Endoscope

An endoscope, comprising:

• a handle;
• an insertion shaft projecting distally from the handle;
• a solid-state camera mounted at a distal end of the insertion shaft, the insertion shaft being designed for insertion into a cavity to carry the camera to a viewing location intended by a user;
• the camera being mounted on a flexible circuit board, the flexible circuit board being mounted at the distal end of the insertion shaft by engaging in a slot in a chassis;
• a chassis designed to mount the camera at the distal end of the insertion shaft:
• the chassis formed as two molded subcomponents designed to be assembled to present a bilaterally symmetric solid in a body component to fit within the insertion shaft, the two parts separated on a plane of symmetry, a division of the chassis being generally perpendicular to the flexible circuit board, the slot being formed as two opposing sub-slots each formed into the two subcomponents;
• the sub-slots being designed to capture the flexible circuit board during assembly, and to bend the flexible circuit board into a desired shape as the two chassis subcomponents are brought together, with the camera mounted on the flexible circuit board to be urged into a desired position by the resilience of the flexible circuit board as bent by the slot, the curved slot through the interior of the chassis designed to retain the flexible circuit board within the channel, the retaining holding the flexible circuit board to urge the camera housing and illumination LED against the window, without adhesive;
• the chassis having a tail portion designed for insertion into a retaining component affixed to the end of a rigid tube, the chassis tail having an external shape designed to engage with an internal shape of the retaining component, the engagement designed to ensure a designed angular relationship between the chassis and rigid tube and assembly n only one way;
• an illumination LED mounted on the flexible circuit board, the camera housing and illumination LED being mounted on opposite sides of the flexible circuit board;
• the flexible circuit board having a retaining clip at its distal end, the retaining clip being clipped to hold the camera and illumination emitter in desired relationship within the distal tip of the insertion shaft;
• a window over the camera at the distal tip of the insertion shaft;
• a lens clip attached to an end of the flexible circuit board, the lens clip having an inner surface designed to engage with an outer surface of the camera housing to retain the LED in a designed position, for urging against the window;
• the internal surface of the external housing and exterior surface of the chassis being designed to engage with each other, and designed to ensure assembly in only one way;
• the endoscope being designed as one of the family having differing optical properties, the endoscopes of the family using parts interchangeable among each other, except that components of the endoscope related to the varying optical property are specific to the scope with that optical property.