The Ingenious Mechanism Behind Car Windows

The power window mechanism, which first appeared in the 1940s, was a luxury feature found in cars for the wealthy. Operated by hydroelectric system The first car equipped with electric windows was the Packard 180. By the late 80s, many cars in the international market had electric windows.

This is behind car windows has successful engineering design Let’s look at how the mechanism works by examining the lever mechanism used before.

How did the window mechanism in old cars work?

What we may encounter in old cars lever window opening mechanism, It has become so ingrained in our lives that it still occurs during an argument in traffic. “Open the window!” We can see the arm turning movement in response to saying. In fact, those who watched may remember that there was a section on this subject in Cem Yılmaz’s “Fundamentals” stand-up.

Anyway, let’s not get too off topic. The lever on these old cars, pushing or pulling the window He was on duty. It did not have a very complex mechanism, it could be made with a simple crank and gear mechanism.

When the crank turns, Pieces of the glass moved and the glass opened or closed. We can understand the mechanism much more clearly with the animations of the YouTube channel “Lesics” above.

Then another support point was added and the scissor mechanism emerged.

Raising or lowering the windows by supporting them from a single point, imbalance due to a small difference in friction It could lead. However, providing a second support to the glass could prevent this problem.

In this system called scissor type mechanism, the connections are One end is rotated in the middle, while the other end is connected to the sliders. The second support makes the mechanism much more stable. The same system is also used in places such as folding doors and computer keyboards.

Not everything was still perfect with car windows equipped with a scissor mechanism.

With the new mechanism, windows could suddenly fall down. To prevent this, the turning point spiral spring They placed it. This spring loosened during the window’s upward movement and was compressed during its downward movement.

This way, the glass did not fall suddenly and the effort was reduced. But the problems did not end there. The biggest gap in the system; of glasses, from outside the car It could be opened by pushing or pulling. That’s an open invitation to theft.

The worm gear mechanism was designed to prevent this problem.

A mechanism in which the worm gear can turn the flywheel but the flywheel cannot turn the worm gear. Since the crank is connected to the worm gear, only the passenger can operate the mechanism. When someone tries to move the glass, the movement goes to worm gear and everything gets stuck.

What happens in today’s electric mechanisms is that there is a small change to the gear mechanism. dc motor connecting. As you can see in the image above, the manual window simply turns into an electric window.

This design is also It was developed with a pulley and rope system. As you can see in the animation below, the slides connected to the rope support the glass.

If we list the advantages and disadvantages of electric windows:

The mechanism in the new generation windows allows you to easily control the windows by touching a single button while driving; driver, can control all windows; It does not require any extra force.

On the other hand, the parts of these electric windows are among the parts that wear out most easily over time. Sometimes even glass may become dislodged and may cause malfunction.

That’s the end of our content, where we shed light on one of the topics that can be a matter of curiosity about cars. So which glass system do you prefer? “I’m a nostalgic person, old style is good.” Are you one of those who say “Minimum effort, maximum efficiency. Keep going like this.” From those who say?

If you are interested in cars, you can check out our other content: