Koito Manufacturing Company, Ltd.

Haruo Otani

Michihiko Suzuki

Kazuhiro Yamazaki

Fujihiko Sugiyama

Ryosuke Yasuda

Fumihiko Sugiyama

A method of manufacturing a vehicle lamp includes providing a housing having a front opening and a transparent cover having a curved front face and a rear face having a welding face portion. The welding face portion of the transparent cover is placed in a closely contacting state with respect to the housing and the transparent cover is joined with the housing so as to close the front opening of the housing by irradiating a welding light ray toward the welding face portion through the transparent cover. The placing includes applying a pressing force against the housing to the transparent cover in a predetermined direction such that an angle of the welding face portion of the transparent cover with respect to the predetermined direction is closer to a right angle than an angle of the front face of the transparent cover corresponding to the welding surface with respect to the predetermined direction.

Vehicle lamp housing with transparent cover welded thereon, and method

A welding apparatus is provided with a lamp unit having a light source such as a halogen lamp and a multiple reflection surface. The light source applies incoherent electromagnetic waves that belong to a visible region and a near-infrared region in which a wavelength is 500 nm (nanometer) or more. The multiple reflection surface reflects and collects the light from the light source in the shape of a desired dot or line. The housing and the transparent cover are superimposed, and the light from the light source is collected by the multiple-reflection surface on the portion where the housing is superimposed on the transparent cover.

Welding apparatus and welding method

A vehicular headlamp includes a lamp body having an opening, a first reflector disposed within the lamp body, a lens, and a second reflector. The second reflector serves as an extension reflector to cover a gap between the opening of the lamp body and the first reflector. The lens and the second reflector are joined together at an edge portion thereof by laser welding. The second reflector has a leg portion on a back surface thereof. An edge portion of the opening has a groove to receive the leg portion, and seal material having a predetermined adhesibility, which can be pulled off, is injected into the groove. The second reflector joined to the lens is mounted on an edge of the opening of the lamp body via the seal material.

Vehicular lamp having a removable lens with an extension reflector

A lamp for a vehicle is described that incorporates a lamp body to which a front lens is joined by a sealing member. The sealing member is made of a low-adhesive hot melt in the gel state which causes surface exfoliation when the front lens is separated from the lamp body. This makes it possible to easily attach or detach the front lens and prevent the front lens, the lamp body, and the sealing member from being damaged during a separating operation. Since the elastic repulsion force of the sealing member is small, threaded fasteners are not required for fastening the front lens to the lamp body. Instead, only hook fasteners need be used. Therefore, the structure of the lamp is simplified and the workability in the process for assembling the lamp is improved.

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Shizuoka, Japan

Haruo Otani