Patent Publication Number: US-2007121316-A1

Title: Garage door drive with a light unit

Description:
The invention relates to a garage door drive comprising a housing and at least one light unit.  
      It is already known to combine garage door drives with a light unit to illuminate the garage. In this case, the known light units are as a rule integrated into the housing of the garage door drive. For this purpose, a part of the housing must have corresponding mounts for the lamps and a part of the housing must be designed as a transparent cover. The overall size of the garage door drive thereby becomes large. Due to the integrated light unit in the housing, the entire drive is also more expensive. Finally, it is comparatively complex to change defective lamps since the transparent cover has to be removed from the housing and the lamp has to be unscrewed from the mount in order to replace it with a new lamp.  
      A garage door drive with a light unit is already known from DE 203 05 579 U in which a plurality of mounting positions are fixedly integrated at the housing for the mechanical and electrical connection of the light unit made in a mountable and removable manner. A respective plug-ready cabling is provided in the housing here and the light unit can then be plugged into said cabling. A plurality of mounting positions, onto which corresponding light units can be mounted only as required, are in particular provided with garage door drive housings of a modular design which should be usable for different types of garage door drives. This means that, for example when six mounting positions are provided and two light units are plugged in, four mounting positions are unused. These mounting positions are, however, all pre-cabled and provided with electrical connection terminals.  
      It is the object of the present invention to further develop a generic garage door drive with a light unit such that the effort for the pre-fitting of the housing is minimized as much as possible even when a plurality of mounting positions are provided at the housing.  
      This object is solved in accordance with the invention in that, with a generic garage door drive, at least one mounting positions can be used in at least one receiver at the housing for the mechanical and electrical connection to a light unit. In accordance with the solution of the invention, only mechanical receivers have to be provided at the housing which can be taken into account on the shaping of the housing. This receiver only serves the mechanical reception, but not the electrical connection. The corresponding cabling and the corresponding installation and provision of electrical contacts are thus omitted in the receiver positions. The electrical contacting takes place in accordance with the invention by separately mountable mounting positions which serve the mechanical and electrical connection to respective light units. They are plugged into the corresponding housing receiver mechanically and are latched there. These mounting positions, which only have to be mounted to the receivers in the housing in the number which will then later actually carry light units, are connected to the power source with electrical cabling. The assembly effort for the housing of the garage door drive can hereby be further simplified.  
      Advantageous aspects of the invention result from the dependent claims following on from the main claim. The light unit can thus consist of a lamp fitting for a lamp which can be mounted onto and latched to a mounting position. 
    
    
      Further features, details and advantages of the invention result from the embodiment shown in the drawing. There are shown:  
       FIG. 1 : a garage door drive with mounted light units, open, in a view from above;  
       FIG. 2 : a detail of the garage door drive in accordance with  FIG. 1 ;  
       FIG. 3 : a detail of the garage door drive in accordance with  FIG. 1  with a plugged-in mounting position; and  
       FIG. 4 : different perspective representations of a mounting position for use in the garage door drive in accordance with the invention. 
    
    
      A garage door drive  10  is shown in  FIG. 1  which accommodates a motor  14  inside the housing  12 , of which only the lower side is shown, and drives a corresponding pulling  ns  16  via said motor, said pulling means running in a correspondingly C-shaped rail ( 14 ) in a sufficiently known manner. Since garage door drives of this type of construction are largely known, a detailed description is superfluous at this point. Reference is made to DE 203 03 315 U with respect to the structure of such a door drive housing for such a garage door drive. In particular the modular structure of a corresponding housing for a garage door drive is shown in detail there.  
      As can, for example, be seen from  FIG. 2 , a row of receivers  18  is provided in the region of the housing  12  and pluggable mounting positions  20  can be mounted on said receivers. The receivers  18  are provided at predetermined positions of the housing  12 . In the representation in accordance with  FIG. 2 , only one receiver can be seen. In the embodiment shown here, however, four receivers  18  can, for example, be provided, with them being arranged symmetrically at the edge of the housing. In a modular extension of the housing, as many more receivers as desired can also be provided. Depending on requirements, mounting positions  20  are now plugged into the receivers to be able to mount light units to be supplied with power onto these mounting positions. In  FIG. 3 , a mounting position  20  is inserted by way of example into a corresponding receiver  18  of the housing.  
      The precise structure of the mounting position  20  results from  FIGS. 4 and 5 . The mounting position  20  is made as an injection-molded part and has, on the one hand, two cylindrical projections  22  which can be plugged into corresponding cut-outs in the receiver  18  on the housing side to permit a mechanical securing in the housing  12  here. Movable tongues  24  are provided at the side at the mounting position  20  and have latch projections  26  for latching with corresponding projecting noses  28  in the region of the receivers on the housing side (cf.  FIG. 2 ). The mounting positions furthermore have electrical contacts  30 , with these electrical contacts  30  being supplied with power via a power supply cable  32 . The power supply cable  32  is then connected in each case to a power supply in the housing  12  (in a manner not shown in any more detail). Respective lamp fittings  34  can be mounted onto the mounting position  20  and are made, for example, as lamp fittings for lamps  26 .