Abstract:
Our invention has to do with an electrical light fixture for brightening the usually dimmer portion of a drawer storage area. Also, this electrical light fixture is small enough to be attached to an inside surface of a desk. When attached, it is preferably located immediately above the storage area of a desk drawer. This invention does not take away the drawer space available for storage. Also, this electrical light fixture uses battery power for providing automatic lighting turn-on when the drawer is opened and for providing automatic turn-off when the drawer is closed. Alternatively, the automatic turn-off occurs after a pre-determined amount of time. This light fixture is especially convenient for those people who have vision difficulties either because of an illness, a surgical operation or just because of age such as being young children or elderly people.

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
     Our invention has to do with an electrical light fixture for brightening the usually dimmer portion of a drawer storage area. Also, this electrical light fixture is small enough to be attached to an inside surface of a desk. More specifically, this invention provides an automatic ON and OFF features using a photo-conductive sensor. 
     BACKGROUND INFORMATION 
     Drawers come in different sizes. Desk drawers are usually smaller than the drawers inside a dresser, kitchen cabinet or a closet. In turn, any lighting fixtures designed for cabinets, dressers and closets are generally too bulky for use in the desk drawers. A typical cabinet lighting system in the market today has more than one lamp attached to an inside cabinet wall near a cabinet door. This cabinet lighting fixture also has a transformer and a distribution box. Altogether, the fixture makes it too bulky for use inside a desk drawer. Practically speaking, this lighting fixture can not be easily carried off and be used in another place, and it would be too hard for those who have vision difficulties (e.g., the vision-impaired, young children, and the elderly people) to install and set up. 
     Although there are light fixtures available in the market today that are specifically designed for illuminating drawers, there are still many disadvantages in using those fixtures. Such a light fixture typically uses a mechanical switch for power turn-on, and it is fixedly attached to a drawer, and therefore, making battery changes difficult. Another such light fixture attaches to the inside surface of the drawer front face, which when the drawer is opened, its emitted lighting often is found to be unnecessary because of the existing room light. As the drawer opens, the attached light fixture also moves away from the back and dimmer portion of the drawer whereby making the light fixture less useful. Furthermore, this light fixture takes up storage space inside the drawer and takes away the space available for storage. 
     Therefore, one advantage of our invention is to provide a light fixture that does not take away the drawer space available for storage. 
     Another advantage of the invention is to provide a light fixture whose lighting is directed toward the dimmer portion of the drawer, and in such a manner, whereby enabling better illumination and easier recognition of the items stored toward the back of the drawer. 
     Yet another advantage of the invention is to provide a light fixture that is easily taken off from the desk for battery changes and that it powers the light bulb ON automatically when the drawer is opened. Furthermore, it provides an automatic light bulb power OFF when the drawer is closed. Alternatively, the light is automatically shut-off after a pre-determined amount of time. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     According to these and other features of our invention, a light fixture is provided for illuminating a drawer for overcoming the disadvantages of the known light fixtures. Briefly, our drawer light fixture has a housing that contains a bulb and battery as its power source. It is removably attached to the inner surface of the desk face that is immediately above the drawer. It further has a photo-conductive sensor that operates as a gating element between the light bulb and the battery. The sensor serves as an ON/OFF switch and is sensitive to the background room light. When triggered by the room light, the sensor would electronically close the switch and turn the light bulb ON. As the drawer closes, the lack of room light would cause the sensor to open the circuit whereby turning the light bulb OFF. Alternatively, a timer circuit electronically coupled to the photo-conductive sensor would turn the bulb OFF after a pre-determined amount of time. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     The above advantages of our invention will no doubt become apparent upon a reading of the following descriptions and a study of the three figures of the drawing. 
     FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing where a preferred embodiment of our invention is placed relative to a drawer; 
     FIG. 2 is a perspective view of another preferred embodiment showing the appearance and features of the present invention; and 
     FIG. 3 illustrates a general and simple circuit diagram for the present invention. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
     With today&#39;s advances in technology, the battery-powered light fixture designs generally do not require the rendering of fully detailed implementation diagrams. The definition of electronic functionality allows those skilled in the art to design the desired light fixture implementations. Accordingly, functionality will be described in detail with the accompanying drawings. Those of ordinary skill in the art, once given the following descriptions of the various functions to be carried out by the present invention will be able to implement the necessary mechanical and electrical arrangements in suitable technologies without undue experimentation. 
     Referring now to the drawings, FIG. 1 shows a partial view of a desk  10  having a tabletop  11  and a drawer  12 . The desk  10  has a separation strip  15  located immediately above the drawer  12  and below the tabletop  11 . FIG. 1 also shows an illuminating light fixture  20  embodying the present invention, and it is removably attached to the desk  10 . More specifically, the light fixture  20  shown in dash illustrates that it is attached to the inner face of the separation strip  15  of the desk  10 . Further, the light fixture  20  has a transparent bulb cover  17  through which light is emitted. The bulb cover  17  may be placed in a position along the inner surface of the separation strip  15  that is convenient for item illumination and recognition. A preferred way for such attachment is through the use of VELCRO  25  or other fastening products in any similar and commercially available manner. In the case of the light fixture  20 , VELCRO  25  is wrapped around the light fixture  20  in a generally centrally position. As a result, VELCRO  25  allows the light fixture  20  to be easily taken off of the desk  10  for battery change or easily carried off for use in another location. 
     The light fixture  20  shown in FIG. 1 has an elongated and generally cylindrical housing, however, engineers who work in this field can easily adapt the shown embodiment with typical engineering efforts into other form factors and configurations, for example, a generally rectangular housing. Preferably, the weight of the housing is to be as light as possible, and the width of the housing is to be as narrow as possible so that light fixture  20  could be easily attached to the back of the separation strip  15  using VELCRO  25 . 
     FIG. 2 illustrates a perspective view of another preferred embodiment of the present invention. Referring now to FIG. 2 in conjunction with FIG. 1, the light fixture  25  also includes an elongated, hollow and generally cylindrical housing  30  formed of plastics or similarly light-weight materials. The fixture  25  further includes a transparent bulb cover  27 , a photo-conductor  31  and two VELCRO pieces  29  (one on the other side of the housing  30 , and not shown). Although only a portion of the transparent bulb cover  27  is shown, it is readily understood to those skilled in the art that the transparent bulb cover  27  is preferably semi-cylindrical in configuration which covers a portion of an end surface and side surface of the cylindrical housing  30 . 
     The appearance of the light fixture  25  is different from that of the light fixture  20  in that a recess  32  cuts into the generally cylindrical housing  30  at the end opposite to the end where the bulb cover  27  is located. The recess  32  may be up to a substantial portion of that cylindrical end of the housing  30 . Also, the VELCRO fabric  29  that is preferably glued to the housing  30  does not wrap around the housing  30 . The two patches of the VELCRO fabric  29  allow the light fixture  25  to be easily attached to the separation strip  15  in either direction. Clearly, a receiving VELCRO fabric (not shown) needs to be fastened (e.g., glued) to the inner surface of the separation strip  15  for such an attachment. In this manner, the light fixture  25  can be easily taken off for battery changes or for transport. 
     The diameter of the cylindrical housing  30  is sufficiently large to allow the housing  30  to receive batteries (not shown), for example, two size A batteries, but it is also sufficiently narrow so that its diameter is shorter than the width of the separation piece  15 . The housing  30  has two compartments  36 , 38 , which one compartment  38  contains the batteries and the necessary circuitry including a photo-conductor  31 , and the other compartment  36  contains a light bulb (not shown). The photo-conductor  31  is located on a side-facing surface  33  of the recess  32  whereas the photo-conductor of the light fixture  20  although not illustrated in FIG. 1, it is located on the end surface away from view. In FIG. 2, the photo-conductor  31  may also be preferably located on the downward-facing surface of the recess  32 . 
     The light bulb inside the compartment  36  emits light through the transparent bulb cover  27 . For clarity purposes, the electrical connections between the bulb, the photo-conductor  31  and the batteries are not shown in FIG. 2; however, only typical engineering efforts are required from the artisans for implementing the electrical connections of the present invention. A general and simple circuit diagram for the present invention is hereinafter described in FIG.  3 . 
     Again referring to FIG. 2, the two housing compartments  36 , 38  are joined together in a usual threaded manner as in how two compartments of a typical flash light tube are joined together. The bulb cover  27  is preferably made of either a transparent, translucent or any material capable of providing good lighting effects whereas the remaining portion of the compartment  38  and the housing compartment  36  that contains the batteries are preferably made of an opaque plastic material of any color. An aperture is provided on the side-facing surface  33  of the compartment  38 , and through which the photo-conductor  31  is securely seated. This photo-conductor  31  in effect acts as an ON/OFF switch to the light bulb. 
     On the one hand, as the drawer  12  is opened, it allows room light to reach the photo-conductor  31 . Even with just a tiny amount of light, the photo-conductor  31  drops in resistance to provide an open channel for the battery power to energize the bulb. The bulb does not need much power to brighten the dimmer and backend portion of the drawer  12 . However, the resulting lighting does allow those who have vision difficulties such as young children or the elderly people to better recognize the items located toward the backend portion of the drawer  12  where the room light is typically not bright enough for the vision-impaired. On the other hand, as the drawer  12  is closed, the lack of room light will cause the photo-conductor  31  to act like an open circuit and therefore cutting off the battery power supply to the light bulb. 
     FIG. 3 is a general and simple circuit diagram describing the present invention. This general circuit  45  includes a battery  50 , a light bulb  55 , a transistor  60 , a photoconductor  65  and a resistor  70 . The bulb  55  is preferably of a low wattage matching the batteries. The transistor is preferably of a low-power FET, for example, the Motorola MTP series FET. The photo-conductor  65  is typically a cadmium sulfide (CdS) photocell. It has a resistance value in the tens of mega-ohms at its high end. However, as the room light reaches the photo-conductor  65 , its resistance drops to several hundred ohms. The resistor  70  is preferably of low resistance, for example, 3.3K ohms, as compared to the high resistance value of the photo-conductor  65 . When the drawer  12  is closed, very little light falls on the CdS photo-conductor  65 . Therefore, its internal resistance is extremely high whereby keeping the transistor  60  OFF and preventing current to pass through the bulb  55 . Optionally, a diode may be added across the transistor  60  to further ensure that no current passes through the bulb  55  during the high resistance phase of the CdS photo-conductor  65 . When the drawer  12  is opened, the room light hits the CdS photo-conductor  65 . Its resistance drops to several hundred ohms whereby turning the transistor  60  ON and allowing the current to pass through the bulb  55 . 
     As a matter of implementation, the components such as the transistor  60  and the resistor  70  are preferably be located close to the photo-conductor  65  inside the housing; however, engineering efforts may result in numerous adequate designs without undue experimentation. Furthermore, with the addition of a few more electronic components including for example, a couple of operational amplifiers and diodes, one can construct a light-controlled one-shot timer circuit found in any typical electronics text. Briefly, the first operational amplifier is configured as a voltage comparator to sense a change in voltage that is applied across the photo-conductor  65 , and the other operational amplifier is configured to trigger a one-shot timer by the output of the first operational amplifier. Operationally speaking, as the room light falls on the CdS photo-conductor  65  and causes the voltage that is applied across the photo-conductor  65  to change. The one-shot timer is then triggered and whereby allowing the light bulb  55  to be energized for a pre-determined amount of time such as 60 seconds before the battery power is cut off. 
     While the present invention has been described in terms of a few preferred embodiments, it is contemplated that persons reading the foregoing detailed description and studying the drawing will realize various alterations and modifications for this invention. It is therefore intended that the following appended claims be interpreted as including all such alterations and modifications as fall within the true spirit and scope of the present invention.