Light Bar

• US 20110198995A1
• Filed: 02/15/2010
• Published: 08/18/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 02/15/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC (Ford Motor Company)
• Original Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC (Ford Motor Company)
• Inventors: Igoe, Denis Patrick, Salter, Stuart C., Singer, Jeffrey
• Granted Patent: US 8,330,385 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 315/51
• CPC Class Codes: B60H 1/00985 Control systems or circuits characterised by display or indicating devices, e.g. voice simulators characterised by the input of sound using a voice synthesizer B60H1/00757; B60H1/00978 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 2360/143 Touch sensitive instrument input devices
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 2360/188 Displaying information using colour changes
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 2360/349 Adjustment of brightness
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 35/00 Instruments specially adapted for vehicles; Arrangement of instruments in or on vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 35/10 Input arrangements, i.e. from user to vehicle, associated with vehicle functions or specially adapted therefor
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 35/212 displaying on manual operation elements, e.g. on a knob
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 35/29 Instruments characterised by the way in which information is handled, e.g. showing information on plural displays or prioritising information according to driving conditions
• CPC Class Codes: B60Q 3/82 Switches specially adapted for vehicle interior lighting, e.g. switching by tilting the lens

Abstract

A light bar system for a vehicle compartment includes a circuit board having a plurality of capacitive-type, user-activated switches, an electrical power source coupled to the circuit board, a light emitting diode (LED) coupled to the circuit board, and a light bar affixed to the circuit board. The user-activated switches are coupled to a vehicle accessory to control the level of operation of the vehicle accessory. The most recently actuated one of the user-actuated switches is detected by the circuit board and the circuit board provides a pulse width modulated (PWM) signal to the LED with a duty cycle of the PWM signal based on the most recently actuated switch. A higher duty cycle PWM signal corresponds to a higher setting of the accessory.

Claims

1. A light bar system, comprising:

a circuit board having at least one switch arranged on one side of the circuit board;

a light emitting diode (LED) electronically coupled to the circuit board and attached to the one side of the circuit board; and

a light bar covering the switches and located proximate the LED wherein a modulated signal from the circuit board is provided to the LED.

2. The light bar system of claim 1 wherein the switch is a capacitive-type switch.

3. The light bar system of claim 1 wherein the circuit board has a plurality of switches and a duty cycle of the signal is based on which one of the plurality of switches was most recently actuated.

4. The light bar system of claim 1, further comprising:

an electrical power source coupled to the circuit board.

5. The light bar system of claim 1 wherein a surface of the light bar nearest the circuit board is processed to provide desired surface characteristics.

6. The light bar system of claim 3 wherein the plurality of switches are arranged linearly and comprise a discrete number of switches through which a user indicates a desired level of a user-controllable vehicle accessory and the switches are arranged such that a switch nearest a first end of the light bar corresponds to the vehicle accessory being at a lowest setting and a switch farthest away from the first end of the light bar corresponds to the vehicle accessory being at a highest setting.

7. The light bar system of claim 6 wherein the user-controllable vehicle accessory is one of:

a light on an instrument cluster;

a light on a video screen;

a climate-control fan;

an audio system;

a temperature controller and an ambient lighting system.

8. The light bar system of claim 6 wherein when the switch nearest the first end is the last-activated switch, a duty cycle of the PWM signal is less than 100% and when the switch farthest from the first end is the last-activated switch, the duty cycle of the PWM signal is 100%.

9. The light bar system of claim 3 wherein the plurality of switches are arranged linearly and the LED is located at one end of the plurality of the switches.

10. The light bar system of claim 1 wherein the LED mounts on the circuit board at a first side of the LED and the LED emits light out of a second side of the LED, with the second side being approximately perpendicular with the first side.

11. The light bar system of claim 1 wherein the modulated signal provided to the LED is based on user input to the at least one switch.

12. A method to provide illumination to a light bar via a light emitting diode (LED), comprising:

controlling power to the LED by a pulse width modulated (PWM) signal wherein a duty cycle of the PWM signal is based on a user input.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the light bar is associated with a plurality of user-operated switches and the duty cycle of the PWM signal is based on a most recent switch activated by the user.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the user-operated switches are arranged linearly from a first end to a second end with a switch located at the first end associated with a low duty cycle and a switch located at the second end associated with a high duty cycle and the switches in between associated with duty cycle of switches between first and second ends increasing monotonically from the low duty cycle to the high duty cycle.

15. The method of claim 12 wherein a frequency of the PWM signal is a frequency greater than a perception rate of a human so that a resulting illumination in the light bar appears as a continuous light source to the human.

16. The method of claim 12 wherein the LED emits light at a predetermined frequency and the light bar attenuates light at the predetermined frequency.

17. The method of claim 12 wherein the LED is placed proximate a first end of the light bar, the LED emits light at a predetermined frequency, and the light bar attenuates light at the predetermined frequency with the attenuation in the light bar being sufficient such that a human user perceives light emitted from the light bar at the first end being of higher intensity than light emitted from the light bar at a second end of the light bar.

18. A light bar system installed a vehicle compartment, comprising:

a circuit board having a plurality of capacitive-type, user-activated switches arranged linearly;

an electrical power source coupled to the circuit board;

a light emitting diode (LED) coupled to the circuit board at one end of the switches;

a light bar affixed to the circuit board such that the light bar covers the switches and the light bar is located proximate the LED, wherein;

the user-activated switches are coupled to a vehicle accessory;

wherein one of the user-actuated switches actuated by a user is detected by the circuit board; and

the circuit board provides a pulse width modulated (PWM) signal to the LED with a duty cycle of the PWM signal based on the one user-actuated switch actuated by the user.

19. The light bar system of claim 18 wherein a surface nearest the circuit board is processed by at least one of:

etching, painting, hot-stamping, and silk-screening.

20. The light bar system of claim 18 wherein light entering the light bar is attenuated by particles within the light bar.