Electronic Appliance housing having storage portion

• Main Author: DEGUCHI, MANABU
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; French; German
• Published: 11.03.1998
• Edition: 6
• Subjects: BASIC ELECTRIC ELEMENTS; ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE; ELECTRICITY; PROCESSES OR MEANS, e.g. BATTERIES, FOR THE DIRECT CONVERSIONOF CHEMICAL INTO ELECTRICAL ENERGY; TRANSMISSION

An electronic appliance (1) has a cover (3) with a locking groove (6), and an operation portion (11) with a locking portion (15) engaging this locking groove. The cover is slidably mounted on the housing. Both the locking groove (6) of the cover and the locking portion (15) have portions inclined with respect to the sliding direction of the cover, for instance, a portion whose shape in section is a parallelogram. The operation portion has a portion slidable along a direction perpendicular to the sliding direction of the cover. By movement of this sliding portion, the locking portion (15) is slidably entered into and removed from the locking groove (6). When the locking portion engages the locking groove with the cover mounted on the housing, the cover is fixed so as not to fall off. On the other hand, the operation portion is attached to a portion of the housing, and has such a structure that the operation portion can be moved downwardly relative to the rest of the housing by depression from the upper direction. When the cover is mounted on the housing and the operation portion is depressed downwardly, the locking portion engaging the locking groove of the cover is also moved downwardly. In this way, a wedge effect is produced by an abutment force exerted between the opposed inclined edges of the locking portion and the locking groove. The cover is slid in the removal direction in response to the force produced by this wedge effect. As a consequence, the cover can be simply removed from the housing without the need for sliding operation of the locking piece. Since the cover is moved downwardly when the operation portion is depressed, the pawl of an engaging piece (7) for preventing the cover from falling out is also automatically released from the housing.