actions may be interchanged with one another without departing from the scope of the claims. In other words, unless a specific order of steps or actions is required for proper operation of the method that is being described, the order and/or use of specific steps and/or actions may be modified without departing from the scope of the claims.
As used herein, the term “plurality” denotes two or more. For example, a plurality of components indicates two or more components. The term “determining” encompasses a wide variety of actions and, therefore, “determining” can include calculating, computing, processing, deriving, investigating, looking up (e.g., looking up in a table, a database or another data structure), ascertaining and the like. Also, “determining” can include receiving (e.g., receiving information), accessing (e.g., accessing data in a memory) and the like. Also, “determining” can include resolving, selecting, choosing, establishing and the like.
The phrase “based on” does not mean “based only on,” unless expressly specified otherwise. In other words, the phrase “based on” describes both “based only on” and “based at least on.”
While the foregoing written description of the system enables one of ordinary skill to make and use what is considered presently to be the best mode thereof, those of ordinary skill will understand and appreciate the existence of variations, combinations, and equivalents of the specific embodiment, method, and examples herein. The system should therefore not be limited by the above-described embodiment, method, and examples, but by all embodiments and methods within the scope and spirit of the system. Thus, the present disclosure is not intended to be limited to the implementations shown herein but is to be accorded the widest scope consistent with the principles and novel features disclosed herein.
The application claims priority to and the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 63/191,988, entitled “MOUNTING BRACKET FOR QUICK CONNECT MAGNETIC CHARGING CABLE” filed on May 22, 2021, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
