US 9,320,107 B2Granted

Vehicular lamp

AssigneeKoito Manufacturing Co., Ltd.

InventorsToda Takeshi, Takao Muramatsu, Tsuchiya Toshiyuki, Masayasu Ito

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Abstract

The present disclosure provides a vehicular lamp including bypass circuits parallel to light emitting devices to precisely cope with an abnormality of the bypass circuit side. The vehicular lamp includes: one or more bypass units connected in parallel to at least a part of a plurality of light emitting devices to form a bypass route of the emission driving current so that the light emitting device is turned OFF according to a bypass control signal, or to cut off the bypass route; abnormality detecting units configured to generate state signals each of which indicates an normal state or an abnormal state of each of the bypass units; and a control unit configured to control the formation of the bypass route. When the generated state signal indicates that each of the bypass units is abnormal, supply of the emission driving current from the light source power supply is reduced or stopped.

Claims18

Dependent claims

A vehicular lamp comprising:

a plurality of light emitting devices connected in series;
a light source power supply configured to supply an emission driving current to the plurality of light emitting devices;
one or more bypass units connected in parallel to at least some of the light emitting devices to form a bypass route of the emission driving current so as to cause the light emitting devices to be in a turn-OFF state or to cut off the bypass route of the emission driving current so as to cause the light emitting devices to be in a turn-ON state according to a bypass control signal;
an abnormality detecting unit configured to generate a state signal indicating whether the one or more bypass units are in a normal state or in an abnormal state as well as whether the light emitting device side is in a normal state or in an abnormal state;
and
a control unit configured to control the bypass route based on the state signal generated in the abnormal detecting unit such that the light emitting devices are either in the turn-OFF state or in the turn-ON state,
wherein when a signal indicating that the one or more bypass units are abnormal is generated as the state signal, supply of the emission driving current from the light source power supply is reduced or stopped.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 14/559,049Filed 3 Dec 2014
Priority: JP 2013-2528476 Dec 2013
Published: US 2015/0163871 A111 Jun 2015
Granted: 19 Apr 2016
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification7 codes

B60Q 11/00
Arrangement of monitoring devices for devices provided for in groups b60q1/00 -
H05B 45/48
With an active control inside an LED matrix: having LEDs organised in strings and incorporating parallel shunting devices
H05B 45/54
Responsive to malfunctions or undesirable behaviour of LEDs; responsive to LED life; Protective circuits: in a series array of LEDs
H05B 47/105
Controlling the light source: in response to determined parameters