1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an outdoor illuminating apparatus, and more particularly, relates to an outdoor illuminating apparatus with a light-emitting chip.
2. Description of the Prior Art
With the development of semi-conductor light emitting devices, a light-emitting diode (LED) which has several advantages, such as power save, seismic resistance, quick reaction, and so on, becomes a new light source. Therefore, LEDs are widely used as indicator lights on electronic devices, and the use of LEDs as light source of illumination products become a trend. In order to raise illumination, high-power LEDs are used as light source in the illumination products; however, these products have problems about heat dissipation.
So far, heat-dissipating modules of illumination products which contact with the LEDs are always exposed in order to dissipate heat efficiently, and the wires of the LEDs are also exposed thereby. Although there are no problems to use this kind of illumination products indoors, there might be some problems generated outdoors. For instance, the exposed wire is possible to short-circuit because of rain. Besides, if there is a casing covering the whole illuminator for preventing rain from affecting the wires, the heat-dissipating efficiency lowers thereby.
Therefore, it is necessary to provide an outdoor illuminating apparatus that can prevent rain from damaging the circuit and still has desired heat-dissipating efficiency for solving the above mentioned problems.
Accordingly, a scope of the present invention is to provide an outdoor illuminating apparatus with a light-emitting chip, which is waterproof and has desired heat-dissipating efficiency.
The outdoor illuminating apparatus of the invention includes a housing, a heat-conducting device, and a light-emitting device. The housing includes a space. The heat-conducting device disposed in the space and includes a flat portion and a touching portion which touches the housing. The light-emitting device includes a substrate, a mount, and at least one light-emitting chip. The substrate includes a first sunken portion and a second sunken portion communicating with the first sunken portion. The mount touches the flat portion and is joined to the second sunken portion. Moreover, the at least one light-emitting chip is disposed on the mount. An adaptor is engaged to the housing and includes a passage. Therein light emitted by the at least one light-emitting chip passes through out of the housing. When the heat-conducting device includes a heat pipe, the touching portion could be at the heat pipe and the flat portion could be at an end of the heat pipe. The heat generated in operation by the light-emitting device is transferred to the housing through the light-conducting device and then dissipated from the housing. Because the heat could be dissipated from the housing to contact the air outside and the heat dissipation area of the housing is increasable, the outdoor illuminating apparatus of the invention can solve the problem of poor heat-dissipating efficiency due to a heat-dissipating module disposed inside the external housing.
There are several fins formed on the housing of the outdoor illuminating apparatus for raising the heat-dissipating efficiency. Further, the fins are disposed opposite to the touching portion of the heat-conducting device. In other words, the surface of the housing that the touching portion touches is opposite to the surface of the housing where the fins are formed for dissipating heat rapidly. Additionally, in order to adding the contact area between the touching portion of the heat-conducting device and the housing, there could be a sunken portion formed on the housing and the touching portion is disposed on the sunken portion. It could be additional to use a press plate to press the heat-conducting device so that the touching portion is forced to touch the housing. For example, if the heat-conducting device includes a heat pipe where the touching portion is, then the sunken portion is a fillister. The press plate could be pressed by the heat pipe directly so that the touching portion can contact the fillister tightly to increase the heat-conducting efficiency between the heat pipe and the housing.
The housing of the outdoor illuminating apparatus includes a tubular body, a first cover, and a second cover. The tubular body includes a first end and a second end. The first cover is engaged to the first end and the second cover is engaged to the second end for forming the space. Further, the first cover could be engaged to the tubular body by a seal ring. Additionally, there could be a fillister formed on the first cover or the tubular body and the seal ring is disposed in the fillister. By doing so, the seal ring can be used for sealing only, unnecessary to bear the structural force of the first cover or the tubular body. With the fillister, service life of the seal ring is extended and the stability of engagement between the first cover and the tubular body is rising. Similarly, the second cover is also engaged to the tubular body by a seal ring and thereby the space is sealed substantially for preventing rain or water vapor from affecting the electronic devices inside the housing (i.e. the space).
Moreover, the first cover could include a flat plate where a hole is formed. The adaptor is engaged to the flat plate through the hole. The adaptor could include a cylinder which is tightly fitted with the hole. An outer thread is formed on the cylinder and the cylinder is directly screwed into the hole like a self-tapping screw. Or there is an inner thread formed on the hole, and then the cylinder could be screwed into the hole easily due to the matching of the threads. This kind of design is useful for replacing the adaptor, and more particularly, useful for replacing the adaptor with an attachment lens or changing the diameter of the passage of the adaptor. Additionally, the heat-conducting device includes a supporting portion engaged to the first cover and the substrate of the light-emitting device is mounted on the supporting portion. By doing so, the light emitted by the light-emitting chip could still be transmitted through the adaptor accurately even in a vibration situation.
The outdoor illuminating apparatus of the invention further includes a light-guiding member able to be engaged to the passage and sealed therewith for guiding light emitted by the light-emitting chip. Thereby, the light is guided into the light-guiding member and then transmitted out from the surface of the light-guiding member for spreading. For example, there is a cylindrical light-guiding member and two outdoor illuminating apparatuses of the invention are engaged to the two ends of the light-guiding member respectively. Light emitted by the two outdoor illuminating apparatus could be transmitted uniformly out from the cylindrical surface of the light-guiding member, like a fluorescent lamp. Additionally, the shape of the light-guiding is not limited to a single cylinder and it could be other geometric figures.
The outdoor illuminating apparatus further includes a circuit module disposed in the space and electrically connected to the light-emitting device. A slide could be formed on the inner wall of the housing of the outdoor illuminating apparatus and a side of a circuit board of the circuit module is disposed on the slide. The design of the slide is conducive to the replacement of the circuit module. The outdoor illuminating apparatus of the invention further includes a partition plate disposed in the space to separate the space into a first sub-space and a second sub-space, therein the heat-conducting device is disposed in the first sub-space, and the circuit board is disposed in the second sub-space. By doing so, the influence of heat generated in operation by the light-emitting device being transferred from the first sub-space to the second sub-space on the operation of the circuit board could be reduced. Additionally, another slide could also on the inner wall of the housing and a side of the partition plate is disposed on the other slide. It is useful for installing the partition plate.
Additionally, the housing includes a waterproof passage and a power cord which could pass through the waterproof passage to electrically power the light-emitting device. Or the housing could include a waterproof connector and an external power supply through the waterproof connector electrically powering the light-emitting device or charging a built-in capacitor inside the outdoor illuminating apparatus for raising mobility of the outdoor illuminating apparatus.
The outdoor illuminating apparatus further includes a mounting bracket, and the housing is slidably disposed on the mounting bracket. Thus the outdoor illuminating apparatus is designed to be separable. The user can fix the mounting bracket anywhere and dispose the housing on it. By doing so, the housing could be separated from the mounting bracket by request and the flexibility of installation of the apparatus is raised. Additionally, the housing and the mounting bracket are engaged to by the method of dovetail join for raising the stability of the engagement. In this case, the engagement by the method of dovetail join means that the mounting bracket and the housing include a dovetail groove and a dovetail slider (or a slider and a groove) respectively and the dovetail slider is slidably disposed in the dovetail groove.
To sum up, the housing of the outdoor illuminating apparatus of the invention is used to dissipate heat and prevent rain from permeating into the apparatus. By the housing, the heat-dissipation efficiency of the outdoor illuminating apparatus of the invention becomes satisfactory and the above-mentioned problem is solved thereby. Further, there is a plurality of fins formed on the housing to enhance heat dissipation and the shapes of the fins are not limited. Additionally, the outdoor illuminating apparatus could be designed to be separable to raise the installation flexibility, and the dovetail join is taken to improve the engagement stability.
The advantage and spirit of the invention may be understood by the following recitations together with the appended drawings.
Please refer to
According to the preferred embodiment, the heat-conducting device 14 mainly consists of a heat pipe including a flat portion 142, a touching portion 144, and a supporting portion 146. The flat portion 142 is at an end of the heat pipe, and the supporting portion 146 is at the side of the end and surrounds the flat portion 142. A fillister 1223 is formed on the inner surface 1224 of the tubular body 122, the touching portion 144 of the heat-conducting device 14 is disposed in the fillister 1226, and a press plate 20 presses the touching portion 144 to be forced to contact the fillister 1226 tightly for rising the heat-conducting efficiency between the touching portion 144 and the tubular body 122. Additionally, the inner surface 1224 is opposite to the external surfaces of the tubular body 122, where the fins 1222 are formed on. Thereby the heat transferred to the fillister 1226 could be rapidly transferred to the fins 1222 for rapidly dissipating.
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Remarkably, the light-emitting device 16 could include a lens for modulating the direction of the propagation of the light emitted by the light-emitting chip 166. The lens is disposed above the sealant 168 or is formed together with the sealant 168. For example, the sealant 168 is formed with the shape of the lens. Therefore only the sealant is marked in figure but in fact we should treat the area as the combination of lens and sealant or single sealant.
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According to the preferred embodiment, two pairs of slides—1228a and 1228b are formed on the inner wall of the tubular body 122 and each pair of the slides (1228a and 1228b) is disposed oppositely. Therefore only one pair of the slides (1228a and 1228b) is illustrated in
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After the light emitted by the light-emitting device 16 is transmitted through the inserting portion 322 into the light-emitting guiding member 32, it is transmitted to the light-emitting portion 324. The performance of the light-emitting portion 324 is similar to a fluorescent lamp. It is remarkable that in this preferred embodiment, the light emitted by the light-emitting device 16 is transmitted from the light-emitting portion 324 of the light-emitting guiding member 32 finally. Therefore a lens (as the lens 156 in
Additionally, there is only one incident for light to enter the light-emitting guiding member 32, and the light-emitting portion 324 is not easy to emit light uniformly. Therefore another inserting portion is formed on the other end of the light-emitting guiding member 32 and the inserting portion is inserted into an adaptor of the other outdoor illuminating apparatus. In other words, the light-emitting portion 324 could emit light more uniformly when the light is incident to both ends of the light-emitting guiding member 32. In practical application, the shape of light-emitting guiding member 32 is not limited to cylinder; it could be different geometric figures or has several ends/inserting portions. The light-emitting guiding member could also be engaged to several outdoor illuminating apparatuses by the different illumination request or the visual request. Additionally, the outer diameter of the inserting portion 322 is different from that of the light-emitting portion 324, as shown in
To sum up, the housing of the outdoor illuminating apparatus of the invention is used to dissipate heat and prevent rain from permeating into the apparatus. With the housing, the heat-dissipating efficiency of the outdoor illuminating apparatus of the invention become satisfactory, and the above-mentioned problem is solved thereby. Furthermore, there is a plurality of fins formed on the housing to enhance heat dissipation, and the shapes of the fins are not limited because there is not any casing covering beyond. Additionally, the outdoor illuminating apparatus could be designed to be separable and to be engaged by the method of dovetail join. Therefore the apparatus is easy to install and the stability of engagement rises.
With the example and explanations above, the features and spirits of the invention will be hopefully well described. Those skilled in the art will readily observe that numerous modifications and alterations of the device may be made while retaining the teaching of the invention. Accordingly, the above disclosure should be construed as limited only by the metes and bounds of the appended claims.
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/CN09/00956 | 8/20/2009 | WO | 00 | 11/11/2010 |