Development of Resin Made Belt Type Sunroof with Light Weight

The leading trend for sunroof drive systems is to transmit motor torque to the functional components by engaging a helical gear with a winding wire cable. However, this structure may decrease the power transmission efficiency at the gear-engaging portion, making it necessary to use a larger motor with higher torque. Further, in order to ensure the strength of the gear-engaging portion, a steel gear and steel cable are used. This makes it necessary to provide flocking or coating on the cable surface to reduce the engagement or sliding noise between the cable and gear.

Accordingly, we have developed a low cost and weight reduced sunroof drive system using a resin belt drive, compact size motor and resin integrated functional components. This paper introduces our development activity.