Sensor for a safety belt retractor

US5622383A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• TRW Occupant Restraint Systems GmbH & Co. KG · DE

Inventors

• Thomas Kielwein · Mutlangen, DE
• Rainer Bareiss · Alfdorf, DE

Key dates

• Filing date: Jan 5, 1996
• Grant date: Apr 22, 1997
• Expiry date: Jan 5, 2016

Classification

• Technology area (CPC B): Performing Operations; Transporting
• CPC primary: B60R2022/403
• WIPO field: Transport
• WIPO sector: Mechanical engineering

Abstract

For a sensor for the vehicle-sensitive triggering of the locking mechanism of a safety belt retractor in the back of a vehicle seat, with a ball seat (17) which has a trough (16) for accepting a sensor ball (15), and a pivotally mounted sensor lever (20) resting on the sensor ball (15), the amount of space required for pivoting the sensor in order to maintain the orientation of the sensor irrespective of the inclination of the seat back is to be reduced, without the distance between the tip at the free end of the sensor lever and the circumference of the control disk changing while the sensor is being pivoted. To this end, the sensor (10) is characterised by the ball seat (17) being pivotally mounted around an axis running through the center (C) of the sensor ball (15). In such an arrangement, only the ball seat, but not the entire sensor, is pivoted depending on the inclination of the seat back, which greatly reduces the amount of space required by the sensor; the distance between the tip of the sensor lever and the circumference of the control disk, however, remains unchanged.