This disclosure relates generally to sun visors for motor vehicles. More particularly, the disclosure relates to an improved extendable sun visor blade including a telescoping extension mechanism and a convenient release mechanism.
It is known to provide extendable sun visors for vehicles, with the intended purpose of allowing greater flexibility for the user in positioning the sun visor to prevent or reduce glare. Prior art designs often are simply a visor panel or blade which the user can manually slide along a support arm, or from within a main visor body panel, to translate the panel from a first position to a second position.
With reference to
A translating mechanism 22 may be provided including a channel or track defined within the visor panel 12 and further including a compression spring 24 for biasing the panel 12 from a stowed configuration to a deployed configuration. In turn, a carrier 26 may be included, slidably received within the channel or track and within which arm 14 is slidably received, for translating the visor panel 12 between the stowed configuration and the deployed configuration. A catch 28 may be provided to retain the visor panel 12 in one or both of the stowed configuration and the open configuration.
While effective for their intended purposes, the above-described prior art extendable sun visors suffer from various deficiencies. Specifically, manually extendable sun visor designs may not be apparent to the user, i.e. the vehicle owner may not be aware that the sun visor is extendable, and there is nothing on the sun visor that indicates such extendibility. Moreover, conventional extendable sun visor designs can require significant effort to operate, and may not extend sufficiently far out to block sun glare for all users. Thus, a need is identified in the art for improvements to extendable sun visor designs.
In accordance with the purposes and benefits described herein and to solve the above-summarized and other problems, in one aspect a carrier assembly for a vehicle extendable sun visor is provided including a track element defining a channel, a compression spring disposed within the channel, and a carrier slidably received within the channel. The carrier includes a spring plate detent for retaining the extendable sun visor in a stowed configuration, and for releasing the extendable sun visor to a deployed configuration. The track element includes a detent aperture for engaging the spring plate detent. In embodiments, the spring plate detent includes a pin for engaging the detent aperture. A supporting arm is slidably received within the carrier and the track element. A first compression spring end contacts a first track element end and a second, opposed compression spring end contacts the carrier.
In other aspects of the disclosure, extendable sun visor extension assemblies and extendable sun visor assemblies are provided including the carrier assembly described above.
In the following description, there are shown and described embodiments of the disclosed extendable sun visor assembly. As it should be realized, the assembly is capable of other, different embodiments and its several details are capable of modification in various, obvious aspects all without departing from the devices and methods as set forth and described in the following claims. Accordingly, the drawings and descriptions should be regarded as illustrative in nature and not as restrictive.
The accompanying drawing figures incorporated herein and forming a part of the specification, illustrate several aspects of the disclosed extendable sun visor assembly, and together with the description serve to explain certain principles thereof. In the drawing:
Reference will now be made in detail to embodiments of the disclosed extendable sun visor assembly, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawing figures wherein like reference numerals indicate like features.
With reference to
Turning now to
Track element 34 further includes a detent aperture 54 (best seen in
In use, referring back to
To deploy the sun visor assembly 30, a user rotates the sun visor panel 12 downwardly, away from the passenger compartment roof. As will be appreciated, in this orientation the spring plate detent 40 is now clearly visible to the user from her position in the vehicle seat. The user now need only press on spring plate detent 40 to disengage detent pin 42 from detent aperture 54. When detent pin 42 fully disengages from detent aperture 54, the energy stored by compression spring 24 is released, and compression spring 24 automatically biases carrier assembly 32 and sun visor panel 12 attached thereto in a second, opposed direction (see arrow B), telescoping outwardly over arm 14 to the deployed configuration shown in
As will be appreciated, by the foregoing described features a simple, robust, and easy-to-operate extendable sun visor assembly 30 is provided. The release mechanism (spring plate detent 40) is easy to locate and operate, further contributing to the convenience of the device. In turn, translation of the extendable sun visor assembly 30 from the stowed configuration to the deployed configuration is substantially automatic, requiring limited attention from a vehicle driver or passenger.
The foregoing has been presented for purposes of illustration and description. It is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the embodiments to the precise form disclosed. Obvious modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings. All such modifications and variations are within the scope of the appended claims when interpreted in accordance with the breadth to which they are fairly, legally and equitably entitled.
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Entry |
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English machine translation of KR20140055904. |
English machine translation of DE3842705. |
English machine translation of DE2007016327. |
English machine translation of CN102002918. |
Number | Date | Country | |
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20160318378 A1 | Nov 2016 | US |