Nissan Motor Company Limited

Ichikoh Industries, Ltd.

Masato Mochizuki

Takayuki Isobe

Kouichi Takatsuji

Masao Naruke

Hirofumi Yamagishi

Youichi Kikuchi

Shigenobu Ohtsuka

The automotive headlamp unit having a lamp housing formed integrally with a front lens and in which a reflector and a lamp bulb as a light source are provided is provided with an aiming adjustment device including pivot mechanisms to tilt the lamp housing about horizontal and vertical axis, respectively, in relation to the body of a car, and also the lamp housing has provided therein an aiming adjustment aid composed of a level vial supported tiltably in the vertical plane parallel to the optical axis of the reflector and a manual operating member to adjust the tilt angle of the level vial. At the headlamp unit manufacturer, the posture of the lamp housing with respect to the car body is pre-adjusted by means of the aiming adjustment device to obtain an optimum luminous intensity distribution pattern, and in this adjusted condition, the level vial is tilted in the vertical plane parallel to the optical axis by means of the manual operating member until the bubble in the level vial comes to the reference position at the center of the level vial. This condition is held. This tilt angle of the lamp housing corresponding to the optimum orientation of the optical axis with respect to the plane of the ground is easily reproduced, and so the aiming adjustment of the headlamp unit can be very easily done at the automobile manufacturer or car repair/maintenance shop.

Automotive headlamp unit with aiming adjustment lid

A structure is provided for headlamps for vehicles, having a light source, a reflector, and a front lens in which the lens is slanted with respect to a vertical direction of a vehicle body, a rear surface of the lens is formed with a prism zone for forming a light diffusion zone on a light distribution pattern of a given screen and another prism zone for forming a hot zone on the distribution pattern, and the reflector is formed with a first reflecting surface which corresponds optically to the light diffusion zone forming prism zone and diffuses light beams emitted from the light source in a horizontal cross section with respect to an optical axis of the light source and reflects the light beams of the light source substantially in parallel to the optical axis in a vertical cross section and with a remaining reflecting surface substantially in the form of a paraboloid of revolution. Consequently, both ends of the light distribution pattern in the horizontal direction neither droop nor rise.

Structure of headlamps for vehicles

Growing community of inventors

Kanagawa, Japan

Masato Mochizuki