Connector device for an endoscope
AssigneeWarner Lambert Technologies, Inc.
InventorIan P. Collins
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An endoscope has a handle portion and a separate shaft portion which can be joined to the handle portion. The shaft portion has a flexible shaft flexing movement of which is controlled by knobs on the handle portion, and this motion is transmitted across the handle/shaft interface by meshing gearwheels. Each tooth of each gearwheel has a crown shaped so as to have a central ridge between sloping sides which facilitate interengagement of the gearwheels when the latter are brought into crown-to-crown engagement in a non-rotating condition.
Claims3
An endoscope having a shaft, a handle separable from the shaft and a mechanism for transmitting motion from the handle to the shaft, the mechanism comprising two rotatable gearwheels which are respectively rotatably mounted in the handle and shaft and which are capable of being taken into and out of engagement by relative movement of the handle and shaft, wherein each gearwheel has teeth each of which has a crown shaped so as to have a central ridge positioned between sloping sides which extend from the ridge to the corresponding face of the tooth, the sloping sides of the crowns facilitating interengagement of the gearwheels when the latter are brought into crown-to-crown engagement in a non-rotating condition, said crown sides being planar, the minimum angle of inclination (to a notional planar crown) being a function of the coefficient of friction of the material of the gearwheels, said minimum angle ranging between 20.degree. and 30.degree..
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.