Title

INTEGRATED AND PROGRAMMABLE LIGTHING SYSTEM FOR ELECTRIFIED SURFACES

Technical field

The present invention belongs to the sector of lighting devices, in particular to the sector of lamps that are used to obtain light plays, for example in carrousels for amusement parks .

More specifically, the present invention is an integrated and wireless (insofar power cables are concerned) system for obtaining light plays on low voltage electrified surfaces, such as for example surfaces of bumper cars.

Present status of the art

A need is felt in amusement parks for obtaining light plays for living up various installations and games, thus enriching the sensations perceived by users.

Often amusement parks and fun parks perform their activities in an itinerating manner, consequently a need is also felt for being able to assemble and disassemble an installation, be it a carrousel, a bumper cars installation or the like, in very short times and with a reduced employment of manpower .

Also, in bumper cars, the use of electrified surfaces is widely diffused in order to supply electrical power to cars by using a sufficiently low voltage as to be harmless for persons .

According to the principle of operation of electrified surfaces, they are subdivided into a number of areas made from a conductive material, which make-up the positive pole of the power supply system, and areas that conversely make up the negative pole; sliding contacts are present under the bumper cars which, by getting in contact with these plates, supply power to the cars; this is the reason why the individual areas are rather restricted, so that each bumper car always has, in any positions, two sliding contacts in contact with two plates powered with voltages of opposite signs .

In the constructional practice, the conductive areas are made from metal sheets and the insulation between areas featuring opposite polarities is obtained by way of electrically insulating strips, almost always made from a polymeric material, such as for example polycarbonate or the like .

The presence of plastic strips on the surfaces is taken advantage of to develop a practice of using an at least partially transparent plastic, under which a plurality of illuminating bodies are often arranged; the lamps of these illuminating bodies are controlled in such a way as to form light plays, such as for instance color changes, rainbows, pursuits, flashings; for this purposes, in each illuminating body light emission shall be switched on and off, and its intensity and color shall be changed synchronously with those of the remaining illuminating bodies.

These light effects are very pleasant and appreciated by the public, however it is necessary to wire a big number of illuminating bodies in order to implement them, by supplying each of them both with a power supply voltage and a control signal .

In order to minimize these wirings, a number of solutions have been developed, aiming at reducing or eliminating the need for installing signal cables; for example, US 2017280521 (Al) discloses a control module for controlling a LED lighting system, which is capable of handling a plurality of characteristics of the power transmitted on the power supply line, for example the frequency and the amplitude of the power supply signal. The control module can receive instructions, including wireless instructions, via an external interface, and regulates the operation of the lighting system accordingly.

U.S. patent application US 2017257935 (Al) deals with an intelligent lighting system comprising a plurality of lighting elements (LEDs) placed inside an at least partially transparent case, a processor or a microcontroller, a memory, a timer, a receiver capable of receiving wireless control signals from a DMX controller, and a battery.

U.S. patent application US 2013278169 (Al) deals with a portable lighting module comprising a rechargeable battery, a processor, a memory module, at least one light assembly formed of at least one LED, and a DMX wireless receiver- transmitter. The processor controls the light emission of the light assemblies and a predetermined set of controls is stored in the memory to control the one or several light assemblies; the processor executes said control instructions and outputs a signal directed to said one or several light assemblies .

In the bumper car sector, the presence of an electrified metal surface makes it difficult to use radio transmissions and, additionally, if the illuminating bodies receive power from batteries, it would be necessary to frequently replace the latter.

Also, the absence of wiring makes it difficult to synchronize the operation of the individual illuminating bodies; each of them usually comprises a microcontroller with a clock circuit which in turn scans time; however, since these are devices that operate independently of one another, it is necessary to synchronize them from time to time.

The above described problems and others known to those skilled in the art have been solved by an integrated lighting system as described and claimed under.

Objects and summary of the invention

The object of the present invention is to provide a lighting system for electrified surfaces that allows to make synchronized light plays between individual illuminating bodies, the latter not being connected to each other by power cablings .

In particular, an object of the present invention is to provide a lighting system wherein the check and control devices used to control the individual illuminating bodies can be synchronized to each other.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an integrated lighting system for surfaces for bumper cars that is rapid to install and simultaneously does not require electrical wirings.

A last but not least object of the present invention is to provide a lighting system whose illuminating bodies can be maintained from the upper side of the surface, without being obliged to disassemble the panels that make up the electrified surface.

The integrated system according to the present invention comprises an electrified surface subdivided into a plurality of portions, electrified with voltages of opposite signs alternatively, and separated from each other by areas made from an insulating material.

Illuminating bodies are placed under the partially transparent areas made from an insulating material, which present two poles for electric power supply, the former pole being conductively connected to a respective portion of the electrified surface having a sign opposite to that which the second pole is connected to.

Each illuminating assembly comprises one or several LEDs, preferably six RGB LEDs, a microcontroller, a programming connector, an EPROM memory, and an electric power supply unit .

The individual controllers are synchronized by way of the electric power supplied to the electrified surface and can be implemented according to different procedures; in the case of a direct current power supply, the simplest procedure consists of using the normal electrified surface switch on and off cycles; as a matter of fact, in the case of bumper cars, for example, power supply voltage is removed from the electrified surface each two or three minutes in order to stop the vehicles and make it possible an exchange of passengers, before making the subsequent cycle re-start.

In this event, the power supply units of all illuminating bodies, after switching them off, sense the recovery of the power supply voltage and make their respective clock start in the same instant in time, thus making them synchronize to each other.

This solution provides very satisfactory results if the switch on and off cycles are repeated at a certain frequency, whereas the clock circuits in the individual illuminating bodies might progressively lose their synchronization in the case of very-long time intervals.

In order to obviate this drawback, in a second, particularly highly performing embodiment according to the invention the electrified surface power supply system introduces instantaneous voltage variations in the power supply signal; the very short duration of these sudden voltage changes makes them irrelevant for the operation of the installation, but is sufficiently long as to make the power supply unit of the illuminating bodies perceive such sudden changes of voltage, by way of DC voltage detectors, so that all illuminating bodies simultaneously synchronize to each other. A third embodiment according to the invention is used in the case that the electrified surface receives power from an alternate current source. In this case, the power supply unit of the illuminating bodies perceive a change of sign in the power supply voltage via respective frequency detectors and synchronize to each other accordingly. Preferably, the illuminating bodies comprise a diode bridge in order to rectify the alternate current.

In order to be able to vary the programming of illuminating bodies in real time, a fourth embodiment according to the invention has been developed, wherein each illuminating body comprises a serial communication interface, for example comprising a universal asynchronous receiver-transmitter (UART) , by means of which each illuminating body is electrically connected to a data transmission network.

Brief description of the drawings

Figure 1 shows a schematic diagram of an integrated lighting system according to the present patent: the figure shows electrically conductive areas (13, 14) alternating to electrically insulating areas (2); the light emitted by the illuminating bodies (3) goes through the transparent portions of the electrically insulating areas.

Figure 2 shows a block diagram of an illuminating body (3) of a system according to the present patent application, implemented in a particularly complete version. In particular, the figure shows the poles (31, 32), electrically connected to electrically conductive areas (1) of the electrified surface receiving power from voltages of opposed signs respectively, an AC/DC converter (8) which, in the case of an alternate current power supply as with the third embodiment, rectifies the current and subsequently applies it to the power supply unit (7) ; the latter separately supplies power to the LEDs (4) and to the microcontroller (5) . The diagram also shows a DC voltage detector (11) and a frequency detector (9); the simultaneous presence of both these devices in one and the same functional design aims at the possibility of manufacturing illuminating bodies (3) all equal to each other, so as to incorporate all the different embodiments, for practical reasons and in order to get a more cost-effective management thereof; this is the reason why the figure also shows a serial communication interface (10), which is actually used in the fourth embodiment only. Figure 3 shows a prototype of an illuminating body (3) having a rhomboidal shape implemented according to the teachings of the present disclosure.

Detailed description of an embodiment of the invention

According to a preferred embodiment, a lighting system for electrified surfaces in accordance with the present invention comprises an area subdivided into a plurality of electrically conductive portions (1), supplied with a positive voltage (13) or a negative voltage (14) alternatively, separated from each other by a plurality of at least partially transparent electrically insulating areas (2), and a plurality of illuminating bodies (3) placed under the electrified surface in correspondence with said electrically insulating areas (2) .

Each of said illuminating bodies (3) comprises a first supply pole (31) electrically connected to at least one of said areas (13) supplied with a positive voltage; a second supply pole (32) electrically connected to at least one of said areas (14) supplied with a negative voltage; a power supply unit (7) which receives a voltage from said first and second poles (31, 32) and supplies power both to the LEDs (4) and to a microcontroller (5), which in turn interfaces to an EPROM memory (6) and controls said one or several LEDs (4); the latter are preferably of the RGB type; the LEDs are controlled according to a specific program, i.e. by switching them on and off and varying the intensity and the color of their light emission so as to form light plays together with the remaining illuminating bodies. According to a particularly comfortable and practical embodiment, each of said illuminating bodies (3) has two holes (12), at least partially coated by a conductive material, which define said supply poles, so as to allow a direct connection to the electrically conductive portions of the surface (1), for example by means of simple screws, without any need for using a power wiring. This solution makes it easier to replace the illuminating bodies (3), even in the case of existing floor surface of a traditional type.

According to a particularly practical configuration, the microcontroller comprises a programming interface, such as for instance a connector.

Operationally wise, the clock circuit in the microcontroller can be reset whenever the electrified surface is switched on; should the switching on and off operations be rather frequent, as occurs in the case of bumper cars, this is sufficient to provide a good synchronization of the illuminating bodies (3); otherwise, the microcontrollers of the different illuminating bodies can be synchronized to each other by introducing an instantaneous, sudden change of the voltage in supplying power to the electrified surface. The sudden change of voltage does not affect the operation of the game, whereas it is perceived by the power supply unit (7) which transmits this information to the microcontroller (5), which in turn resets its own clock circuit .

For electrified surfaces receiving power from an alternate current source, a version of the illuminating bodies has been developed which comprises a diode bridge, or another device for rectifying an alternate current; in this event, the power supply unit (7) perceives the zero crossing of the voltage and transmits this information to the microcontroller (5) for resetting purposes.

A particularly complete embodiment has also been developed, which can be suitably used in the case that it is desired to be able to vary the program in any moment, on the basis of which the operation of the illuminating bodies (3) is controlled. In this event, it is necessary that each illuminating body (3) be electrically connected to a data transmission network via a communication interface (10), such as for instance a universal asynchronous receiver- transmitter, also referred to as UART .