Patent Grant
8965035
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a thin speaker structure, particularly to a speaker body that can improve the rigidity of a membrane and suppress the segmental vibration of the membrane.
2. Description of the Related Art
The traditional moving-coil speaker is mainly rounded. A conventional round speaker 70 as shown in
However, when the consumer electronic products are required to be thin and light, the space provided for the speaker is very limited. Sometimes, the position of the speaker is often set in a corner in order to accommodate the demand for ultra-thin consumer electronic products such as mobile phones, tablet computers or notebook computers (NB) with rectangular appearances. Also, the speaker is required to meet the demand of good sound quality and volume and thus many thin speakers are produced in non-circular shapes, as shown in
In
In order to solve the costs and production process problems of the elliptic speaker 80, a conventional elliptic speaker 90 as shown in
The above structure has advantage of reducing the material costs and production process. Due to the smaller magnetic circuit element 92, there are more sound chamber spaces behind the speaker for increasing resonated spaces and enhancing the bass and volume. However, the round voice coil and the elliptic membrane 91 leads to different forces on the short side and long side of the membrane 91 when the voice coil vibrates; so that the long edges is easy to generate a radial segmental vibration resulting in poor performance in middle level frequency (MLF), and distortion. The MLF is one of the most sensitive areas of sound for humans, so poor MLF performance will affect the evaluation of consumer for speakers. Moreover, this structure usually provides a concave membrane in order to reduce the above MLF problems and reduce the segmental vibration movement of the membrane but this result leads to an overall increase in the thickness of the speaker, not meeting the needs of slim consumer electronic products.
In view of the aforementioned, problems, the inventor of the present invention conducted researches and experiments and developed a thin speaker structure to overcome the problems of the prior art.
It is a first object of the present invention to provide a thin speaker structure to strengthen the rigidity of an elliptic body and reduce the radial segmental vibration of a long side of the membrane, having good sound performances in middle level frequency (MLF).
It is a second object of the present invention to provide a thin speaker structure to increase the space behind the speaker body for increasing the resonance space, improving the sound quality and volume.
It is a third object of the present invention to provide a thin speaker structure to diminish the amount of the magnetic circuit member, reducing the material costs.
It is a last object of the present invention to provide a thin speaker structure to use a circular voice coil, having convenient production process and better production yield and efficiency.
In order to achieve the above objects, a thin speaker structure comprises: a long support frame having a hollow portion in a center thereof and an elliptic step surface formed at a periphery thereof; a magnetic circuit member arranged in the hollow portion; a voice coil installed in the magnetic circuit member; a membrane arranged at an upper edge portion of the voice coil and an external periphery thereof fixed on the elliptic step surface to form a basic speaker structure; wherein the hollow portion, the magnetic circuit member and the voice coil are in circular shapes; and the membrane includes an elliptic surrounding and an elliptic body having a center portion and a peripheral portion; the peripheral portion is fixed to a bottom edge of an inner surface of the surrounding and the center portion corresponding to the peripheral portion defines a rigid strengthened region in a longer elliptic shape; the center portion has a length of a long side longer than a diameter of the voice coil at a predetermined distance;
whereby the elliptic body is combined with the circular voice coil 30 to form a vibrating structure in order to increase the rigidity of the membrane to reduce the radial segmental vibration of a long side of the membrane.
Based on the features disclosed, the peripheral portion at a long side of the elliptic body corresponding to the diameter of the voice coil has an outward flange in a predetermined shape to form a connecting portion for combining with the upper edge portion of the voice coil. In the preferred embodiment, the flange corresponding to the voice coil is set to be in an arc-shape for the connecting portion having the same circular contour with the voice coil.
Further, the center portion of the elliptic body has a flat upper surface or has an upper surface set in a recessed arc-shape or in a convex arc-shape.
Further, the surrounding has long sides in parallel and short sides in symmetrical arc-shapes; the center portion of the elliptic body corresponding to the surrounding is set to be in an elliptic shape.
Referring to
A long support frame 10 has a hollow portion 11 in a center thereof and the support frame 10 has a terminal board 13 at a bottom side thereof. A magnetic circuit member 20 arranged in the hollow portion 11 may include a yoke 21, a magnet 22 and a plate 23 but it is not a limitation. An annular gap 24 between the yoke 21 and the magnet 22 is provided for installing a voice coil 30.
A membrane 40 is arranged at an upper edge portion 31 of the voice coil 30 and an external periphery thereof is fixed on the elliptic step surface 12 to form a basic speaker structure. However, the above features are prior arts and therefore will not be described in details here.
The present invention is characterized in that the membrane 40 includes an elliptic surrounding 41 and an elliptic body 42 having a center portion 421 and a peripheral portion 422; the peripheral portion 422 is fixed to a bottom edge of an inner surface of the surrounding 41 and the center portion 421 corresponding to the peripheral portion 422 defines a rigid strengthened region in a longer elliptic shape; the center portion 421 has a length L of a long side longer than a diameter of the voice coil 30 at a predetermined distance; whereby the elliptic body 42 is combined with the circular voice coil 30 to form a vibrating structure in order to increase the rigidity of the membrane 40 to reduce the radial segmental vibration of a long side of the membrane 40.
To effectively define the rigid strengthened region in a longer elliptic shape, the length L of the long side of the center portion 421 must be longer than the diameter D of the voice coil 30 at a predetermined distance. In the preferred embodiment, the length L of the long side of the center portion 421 is longer than the diameter D of the voice coil 30 at least 1.5 times in order to achieve the best effect on reducing the segmental vibration of the membrane 40. The thickness of the design of the thin speaker structure 60 can be controlled below 10 mm for the total height of the thin speaker structure 60 fully complying with the current consumer electronics product design requirements.
With the referenced to
The center portion 421 of the elliptic body 42 has a flat upper surface. In
In the preferred embodiment, the surrounding 41 has long sides 411 in parallel and short sides in symmetrical arc-shapes; the center portion 421 of the elliptic body 42 corresponding to the surrounding 41 is set to be in an elliptic shape.
In summation of the description above, the present invention has the following advantages:
1. The rigidity of the body 42 strengthened for the center portion 421 of the body 42 is in the elliptic shape, solving poor sound performance in middle level frequency (MLF) and distortion problems resulting from the segmental vibration generated by a circular center portion of a conventional body.
2. Since the magnetic circuit member 20 as shown in
3. The amount of the magnetic circuit member 20 is reduced and thus the present invention solves the problem of increasing the costs of a conventional elliptic magnetic circuit member.
4. As a result of the circular voice coil 30, the production process is not as complicated as the conventional elliptic voice coil, providing better production yield and efficiency.
In order to clearly analyze and illustrate the differences of structure and performance between the present invention and the conventional speaker, comparison listed as below:
Although particular embodiments of the invention have been described in detail for purposes of illustration, various modifications and enhancements may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Accordingly, the invention is not to be limited except as by the appended claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 102125312 A | Jul 2013 | TW | national |
| Number | Name | Date | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20060078153 | Sato | Apr 2006 | A1 |
| 20070187172 | Kaneda et al. | Aug 2007 | A1 |
| 20100092011 | Windischberger et al. | Apr 2010 | A1 |
| 20120152648 | Hiwatashi | Jun 2012 | A1 |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20150016658 A1 | Jan 2015 | US |
