Touch key structure and electrical appliance
11385744 · 2022-07-12
Assignee
Inventors
- Xiaokai Liu (Foshan, CN)
- Yi SUN (FOSHAN, CN)
- Pofeng Ho (Foshan, CN)
- Zhifeng Wang (Foshan, CN)
- Dali Ou (Foshan, CN)
- Dahua CAO (Foshan, CN)
- Qi Wang (Foshan, CN)
- Yuhua Huang (Foshan, CN)
Cpc classification
H03K2217/960755
ELECTRICITY
H03K2217/96023
ELECTRICITY
International classification
Abstract
A touch key structure includes a touch panel including a key area at a front side of the touch panel, a circuit board provided behind the touch panel and including a sensing electrode corresponding to the key area, and a conductive medium provided between the key area and the sensing electrode.
Claims
1. A touch key structure comprising: a touch panel including a key area at a front side of the touch panel; a circuit board provided behind the touch panel and including a sensing electrode corresponding to the key area; a support provided between the circuit board and the touch panel, the support including: a convex part protruding towards at least one side; and a mounting hole penetrating the convex part; and a conductive medium provided at the support and between the key area and the sensing electrode, the conductive medium including a conductive layer provided at an inner wall of the mounting hole.
2. The touch key structure of claim 1, wherein: the key area is one of a plurality of key areas provided at the front side of the touch panel; the sensing electrode is one of a plurality of sensing electrodes of the circuit board; the conductive medium is one of a plurality of conductive media provided between the key areas and the sensing electrodes; and the key areas, the sensing electrodes, and the conductive media are in a one-to-one correspondence.
3. The touch key structure of claim 1, wherein: the conductive layer is formed through a physical means or a chemical plating means.
4. The touch key structure of claim 1, wherein the conductive medium further includes a conductive body provided at the support.
5. The touch key structure of claim 4, wherein the conductive body is integrally connected with the support through a secondary molding method.
6. The touch key structure of claim 4, wherein: the conductive body is mounted in the mounting hole and at least one end of the conductive body is exposed from the mounting hole.
7. The touch key structure of claim 1, wherein the conductive layer is further provided at an outer surface of the convex part.
8. The touch key structure of claim 1, wherein the conductive medium further includes a conductive body provided at the rear side of the touch panel.
9. The touch key structure of claim 8, wherein the conductive body is integrally connected with the touch panel through a secondary molding method.
10. The touch key structure of claim 8, wherein: the conductive body is in a cylindrical shape with openings at both ends, and one end of the conductive body is connected to the touch panel; or the conductive body is in a cylindrical shape with an open end and a closed end, and the closed end of the conductive body is connected to the touch panel; or the conductive body includes a solid conductive body structure, and one end of the conductive body is connected to the touch panel.
11. The touch key structure of claim 1, wherein: a sum of a distance between the conductive medium and the sensing electrode and a distance between the conductive medium and the touch panel is greater than or equal to 0 and less than or equal to 2 mm; or a periphery of the conductive medium exceeds the sensing electrode by an exceeding size less than or equal to 3 mm; or the conductive medium includes a conductive layer having a thickness greater than or equal to 10 μm and less than or equal to 25 μm; or a size of the conductive medium in a front-rear direction is less than 15 mm.
12. The touch key structure of claim 1, wherein the key area includes a key identification.
13. An electrical appliance comprising: a touch key structure including: a touch panel including a key area at a front side of the touch panel; a circuit board provided behind the touch panel and including a sensing electrode corresponding to the key area; a support provided between the circuit board and the touch panel, the support including: a convex part protruding towards at least one side; and a mounting hole penetrating the convex part; and a conductive medium provided at the support and between the key area and the sensing electrode, the conductive medium including a conductive layer provided at an inner wall of the mounting hole.
14. A touch key structure comprising: a touch panel including a key area at a front side of the touch panel; a circuit board provided behind the touch panel and including a sensing electrode corresponding to the key area; and a conductive medium provided between the key area and the sensing electrode, the conductive medium being at a rear side of the touch panel or embedded inside the touch panel, and the conductive medium including a conductive layer provided at the rear side of the touch panel; wherein the touch key structure further includes: a pillar protruding on the rear side of the touch panel, the conductive layer being provided on at least one of an outer side or a rear end surface of the pillar; or a cylindrical body with an opening towards the circuit board and protruding on the rear side of the touch panel, the conductive layer being provided on at least one of an inner side, an outer side, or a rear end surface of the cylindrical body.
Description
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
(1) In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the present disclosure or the technical solutions in the related art, the drawings used in the embodiments or the related art will be briefly described below. Obviously, the drawings in the following description are only some embodiments of the present disclosure. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that other figures can be obtained from the structures illustrated in the drawings without the inventive effort.
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DESCRIPTION OF REFERENCE NUMERALS IN THE RELATED ART
(37) TABLE-US-00001 TABLE 1 Reference Reference Numeral Name Numeral Name 100′ Capacitive touch-sensing key 3′ Key support 1′ Touch panel 4′ Spring 2′ PCB board
DESCRIPTION OF REFERENCE NUMERALS IN THE PRESENT DISCLOSURE
(38) TABLE-US-00002 TABLE 2 Reference Reference Numeral Name Numeral Name 100 Touch key structure 3 Conductive medium 1 Touch panel 3a Conductive layer 1a Pillar 3b Conductive body 1b Cylindrical body 4 Support 2 Circuit board 41 Mounting hole 21 Sensing electrode 42 Convex part
(39) The realization of the objective, functional characteristics, advantages of the present disclosure are further described with reference to the accompanying drawings.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS
(40) The technical solutions of the embodiments of the present disclosure will be clearly and completely described in the following with reference to the accompanying drawings. It is obvious that the embodiments to be described are only a part rather than all of the embodiments of the present disclosure. All other embodiments obtained by persons skilled in the art based on the embodiments of the present disclosure without creative efforts shall fall within the protection scope of the present disclosure.
(41) It is to be understood that, all of the directional indications in the embodiments of the present disclosure (such as up, down, left, right, front, rear . . . ) can only be used for explaining relative position relations, moving condition of the elements under a special attitude (referring to figures), and so on, if the special attitude changes, the directional indications change accordingly.
(42) In addition, the descriptions, such as the “first,” the “second” in the embodiment of present disclosure, can only be used for describing the aim of description, and cannot be understood as indicating or suggesting relative importance or impliedly indicating the number of the indicated technical character. Therefore, the character indicated by the “first,” the “second” can expressly or impliedly include at least one character. Besides, the technical solution of each embodiment can be combined with each other, however the technical solution must be based on that the ordinary skill in that art can realize the technical solution. When the combination of the technical solutions is contradictory or cannot be realized, it should consider that the combination of the technical solutions does not exist, and is beyond the claimed protection scope of the present disclosure.
(43) The present disclosure provides a touch key structure and an electrical appliance having the touch key structure. The electric appliance may be a cooking appliance, such as a rice cooker, an induction cooker, a cooking machine, a soymilk maker, or the like, and may also be other electric appliance such as an air conditioner, which is not limited in this application. All electrical appliances provided with the touch key structure are within the protection scope of the present disclosure, and the touch key structure provided in the present disclosure will be specifically described below with reference to the drawings.
(44) In the embodiments of the present disclosure, referring to
(45) During a touch operation, a user's finger approaches or touches the key area, the sensing electrode 21 and the finger constitute a capacitor, which is referred to as a “touch capacitor,” and the formation process is not described in detail. The conductive medium 3 is equivalent to adding a conductor between two electrodes of the touch capacitor, so that the touch capacitor becomes larger and it is easier to detect a finger. Therefore, in the present disclosure, the sensing electrode 21 and the conductive medium 3 are easy to be mounted and have good stability after mounting, thereby making the touch key structure 100 simple and reliable in structure.
(46) The number and shape of the key area are not limited, and a plurality of the key areas set at a single point can be provided, or the key area can also be a sliding touch area set continuously. In the embodiments of the present disclosure, a plurality of the key areas, a plurality of the sensing electrodes 21 and a plurality of conductive media 3 are provided, and the key areas are in a one-to-one correspondence with the sensing electrodes 21 and the conductive media 3, and the specific number varies depending on the actual number of key areas. Besides, the relationship between the sensing electrode 21, the conductive medium 3, and the key area is not necessarily one-to-one correspondence, and one sensing electrode 21 may correspond to multiple key areas. The fingers are located in different key areas, and the capacitance between the finger and the sensing electrode 21 changes to identify different keys.
(47) The material, structure, and shape of the conductive medium 3 are also not limited, depending on actual needs or the difficulty, cost, and so on of production and manufacturing. The conductive medium 3 may be made of a metal material, and the metal material has a high conductivity, which makes the touch capacitor have a larger capacitance. The conductive medium 3 may be a conductive body 3b or a conductive layer 3a. The conductive body 3b may be a metal conductive body 3b or a non-metal+metal mixed conductive body 3b. Alternatively, the conductive layer 3a may be provided through physical means or chemical plating. For example, the conductive layer 3a may be provided through water plating, evaporation, sputtering, electrophoresis, vacuum plating, spray coating, coating, chemical plating, etc. The physical means includes one of spray coating, brush coating, vacuum plating, and the like. Among them, spray coating, brush coating or vacuum plating can be selected, which is low cost and easy to implement.
(48) The conductive medium 3 is provided in a manner that is not limited, and may be provided on the touch panel or on a mounting structure between the touch panel 1 and the circuit board 2. The following describes it in combination with specific embodiments:
(49) Referring to
(50) Obviously, the support should be made of an insulating material. For example, the support 4 may be made of an insulating material with a material resistivity of 10.sup.10 Ω.Math.cm to 10.sup.14 Ω.Math.cm. The conductive medium may be made of a material with a resistivity of less than 10.sup.10 Ω.Math.cm, and may be made of a material with a resistivity of less than 10.sup.4 Ω.Math.cm. The lower the resistivity, the better the conductivity, and the higher the sensitivity of the touch key structure 100.
(51) Referring to
(52) Further, in the first embodiment of the present disclosure, referring to
(53) Referring to
(54) Specially, referring to
(55) The mounting hole 41 may be a blind hole or a through hole. Please refer to
(56) Besides, in the present embodiment, in order to make the conductive medium 3 have a sufficiently large size in the inner-outer direction, the support 4 includes a convex part 42 protruding towards at least one side, and the mounting hole 41 penetrates the convex part 42. Specially, in the present embodiment, the support 4 includes two convex parts 42 protruding towards both sides, the mounting hole 41 penetrates the two convex parts 42, such that the distance between the conductive medium 3 and the sensing electrode 21 and the distance between the conductive medium 3 and the key area are both small, so that the touch capacitance is sufficiently large and the sensing sensitivity is higher.
(57) Further, in the present embodiment, referring to
(58) Referring to
(59) Referring to
(60) The specific structure or shape of the conductive body 3b is not limited. For example, referring to
(61) Referring to
(62) Besides, in order to make the conductive medium 3 have a sufficient size in the inner-outer direction, and the distance between the conductive medium 3 and the sensing electrode 21 is small, so that the sensing sensitivity of the touch key structure 100 is high. In the present embodiment, the areas where the conductive layer 3a is provided are all protruding towards the touch electrode, and the specific shape of protruding structure is not limited. Referring to
(63) Referring to
(64) A periphery of the area where the conductive medium 3 is laid out is exceeding the sensing electrode 21, such that the conductive medium 3 can completely cover the edge of the sensing electrode 21. Obviously, an exceeding size cannot be too large, if it is too large, the distance between adjacent conductive media 3 is too small. Therefore, in the present embodiment, a periphery of the conductive medium 3 is exceeding the sensing electrode 21, and an exceeding size is H, and H is less than or equal to 3 mm.
(65) The conductive medium 3 is a conductive layer 3a formed through spraying, and a thickness of the conductive layer 3a is D. Theoretically, the larger D is, the better, but the size of D is also limited by the process. In the present embodiment, D is greater than or equal to 10 μm and less than or equal to 25 μm.
(66) In the present embodiment, limited by the distance between the touch panel 1 and the circuit board 2, a size of the conductive medium is K in a front-rear direction, and K is less than 15 mm.
(67) The conductive medium 3 may be a discontinuous structure. For example, the conductive medium 3 includes a plurality of sections arranged on the front-rear direction, and may also be a continuous structure. When the conductive medium 3 is the continuous structure, the touch capacitance is larger than the discontinuous structure. In the present embodiment, each of the conductive media 3 is continuously disposed.
(68) The conductive medium 3 is a conductive layer 3a, and the conductive medium 3 is made of the material selected from nickel powder, aluminum powder, silver powder, and silver copper powder. These metals have good stability and excellent electrical conductivity.
(69) In the present embodiment, a support 4 is provided between the touch panel 1 and the circuit board 2, a mounting hole 41 is formed in the support 4, and the conductive medium 3 is a conductive layer 3a provided on an inner wall of the mounting hole 41. In the present embodiment, the conductive medium is a conductive paint, and preferably, the resistance value of the conductive paint is controlled between 0.2Ω and 0.6Ω. Therefore, the touch key structure 100 has proper sensitivity.
(70) The conductive medium 3 is a conductive layer 3a, and the conductive medium 3 is made of the material selected from nickel powder, aluminum powder, silver powder, and silver copper powder. These metals have good stability and excellent electrical conductivity, and/or the support 4 is made of an insulating material suitable for injection molding and selected from PP, ABS, PA, PMMA, PC, PC/ABS, and bakelite.
(71) The above are only preferred embodiments of the present disclosure, and thus do not limit the scope of the present disclosure. In addition, in the case of no contradiction, the embodiments can be combined with each other. Under the concept of the present disclosure, the equivalent structural transformations made by the present specification and the drawings are directly or indirectly applied to other related technical fields, and are included in the scope of the present disclosure.