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Tracked Sun Visor

Slides sideways, instead of swinging
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On the driver's side of the car, above the windshield, would be a narrow horizontal track, in which a bracket can roll or slide. Above the driver's side window would be a similar, second horizontal track, which can also hold a sliding or rolling bracket.

The sun visor would have two brackets, one on the upper left corner, one on the upper right corner. The left bracket would go into the track over the side window, and the right bracket would go into the track over the windshield. The connections between the visor and brackets would allow the visor to be swung up or down.

By being attached to two tracks, the visor could be used to block sun coming from in front, through the top of the windshield, or slid sideways to hide sun coming in through the side window, or anywhere in between.

Besides that it can block sunlight coming from that in between angle, the other benefit of this idea is that since the visor doesn't swing to move between front and side positions, there's little risk of it swinging and hitting the driver during a collision.

goldbb, Oct 04 2009

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       make the track circular, then any vista can be blocked, including the one of the person beside the driver.
loonquawl, Oct 05 2009
  

       Another, possibly simpler, way to achieve the same function would be to use a single point of contact, fixed to the car at the corner between the side window and the windshield, connected to a sliding/swiveling rail assembly on the top edge of the visor. Then you could slide the visor to the exact position you want it.   

       To block sun from the front, "pull" the visor to the right, so that the connection point is on the leftmost corner of the visor. This is essentially a standard visor position.   

       For the side window shade, instead of pulling the right side of the visor out like a door, like you would with standard visors, you would pull the left edge to the left, into and through the corner, then over the side window, so that the swivel point is on the rightmost edge of the visor. The motion is similar to your idea, but with just one track to slide. I think it might be easier to slide into position with only one track contact point (as opposed to the two in your idea), especially while driving.   

       You might have to fiddle with the shape of the top edge of the visor to get it to "make the corner." Your idea solves this issue by "straddling" the corner, in effect, suspended by the two connection points. With only one connection point right in the corner, this would be the tricky part to figure out.
tatterdemalion, Oct 05 2009
  

       21Q, Imagine a curved track, starting at some point above the door, ending near the middle of the windshield. Put two sliders on the track. Mount a sun visor onto those sliders, in such a way that it can still swing up, and can cope with being moved around the curve.   

       To reduce manufacturing costs, change the one-piece curved track, into two pieces of straight track, with one slider on each track.   

       Changing to a two piece track does limit how far the visor can be slid (since each slider is limited to being on it's own track), but if the visor is wide enough, that's not a problem.   

       tat, it sounds like your swiveling rail assembly, attached to the car at the corner between the side window and windshield, could very easily swivel right into the driver's face in a collision.
goldbb, Oct 05 2009
  

       getting hit by the visor is near the last thing that I am worried about in an accident. What I want is an active window tint that dynamically adapts to the position of the sun.
WcW, Oct 05 2009
  

       That should be bakable... just make your whole windshield into a big LCD.
goldbb, Oct 06 2009
  
      
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