EP2031706A1

EP2031706A1 - Electronic device

Info

Publication number: EP2031706A1
Application number: EP08252844A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Wen-Huei Su; Chien-Ming Hung; Shen-Yuan Lee
Original assignee: Asustek Computer Inc
Current assignee: Asustek Computer Inc
Priority date: 2007-09-03
Filing date: 2008-08-28
Publication date: 2009-03-04
Also published as: TW200913631A; TWI381700B

Abstract

An electronic device (200) including a main frame (210) and a cover plate (220) is provided. The main frame has a port (212) and a positioning hole (214) near the port. The cover plate is detachably assembled on a surface (S) of the main frame for protecting the port. The cover plate has a positioning pin (222) with a protrusion part (222a) and a positioning part (222b). One end of the positioning pin is fixed on the cover plate, and another end of the positioning passes through the positioning hole. The protrusion part is disposed at one end of the positioning pin where passes through the positioning hole. Dimension of the protrusion part is larger than that of the positioning hole such that the cover plate may not be separated from the positioning hole. When the cover plate is detached, the positioning pin can be moved, so that the positioning part interferes with the positioning hole for positioning the cover plate.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to an electronic device having a port. More particularly, the present invention relates to an electronic device, in which a cover plate of a port thereof can be positioned in arbitrary places.

2. Description of Related Art

Many electronic devices such as notebook computers, personal digital assistants (PDA) and mobile phones, etc. have a port (which can also be referred to as an expansion port or an expansion slot) for connecting other important or secondary peripherals such as a printer, a keyboard, a mouse, a USB flash drive and network devices, etc., so as to expand a function of the electronic device.
The ports such as a cable port, a modem port, a parallel port, a serial port, a universal serial bus (USB) port, a mouse-keyboard port (PS/2), a video output port, a removable media port (for connecting an external disk drive or an external CD-ROM drive), an S-video port, an earphone port for connecting an earphone, a microphone port for connecting a microphone and a memory car port, etc. all have a socket for plugs of the peripherals to plug in, so as to electrically couple the electronic device to the peripherals and expand the function of the electronic device. Since the port itself is a device used for electrically coupling the electronic device to the peripherals, if the port is attached with dirt or dust, there may have a bad connection, so that the electronic device cannot normally control the peripherals. However, since the port of the electronic device is generally exposed, it is easily to be attached with dirt or dust, which leads to malfunction of the peripherals.
To prevent the port from contamination of external dust or dirt, as shown in Fig. 1, a cover plate 110 is generally applied to a conventional electronic device 100 to cover the port (not shown), so as to prevent the port from contamination of the dirt or dust.
Furthermore, when a user detaches the cover plate 110, though the cover plate 110 and the electronic device 100 is kept unseparated via a connecting pin 112, when the cover plate 110 is pulled upwards, there is no fixing approach to fix a position of the cover plate 110, so that the cover plate 110 may dangle around, which may leads to inconvenience in utilization.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Accordingly, an aspect of the present invention is directed to an electronic device, in which a cover plate used for protecting a port thereof can be fixed in any position, so as to resolve a dangling around problem of a conventional cover plate when it is pulled upwards.
An aspect of the present invention provides an electronic device including a main frame and a cover plate. The main frame has a port and a positioning hole near the port. The cover plate is detachably assembled on a surface of the main frame for protecting the port. The cover plate has a positioning pin with a protrusion part and a positioning part. One end of the positioning pin is fixed on the cover plate, and another end of the positioning passes through the positioning hole. The protrusion part is disposed at one end of the positioning pin where passes through the positioning hole. Dimension of the protrusion part is larger than that of the positioning hole such that the cover plate may not be separated from the positioning hole. When the cover plate is detached, the positioning pin may be moved, so that the positioning part interferes with the positioning hole for positioning the cover plate.
In an embodiment of the present invention, the positioning part is made of elastic materials. Further, the positioning part includes a plurality of bumps made of rubber material, or includes a rubber ring.
In an embodiment of the present invention, the positioning part is a rubber ring.
In an embodiment of the present invention, the main frame has a groove, and the port and the positioning hole are located in the groove, and the cover plate is detachably assembled to the groove.
In an embodiment of the present invention, the cover plate has an operating part on its surface to facilitate a user to pull the cover plate.
In an embodiment of the present invention, the positioning part is connected the protrusion part, and when the cover plate is disassembled, the positioning pin can be moved towards the protrusion part to the positioning part, so as to interfere the positioning hole.
In an embodiment of the present invention, the positioning part is tightly attached to the positioning hole.
In the electronic device of an aspect of the present invention, an extra positioning part made of elastic material is disposed on the positioning pin of the cover plate used for protecting a port. When the cover plate is detached and pulled, the positioning part may interfere with the positioning hole for temporarily positioning the cover plate at any position. By such means, the problem of the conventional technique that the cover plate dangles around when it is pulled can be resolved.
In order to make the aforementioned and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention comprehensible, a preferred embodiment accompanied with figures is described in detail below.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings are included to provide a further understanding of the invention, and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification. The drawings illustrate embodiments of the invention and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention.
Fig. 1 is a three-dimensional diagram of a conventional electronic device having a port.
Fig. 2 is an exploded view of an electronic device according to an embodiment of the present invention.
Fig. 3 is a cross-sectional view of a main frame and a cover plate of Fig. 2.
Fig. 4 is a cross-sectional view of a main frame and a cover plate of Fig. 3 when the cover plate is pulled upwards and interfered with a positioning hole.

DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

Fig. 2 is an exploded view of an electronic device according to an embodiment of the present invention. Referring to Fig. 2, the electronic device 200 mainly includes a main frame 210 and a cover plate 220. The main frame 210 has a port 212 and a positioning hole 214 near the port 212. In the present embodiment, the electronic device 200 is for example a mobile phone, and the port 212 is used for being plugged by a GPS antenna (not shown). If a user pulls upwards the cover plate 220 and plugs the GPS antenna into the port 212, the mobile phone then has a GPS navigation function. Besides the mobile phone, the electronic device 200 can also be an electronic device having the port, such as a notebook computer, a desktop computer or a PDA, etc. Moreover, the port 212 can also be a cable port, a modem port, a parallel port, a serial port, a USB port, a PS/2 port, a video output port, a removable media port, an S-video port, an earphone port for connecting an earphone, a microphone port for connecting a microphone, a memory car port or a power supply port for power input, etc. In other words, types of the electronic device 200 and the port 212 are not limited by the present invention.
The cover plate 220 is detachably assembled on a surface S of the main frame 210 for protecting the port 212 from external dust and dirt. Referring to Fig. 2 and Fig. 3, an inter surface of the cover plate 220 has a positioning pin 222 with a protrusion part 222a and a positioning part 222b located above the protrusion part 222a. One end of the positioning pin 222 is fixed on the cover plate 220, and another end thereof passes through the positioning hole 214 of the main frame 210. The protrusion part 222a is disposed at one end of the positioning pin 222 where passes through the positioning hole 214. Dimension of the protrusion part 222a is larger than that of the positioning hole 214, so that the cover plate 220 may not be separated from the positioning hole 214 when the user pulls upwards the cover plate 220.
Moreover, the protrusion part 222a is made of elastic material such as rubber. Therefore, as shown in Fig. 4, when the user pulls upwards the cover plate 220 and moves the positioning pin 222 towards the protrusion part 222a, the positioning part 222b is deformed and interfered with the positioning hole 214. In the present embodiment, the interference is that the positioning part 222b is tightly attached to the positioning hole 214, and since deformation of the positioning part 222b can just generate some friction force between the positioning part 222b and the positioning hole 214, the cover plate 220 is temporarily fixed when it is pulled upwards, and a dangling around problem of the cover plate 220 is avoided. In the present embodiment, the positioning part 222b includes a plurality of bumps made of rubber material. However, the positioning part 222b can also be a rubber ring as long as it is suitable to interfere with the positioning hole 214, so that type of the positioning part 222b is not limited by the present invention.
In the present embodiment, the main frame 210 has a groove 216 on its back, and the port 212 and the positioning hole 214 are located in the groove 216, and the cover plate 220 is detachably assembled to the groove 216 to protect the port 212 from external dust and dirt. Moreover, the cover plate 220 has an operating part 224 on its surface to facilitate the user to pull the cover plate 220. In the present embodiment, the operating part 224 is a protrusion rib, though it can also be a plurality of grooves that facilitate the user to pulls the cover plate 220 upwards.
In summary, in the electronic device of the present invention, an extra positioning part made of elastic material is disposed on the positioning pin of the cover plate used for protecting the port. By such means, when the cover plate is detached and pulled upwards, the positioning part is deformed and interfered with the positioning hole for temporarily positioning the cover plate at any position, so that the dangling around problem of the cover plate can be resolved.
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made to the structure of the present invention without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention. In view of the foregoing, it is intended that the present invention cover modifications and variations of this invention provided they fall within the scope of the following claims and their equivalents.

Claims

An electronic device (200), comprising:
a main frame (210), having a port (212) and a positioning hole (214) near the port; and

a cover plate (220), detachably assembled on a surface (S) of the main frame for protecting the port, the cover plate having a positioning pin (222) with a protrusion part (222a) and a positioning part (222b), wherein one end of the positioning pin is fixed on the cover plate, and another end of the positioning passes through the positioning hole, the protrusion part is disposed at one end of the positioning pin where passes through the positioning hole, a dimension of the protrusion part is larger than that of the positioning hole, so that the cover plate is not separated from the positioning hole, and when the cover plate is detached, the positioning pin can be moved, so that the positioning part interferes with the positioning hole for positioning the cover plate.
An electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the positioning part is made of elastic material.
An electronic device according to claim 2, wherein the positioning part comprises a plurality of bumps made of rubber material.
An electronic device according to claim 2, wherein the positioning part is a rubber ring.
An electronic device according to any preceding claim, wherein the main frame has a groove (216), and the port and the positioning hole are located in the groove, and the cover plate is detachably assembled to the groove.
An electronic device according to any preceding claim, wherein the cover plate has an operating part (224) on its surface to facilitate a user to pull the cover plate.
An electronic device according to any preceding claim, wherein the positioning part is connected to the protrusion part, and the positioning pin is arranged to be moveable towards the protrusion part to the positioning part, so as to interfere the positioning hole.
The electronic device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the positioning part is tightly attached to the positioning hole.