Patent Publication Number: US-2011057081-A1

Title: Fastening Member of a Street Light Device

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     1. Field of the Invention 
     The present invention relates to a street LED (Light Emitting Diodes) lighting device, particularly to a street LED lighting device having a sleeve integrated thereof housing an upper jaw and the lower jaw to firmly fasten on the bent end of the lamp post. 
     2. Description of the Prior Art 
     Conventional street lamps are mostly either halogen or mercury lamps attached on the bent end of a lamp post. The lamp apparatus usually contains one or more than one halogen lamp or light emitting component, along with a reflector shield to reflect light emitted therefrom in order to achieve the desired illumination. 
     The conventional lamps, in general, consume more energy and expect shorter service life than LED lamps do. 
     The light beams of LEDs are known to have more condensed than do conventional light sources. But till recently, the luminosity of LEDs has been pretty limited, thus confining their use to such devices as signal lights, tail lights of vehicles, decorative lights, etc., which requires relatively low brightness. Fortunately, with the invention of blue light LED, and prices of LED steep depreciation, both of them prompt the development of the high brightness white light LED and their related applications. Particularly in the nowadays, when reducing energy consumption and carbon emission has become a major world issues. Governments around the world are encouraging people to replace their incandescent lighting with LED lighting, which is expected to become the mainstream of the market in the foreseeable future. Also called cold-cathode, LEDs are so different from conventional incandescent lights. They consume less energy and, longer service life time e.g. several tens of thousands of hours if they get adequate heat dissipation during lighting. By contrast, incandescent light bulbs usually last only about one thousand hours, while compact fluorescent bulbs, although lasting a bit longer, can only last up to a few thousand hours. 
     Unfortunately, the power of a single LED, even a so called high-power or high-brightness one, is usually a few watts only; the lighting generated is thus far from being adequate for most illumination needs. As a result, LED lighting devices often have tens of LEDs crowed in an rectangular array or a circular array mounted on predetermined curved board at in several light tube (light bars) side by side and with each light tube usually consisting of ten or more LED chips in several rows 
     One can easily imagine that, with tens of LED chips crowded in a closed space, the LEDS will soon suffer from overheating and even premature degradation. To avoid that, larger plane area or space to position the LED chips than that of conventional lighting devices is usually required. Besides, most LED lighting devices are designed for indoor use only. They do not take such natural ambient factors as rain, storms. 
     Particularly, in summer the island countries around the western coast of Pacific Ocean, e.g, Japan, Taiwan, and Philippine islands may suffer from several of typhoons invasions. A mid-class typhoon, e.g. level 12-15 gusty wind may bring the maximum sustain surface wind speed up to 32.7 to 50 m/s. for illuminative range up to 15 m, a street LED device has a planar area up to 1500 cm 2  is in common. The larger area needs, the more spectacular wind power may suffer. Thus a fastening member of the outdoor lighting devices must be strong enough to firmly fix it on the lamp post. 
     According to an embodiment of conventional method, the fastening member of street LED lighting device is similar to a halogen street lamp by having a sleeve directly holding an ends of a lamp post with several bolts to fasten them together. 
     In another embodiment, the sleeve is composed of an upper-half sleeve, and lower-half sleeve, respectively, mounted on an upper and a lower covers of the LED device. While assembling, the upper cover is engaged with the lower cover and with the upper part of the sleeve and the lower part of the sleeve holds on the lamp post associated with several bolts to fasten them together. 
     According to above embodiments, one internal diameter of the sleeve is just match one size of end lamp post. However, the specification of the lamp post in different countries or districts may usually differ. As a result, to cope with different sizes of the lamp post, more developing costs are usually necessary. More seriously, the upper cover or lower cover may also affect the design blue print due to change the inner diameter of the sleeve. 
     As forgoing drawback of the prior art, an object of the present invention is to disclose a fastening member for LED lighting device with lower cost and capable of cope with varies sizes of the end of lamp posts by just one internal size of sleeve associated with jaws, which may have different sizes to engage the end of lamp post. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention disclosed a fastening member for firmly fasten a street light device on a lamp post is disclosed, The fastening member comprises a sleeve formed integrated with a lower cover of said street light device, an upper jaw, a lower jaw and a plurality of bolts. The sleeve formed with a plurality of first thread-holes and a first through-hole at an upper portion and a plurality of second through-holes and a second thread-hole at a lower portion therein. The upper jaw and the lower jaw are placed in the hollow of the sleeve and preinstalled in by using the bolts screwed the thread-holes of the upper jaw and the lower jaw. Another bolts screwed on the first-thread-holes and the second thread-hole in advance. While installing the light device on the lamp post, the bolts screwed on the first-thread-holes and the second thread-hole are tighten. 
     Furthermore, an inner surface of a lower portion of the sleeve further has a sliding track and a convex surface of said lower jaw has a sliding groove corresponding to the track so that the lower jaw can be easier to position. The concave surface of the upper jaw and the lower jaw are also formed with multi-grooves along the axial direction of the sleeve so as to increase friction force against the lamp post and a water draining function too. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       The foregoing aspects and many of the attendant advantages of this invention will become more readily appreciated as the same becomes better understood by reference to the following detailed description, when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein: 
         FIG. 1  is a front view of a partial portion lighting device of the present invention; 
         FIG. 2  shows a side view of the upper jaw and lower jaw according to the present invention; 
         FIG. 3  is a side view of lighting device according to the present invention; 
         FIG. 4  is top view of a partial portion of the lower cover according to the present invention. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     As forgoing description, an outdoor lighting device such as a street LED device may has a planar area at least up to 1500 cm 2  for an illuminative radius up to 15 m, as a result, it is inferior to withstand windstorms. Thus a fastening member of the outdoor lighting devices must be strong enough to firmly fix it on the lamp post. 
     According a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the fastening member is very strong and has rain-water draining out function. Referring to  FIG. 1 , a partial portion of a street lighting device viewing from the front side is shown. The upper cover has a pattern of multiple slits  102   a  provided for air convection. The corresponding lower cover having space for installation of light tubes and formed with a sleeve  110  at one side of the lower cover. The sleeve  110  has an internal radius much larger than almost all of known sizes of the end portion of the lamp post so that a single size of the sleeve  110  can accommodate various sizes of lamp posts. An upper jaw  120  and a lower jaw  130  are placed in the hollow portion of the sleeve  110 . A couple of bolts are used to tight the jaws  120 ,  130  on the end of lamp post together. The things that lighting device manufacturers must to do are to make the curvature of the jaws  120 ,  130  matched with the lamp post. No extra design scheme for the lighting device is necessary except the curvature of the jaws must be varied in accordance with the lamp posts. The sizes of the lamp-posts may be different according to the districts and countries. 
     To facilitate a worker to setup the lighting device on the bent end of lamp post, the upper jaw  120  and the lower jaw  130  are disposed in the sleeve  110  in advance. Please refer to  FIG. 2 , the side view along the longitudinal direction of the sleeve  110  having the upper jaw  120  and the lower jaw  130  set therein. In  FIG. 3 , it shows the upper cover  102  and the lower cover  103  integrated with the sleeve  110  and housing a LED light tube formed with heat dissipation fins thereon. The upper jaw  120  is formed with a thread-hole  120   a  and two blind holes  120   b  therein. In a corresponding area to the upper jaw, the sleeve  110  has one through-hole  110   b  and two thread-holes  110   a  formed therein 
     The lower jaw  130  is formed with two thread-holes  130   b  and one through-hole  130   a . In a corresponding area to the lower jaw, the sleeve  110  has two through-holes  110   b  and one thread-hole  110  formed. 
     In addition, to save the time of alignment during installing the lower jaw  130  into sleeve  110 , in the lower part of the inner surface of the sleeve  110  is formed with a sliding track  111  and the outer surface i.e., a convex surface of the lower jaw  130  is formed with a sliding groove  131  corresponding thereto. Thus the groove  131  of the lower jaw  130  can be slid through the track  111  of the sleeve  110 . Alternatively, the positions of the sliding groove  131  and the sliding track  111  are swapped. 
     Before installing the lighting device onto the lamp post, a bolt  115  is screwed on the thread-hole  120   a  to hold the upper jaw  120  through the through-hole  110   b  of the sleeve  110 . Two another bolts  115  are screwed on the thread-holes  110   a  of the sleeve  110  presented as a ready state. 
     Similarly, the lower jaw  130  is slid through the sliding track  111 . Two bolts then hold the lower jaw  130  in the sleeve  110  through the through-hole  110   a  screwed on the thread-holes  130   b . Another bolt  115  then is screwed on the thread-hole  110   a  into the through-hole  130   b  of the lower jaw  130  presented as a ready state. The forgoing bolts  115  may be a bolt with hexagonal head tap and/or with inner hexagonal head tap  115   a.    
     While installing the LED light device, the bolt  115  screwed on the thread-hole  120   a  the upper jaw  120  is pulled up (along radial direction) so that the space spanned by the upper jaw  120  and the lower jaw  130  is more to accommodate and house the bent end of the lamp post. The upper jaw  120  together with the lower jaw  130  will then be firmly fasten on the bent end of the lamp post by means of two other bolts  115  on the thread-holes  110   a  closely engaged on the two blind holes  120   b  and one another bolt  115  screwed on the thread-hole  110   a  through the through-hole  130   a  to touch the lamp post. 
     Moreover, the inner (concave) surfaces of the lower jaw  130  and the upper jaw  120  is formed with multiple drainage grooves thereon to direct rain water flowing out and increase the friction against the lamp post. 
     Besides, the lower jaw  130  is not solid but has two pairs of holes  134  and  135 , respectively formed at the two sides of the sliding groove  131  to drain residual rain water out. 
     The lower jaw  120  has a function of draining water out is necessary since to increase capability of air convection upper cover  102  of the light device versus the gaps between the light tubes the surface of the upper cover  102  has formed of multiple slits  102   a . The multiple slits  102   a  are also become inlets of the rain water and drain water out from the gaps between the light tubes. The outer periphery of the lower cover  103  also formed with a ring of drainage trench  103   d  having two holes  136  formed therein to drain water. The rain water is firstly guided to the holes  136  and the residual is drained to the holes  134  and  135 . 
     The benefits of the present invention:
         1 The fastening member is composed of a sleeve, an upper jaw, a lower jaw, and bolts. The curvature of both jaws made is in accordance with the bent end of the lamp post. Thus the fastening member can withstand the strong winds.   2 In response to various districts may have versatile of lamp post, the fastening member can still be applied. The needs are just change the jaws without altering the sleeve. No alter the covers of the light device is necessary.   3 Since the upper jaw and the lower jaw together with several bolts are installed in the sleeve in advance, the thing only needed for a worker or engineer just pulls out the bolt  115  screwed on the thread-hole of the upper jaw  120  to increase the span space for housing the bent end of lamp post and then tighten the other bolts. Thus it is very convenient and easy to install the light device.   4 The fastening member contains water drainage function and thus it can be used in strict environments even the storm weather.       

     As is understood by a person skilled in the art, the foregoing preferred embodiment of the present invention is an illustration, rather than a limiting description, of the present invention. It is intended to cover various modifications and similar arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the appended claims, the scope of which should be accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and similar structures.