초록 ▼

A seat lifter for height adjustment of vehicle seat, which has a lifter linkage for vertical movement of the seat and a drive mechanism therefor. The lifter linkage includes a pair of links, a bell crank portion formed in one of the two links, and a rotation transmission link element including a sec

A seat lifter for height adjustment of vehicle seat, which has a lifter linkage for vertical movement of the seat and a drive mechanism therefor. The lifter linkage includes a pair of links, a bell crank portion formed in one of the two links, and a rotation transmission link element including a sector gear which is operatively connected with the bell crank portion. The drive mechanism comprises a ratchet-type lever mechanism operatively connected via a brake unit with the lifter linkage, the arrangement of which ratchet-type lever mechanism is such that only one-stroke operation of a lever causes a ratchet pawl member to rotate so as to bring a selected one of its two toothed ratchet pawls to meshed engagement with a mating one of two ratchet gear wheels, thereby allowing for automatically selecting a desired operative direction without any switch-over operation and then continuously transmitting a certain amount of rotation force to the lifter linkage, so that the vehicle seat can easily be raised or lowered to a certain level.

대표청구항 ▼

1. A seat lifter for adjustment in height of a vehicle seat, comprising:a linkage means for operative connection with the vehicle seat, said linkage means including a first link means and a second link means, each being to be pivotally connected with forward and rearward sides of the vehicle seat, r

1. A seat lifter for adjustment in height of a vehicle seat, comprising:a linkage means for operative connection with the vehicle seat, said linkage means including a first link means and a second link means, each being to be pivotally connected with forward and rearward sides of the vehicle seat, respectively, such as to allow rotative vertical motion of the linkage means, wherein one of said first and second link means is formed with a bell crank portion in an integral manner; a drive means operatively connected with said linkage means; said linkage means including a rotation transmission link means operatively connected between said linkage and drive means such that an operative rotation force applied from the drive means is transformed into said rotative vertical motion of the linkage means; a brake means for providing a braking action to the rotative vertical motion of said linkage means; said rotation transmission link means including a sector gear means which is in a meshed engagement with said brake means; and said drive means comprising a ratchet-type lever mechanism which includes: a support base means; a ratchet gear wheel means having a bearing shaft as the center of rotation thereof, said bearing shaft being rotatably supported by said support base means and securely connected with said brake means; said ratchet gear wheel means including at least a first ratchet gear wheel and a second ratchet gear wheel, wherein each of said first and second ratchet gear wheel has one-way clutch means built therein, with such an arrangement that said first ratchet gear wheel is to be locked to said bearing shaft in a normal direction for integral rotation therewith, while being allowed to rotate about said bearing shaft in a reverse direction, and that said second ratchet gear wheel is to be locked to said bearing shaft in said reverse direction, while being allowed to rotate about said bearing shaft in said normal direction; and a ratchet pawl means rotatably supported by said support base means, said ratchet pawl means including a pair of first and second toothed ratchet pawls which are disposed thereon in correspondence with the respective said first and second ratchet gear wheels and further spaced apart from each other by a central angle relative to said center of rotation associated with said bearing shaft of the ratchet gear wheel means; a lever means operatively connected with said ratchet pawl means; wherein operation of said lever means causes selective rotation of said ratchet pawl means in a selected one of said normal and reverse directions from a neutral position where the ratchet pawl means is normally out of meshed engagement with said ratchet gear wheel means, so that a selected one of said first and second toothed ratchet pawls is rotated in said selected one of the normal and reverse directions and brought to meshed engagement with a mating one of said first and second ratchet gear wheels; and a biasing means for normally biasing said ratchet pawl means in a direction to said neutral position, thereby normally placing both said first and second toothed ratchet pawls in a point out of engagement with said first and second ratchet gear wheels.