Field of the Invention

The present disclosure generally relates to the technical field of lighting, and in particular to a light emitting module, and more specifically to a light emitting module which can firmly retain a lens assembly by a housing made of a molding material. Moreover, the present disclosure also relates to a method for producing the light emitting module.

Background of the Invention

Light emitting modules have been used widely in applications such as light boxes, billboards, scene lights, backlight lighting and the like. The light emitting module generally comprises a housing, a circuit board and a lens assembly, wherein a light emitting element such as a light emitting diode (LED) is arranged on the circuit board, the lens assembly for protecting the light emitting element and setting a lighting pattern of the light emitting element covers the light emitting element, and the housing at least partially surrounds the circuit board and the lens assembly.

However, there is such a phenomenon for the light emitting module currently used that the housing easily peels off the lens assembly such that the lens assembly falls off, thereby damaging the light emitting element and other elements on the circuit board.

Summary of the Invention

A brief summary of the present disclosure is given below, to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the disclosure. It should be understood that the summary is not exhaustive; it does not intend to define a key or important part of the disclosure, nor does it intend to limit the scope of the disclosure. The object of the summary is only to briefly present some concepts, which serves as a preamble of the detailed description that follows.

In view of the above drawbacks in the prior art, an object of the present disclosure is to provide a light emitting module which firmly retains a lens assembly by a housing made of a molding material and a method for producing the light emitting module. According to an aspect of the present disclosure, it is provided a light emitting module, comprising: a circuit board on which a light emitting element is arranged; a lens assembly arranged on the circuit board to cover the light emitting element; and a housing made of a molding material and at least partially surrounding the circuit board and the lens assembly to form the light emitting module, wherein a fastener for firmly retaining the lens assembly to the housing is formed by the molding material while forming the housing using the molding material.

Moreover, according to another aspect of the present disclosure, it is also provided a method for producing a light emitting module comprising a circuit board and a lens assembly, comprising the steps of: arranging the lens assembly on the circuit board in an overlapped manner, and forming a housing at least partially surrounding the circuit board and the lens assembly by a molding process. A fastener for firmly retaining the lens assembly to the housing is formed by the molding material while forming the housing using the molding material.

The light emitting module according to the present disclosure can firmly retain a lens assembly by a housing made of a molding material. In addition, the light emitting module has advantages such as a simple production process, a compact structure, a low cost and so on.

Brief Description of the Drawings

The description below with reference to the accompanying drawings can provide a better understanding of the present disclosure. In the drawings, the same or similar reference signs denote the same or similar components. The drawings and the detailed description below are included in the specification and constitute a part of the specification, and further illustrate the preferred embodiments of the disclosure and explain the principles and advantages of the disclosure. In the drawings:

FIG 1 illustrates a schematic view of a light emitting module according to the prior art;

FIG 2 illustrates a sectional view in a lateral direction of the light emitting module as shown in FIG 1A;

FIG 3 illustrates a schematic view of another light emitting module according to the prior art;

FIG 4 illustrates an exploded perspective view of a light emitting module according to an embodiment of the present disclosure; FIG 5 illustrates a schematic view of a lens assembly and a circuit board of the light emitting module according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG 6 illustrates a sectional view in a longitudinal direction of a housing of the light emitting module according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG 7 illustrates a partially-enraged sectional view of the housing of the light emitting module as shown in FIG 5A;

FIG 8 illustrates a sectional view in a lateral direction of a light emitting module according to the present disclosure; and

FIG 9 illustrates a flowchart of the flow of a method for producing the light emitting module according to the present disclosure.

Detailed Description of the Embodiments

The exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure will be described hereinafter in combination with the accompanying drawings. In view of clarity and conciseness, not all of the features of a practical embodiment are described in the description. However, it should be understood that many embodiment-specific decisions are to be made in the development of any practical embodiment, in order to achieve particular objects of the developers; and those decisions may be changed with the variation of the embodiments.

It should be further pointed out that, only those structures closely related to the present disclosure are shown in the drawings, and those having little relations to the disclosure are omitted, so as not to obscure the disclosure with unnecessary details.

A light emitting module and a method for producing the same according to the present disclosure will be described in detail with the help of the accompanying drawings. It will be appreciated that the disclosure is not limited to the specific implementation described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG 1 illustrates a schematic view of a light emitting module according to the prior art. FIG 2 illustrates a sectional view in a lateral direction of the light emitting module as shown in FIG 1.

Throughout the text of the present disclosure, for the sake of description instead of definition, a length direction of the light emitting module is referred to as a longitudinal direction, a width direction of the light emitting module is referred to as a lateral direction, and a thickness direction of the light emitting module is referred to as a vertical direction.

As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the light emitting module comprises a circuit board, a lens assembly and a housing, wherein a light emitting element is arranged on the circuit board, the lens assembly covers the light emitting element, and the housing at least partially surrounds the circuit board and the lens assembly.

In view of factors such as strength, transmissivity and the like, the lens assembly generally would be produced using polycarbonate (PC). In addition, the housing generally would be produced using e.g. polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and thermoplastic polyurethane elastomer rubber (TPU), by a molding process such as injection molding and so on. Due to differences in material characteristics such as thermal expansion ratio and so on between the material for producing the lens assembly and the molding material for producing the housing, however, it would be difficult for the lens assembly to be firmly attached to the housing. Thus, a phenomenon that the housing easily peels off the lens assembly occurs such that the lens assembly falls off, thereby damaging the light emitting element and other elements on the circuit board. For example, the housing peels off the lens assembly at the edge of the lens assembly, as shown in FIG 1.

To solve the above problem, a method for producing the housing using a potting material so as to cover the lens assembly is proposed. FIG 3 illustrates a schematic view of a light emitting module produced by a method of covering the lens assembly with a potting material. The light emitting module as shown in FIG 3 differs from the light emitting module as shown in FIG 1 in that the housing in FIG 1 only surrounds the edge of the lens assembly while the housing in FIG 3 covers all regions other than a region of emission light of the lens assembly.

Although the light emitting module as depicted in FIG 3 enables the housing to firmly retain the lens assembly, this method needs greater spacing between the respective lens units of the respective light emitting elements to accommodate the potting material, so a large-area lens assembly is required to be used, thus causing an increase in the overall size of the light emitting module.

Thus to overcome the above defect, the present disclosure proposes a light emitting module, which can firmly retain the lens assembly by a housing made of a molding material, and which meanwhile has advantages such as a simple production process, a compact structure, a low cost and so on.

The light emitting module according to the present disclosure will be described with reference to FIGS. 4-8 below.

FIG 4 illustrates an exploded perspective view of a light emitting module 1 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. As depicted in FIG 4, the light emitting module 1 according to the present disclosure comprises a circuit board 20, a lens assembly 10 and a housing 30.

One or more light emitting elements 21 are arranged on the circuit board 20. For example, the light emitting element 21 may be a light emitting diode (LED) and the like. For example, the circuit board 20 may be a printed circuit board, a thick film circuit board and the like.

The lens assembly 10 is arranged on the circuit board 10 to cover the light emitting elements 21. The lens assembly 10 comprises one or more lens units for corresponding to the one or more light emitting elements 21 respectively. For example, the lens assembly 10 may be made of polycarbonate (PC).

The lens assembly 10 may be vertically aligned with the circuit board 20 by various methods. For example, positioning holes may be provided on the circuit board 20, and positioning pins may be arranged in the lens assembly 10, so as to realize alignment between the circuit board 20 and the lens assembly 10.

The housing 30 is made of a molding material, and at least partially surrounds the circuit board 20 and the lens assembly 10 to form the light emitting module 1. As shown in FIG 4, the housing 30 surrounds the lens assembly only 10 at the edge of the lens assembly 10 such that the respective lens units of the lens assembly 10 can have a small spacing. For example, the molding material for producing the housing 30 may be polyvinyl chloride (PVC), thermoplastic polyurethane elastomer rubber (TPU) and the like. In addition, for example, the molding process for producing the housing 30 may be an injection molding process, a potting process and the like. In the light emitting module 1 according to the present disclosure, a fastener 31 for firmly retaining the lens assembly 10 to the housing 30 is formed by the molding material while forming the housing 30 using the molding material, thus making it possible to simultaneously form the housing 30 and the fastener 31 for firmly retaining the lens assembly 10 in a same molding process.

FIG 5 illustrates a schematic view of a lens assembly 10 and a circuit board 20 of the light emitting module 1 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. As shown in FIG 5, in the circuit board 20 and the lens assembly 10, one or more holes 12, 22 are arranged at vertically aligned coupling positions respectively. Preferably, the one or more holes 12, 22 in the circuit board 20 and the lens assembly 10 may be arranged at coupling positions at edges of the lens assembly 10 and the circuit board 20 respectively.

As shown in FIG 5, preferably, the one or more holes 22 in the circuit board 20 may have opening(s) facing outwards in a peripheral direction. In this manner, a process for drilling holes in the circuit board 20 can be simplified, thereby further reducing the production cost of the light emitting module 1.

In addition, FIG 6 illustrates a perspective view of a housing 30 of the light emitting module 1 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure, and FIG 7 illustrates a partially-enraged sectional view in a longitudinal direction at the circle of the housing 30 of the light emitting module 1 as shown in FIG 6.

In the molding process for producing the housing 30, since the aligned circuit board 20 and lens assembly 10 are placed in a mold in advance, the molding process fills the molding material in the one or more holes 12, 22 in the circuit board 20 and the lens assembly 10 while forming the housing 30 using the molding material, such that the molding material forms a structure similar to a rivet, and this structure serves as a fastener 31 to firmly retain the lens assembly 10 in the housing 30.

As shown at the circle position in FIG 6, the molding material forms a columnar fastener 31 similar to a rivet. In the sectional view at the circle in FIG 6 as shown in FIG 7, by a molding process, the columnar fastener 31 formed by the molding material passes through the circuit board 20 and the lens assembly 10, so as to firmly retain the lens assembly 10 in the housing 30 according to the physical principle of thermal expansion and contraction. Preferably, the one or more holes 22 in the circuit board 20 may have a cross-sectional area greater than or equal to the cross-sectional area of the one or more holes 12 in the lens assembly 10, thereby increasing the strength of the columnar fastener 31 formed by the molding material.

FIG 8 illustrates a sectional view in a lateral direction of the light emitting module 1 according to the present disclosure. In FIG 8, a cross section in a vertical direction of the holes 12, 22 formed at edge positions of the lens assembly 10 and the circuit board 20 is shown.

As shown in FIG 8, with the aid of the fastener 31 formed of the molding material, the housing 30 would not easily peel off the lens assembly 10 even if it surrounds the lens assembly 10 only at the edge of the lens assembly 10. In addition, the fastener 31 and the housing 30 are integrally formed by the same molding material in a same molding process, thereby simplifying the process. Thus, the light emitting module 1 according to the present disclosure has advantages such as a simple production process, a compact structure, a low cost and so on.

A method for producing the light emitting module 1 according to the present disclosure will be described with reference to FIG 9 below.

FIG 9 illustrates a flowchart of the flow 700 of a method for producing the light emitting module 1 according to the present disclosure.

The flow 700 in FIG 9 begins with step S701. In step S702, the circuit board 20 is arranged in a mold, and the lens assembly 10 is aligned with the circuit board and is arranged on the circuit board 20 in an overlapped manner. As stated above, one or more holes 12, 22 are opened at vertically aligned coupling positions in the circuit board 20 provided with the light emitting elements 21 and the lens assembly 10.

In step S703, a housing 30 at least partially surrounding the circuit board 20 and the lens assembly 10 is formed by a molding process, wherein the molding material forms a fastener 31 for firmly retaining the lens assembly 10 to the housing 30 while forming the housing 30 using the molding material.

The flow 700 ends at step S704.

As stated above, the light emitting module according to the present disclosure can firmly retain the lens assembly by a housing made of a molding material. In addition, the light emitting module has advantages such as a simple production process, a compact structure, a low cost and so on.

Although the embodiment of the present disclosure is described above in combination with the drawings, it shall be appreciated that the embodiment described above only serves as a description of the present disclosure but fails to constitute a limitation to the present disclosure. A person skilled in the art could carry out various modifications and alterations in regard to the above embodiment without departing from the spirit and scope of the present disclosure.

For example, although in FIG 5 the one or more holes 12, 22 formed in the circuit board 20 and the lens assembly 10 have a circular cross section(s), the holes may also have cross section(s) in other shapes such as an ellipse, a square or the like.

For example, although in FIG 7 a center line of the one or more holes 22 formed in the circuit board 20 coincides with a center line of the one or more holes 12 formed in the lens assembly 10, the center line of the one or more holes 22 formed in the circuit board 20 may also deviate from the center line of the one or more holes 12 formed in the lens assembly 10 as long as projections of the one or more holes 12 formed in the lens assembly 10 on the circuit board 20 are surrounded in the one or more holes 22 formed in the circuit board 20 respectively.

Finally, it should be noted that, the terms "include", "comprise" and any other variations mean non-exclusive inclusion, so that the process, method, article or device that includes a series of elements includes not only those elements but also other elements that are not explicitly listed, or further includes inherent elements of the process, method, article or device. Moreover, when there is no further limitation, the element defined by the wording "include(s) a ..." does not exclude the case that the process, method, article or device that includes the element includes other same elements. LIST OF REFERENCE SIGNS