Alps Electric Co., Ltd.

Hideshi Sasaki

Kunihiko Sasaki

Ayumu Kobayashi

Nobuo Matsuzaki

Kenichiro Nishikigi

Yoshiro Honda

A switch device including a first switch section which is operated to carry out a switching operation by movement of a movable member, and a second switch section with a plurality of operating switches mounted on the movable member. By operating the first switch section to carry out a switching operation, the functions provided by the second switch section can be changed. The switch device of the invention, used for a vehicle steering switch unit or the like, provides many operating switch functions with a small number of operating switches. Therefore, the switch device can be easily operated.

Switch device

A rotary connector including a stationary housing, a rotating housing and a lock member. When the lock member is mounted on the rotary connector, both housings are reliably locked with no free rotation therebetween permitted. The lock member is easily broken at a thin portion to release the locked state. A holder having a slot is integrally formed with the outer cylindrical portion of the stationary housing, while a projection is formed on the top surface of the rotating housing. The lock member is integrally formed of a horizontally extending arm portion, a ring-shaped finger-hook portion integrally connected to one end of the arm portion, and a coupling portion that extends downward from the other end of the arm portion. Formed on the border between the arm portion and the coupling portion is a V-shaped groove, as the thin portion, which is mechanically weaker than the rest of the lock member. The coupling portion of the lock member is snapped in the slot while the hole formed in the arm portion receives the projection of the rotating housing, and thus a relative rotation between both housings is blocked. By pivoting upward the finger-hook portion and the arm portion about the thin portion as a fulcrum, the arm portion is broken at the thin portion away from the coupling portion, and the coupling portion remains snapped in the slot.

Growing community of inventors

Miyagi-ken, Japan

Hideshi Sasaki