Manual controller with control lever

US5680796A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• NBB Nachrichtentechnik GmbH & Co., KG · DE

Inventors

• Dieter Wustenberg · Kaiserslautern, DE
• Raymond Mohrbach · Berlin, DE
• Wolfgang Bredow · Mühlacker, DE
• Thomas Burchard · Pforzheim, DE
• Rolf Fazler · Sternenfels, DE
• Thomas Haug · Bern, CH
• Fabian Elsasser · Pforzheim, DE

Key dates

• Filing date: Nov 15, 1995
• Grant date: Oct 28, 1997
• Expiry date: Nov 15, 2015

Classification

• Technology area (CPC Y): Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
• CPC primary: Y10T74/20201
• WIPO field: Mechanical elements
• WIPO sector: Mechanical engineering

Abstract

A manual controller including a control lever having a lower end; a housing having a bottom; a bearing held in the housing and supporting the control lever for pivotable deflection in two orthogonal axes around a fixed point from a zero position to a maximum pivot angle relative to the zero position while the lower end of the control lever moves over a path lying in a spherical surface having a radius R; and converter devices which translate pivotal movement of the control lever from its zero position into an electrical signal. The bearing is an elastomer joint having a transition part extending between a rim and an inner part for imposing on the control lever an elastic restoring force from all deflection positions toward the zero position of the control lever while simultaneously maintaining the spatial position of the fixed point. The bottom of the housing has a preshaped part for guiding the lower end of the control lever, the preshaped part having the shape of a segment of a sphere which has a radius corresponding to the radius R, and the lower end of the control lever is movable along the surface of said preshaped part during deflection movement of the control lever.