US 4,878,391 AGranted

Motion translating mechanism for use as a window regulator or the like

AssigneeKoito Seisakusho Co., Ltd.

InventorsHaruo Komatsu, Takashi Suzuki

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Abstract

A mechanism particularly well suited for converting bidirectional rotation, as of a reversible electric motor or a hand crank, into the linear up and down motion of a windowpane relative to the frame of a passenger car door. Included is an elongate guide rail gently curved longitudinally to conform to the vertical curvature of the vehicular door and providing a vertical guideway on its convex side. A wire rope or cable is looped about a pair of terminal guide pulleys or nonrotatable guides on the opposite ends of the guide rail. One of the two stretches of the cable is coupled to a windowpane carriage which is coupled to the windowpane for joint up and down movement therewith along the guideway. A drive mechanism including a drive reel is mounted to the guide rail and coupled to the other stretch of the cable for bidirectionally driving the windowpane carriage along the guideway. The drive mechanism is compactly disposed on the concave side of the guide rail for minimal space requirement.

Claims6

Dependent claims

A motion translating mechanism for use as a vehicular window regulator or the like, comprising;

(a) elongate guide rail means curved longitudinally to provide a convex side and a concave side and defining a substantially linear guide way on its convex side, a pair of longitudinally spaced openings being defined in said guide rail means;
(b) a pair of terminal guides mounted to the convex side of the guide rail means adjacent opposite ends thereof;
(c) an elongate member of flexible, non-stretchable material looped about the terminal guides and so providing first and second stretches thereof, at least a first stretch of the elongate member extending along the guide way, and a second stretch of the elongate member extending through one of the openings from the convex toward the concave side of the guide rail means;
(d) a drive reel mounted to the guide rail means intermediate the opposite ends thereof and rotatably mounted to the concave side of the guide rail means, the second stretch of the elongate member extending through one of the openings from the convex toward to the concave side of the guide rail means and being wound at least one turn around the drive reel, and extending through the other opening from the concave back to the convex side of the guide rail means;
and
(e) a movable member mounted to the guide rail means and coupled to the first stretch of the elongate member for joint bidirectional movement therewith along the guide way.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.