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US 5,005,558 AGranted
Endoscope
AssigneeKabushiki Kaisha Toshiba
InventorKohkichi Aomori
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An endoscope includes an operating body having a knob, a flexible insertion tube having a bending tube part, to be inserted into an object to be observed, and wires for bending the bending tube part by operating the knob. The bending tube part includes ring link members having a tubular form, and flexible connection members for coupling adjacent two ring link members at upper and lower or left and right sides thereof, alternately, to connect the ring link members with one another in series.
Claims19
An endoscope comprising:
- an operating body having an operating knob thereon;
- a flexible insertion tube connected to the operating body, including a flexible tube part, a bending tube part and an end part, in series;
- and
- wires for bending the bending tube part of the flexible insertion tube by operating the operating knob,
- the bending tube part comprising:
- ring link members having peripheral holes, the wires passing through the peripheral holes;
- and
- flexible connection members for coupling two adjacent ring link members at alternate pairs of sides to connect the ring link members with one another in series, each connection member being composed of a single flexible elongate member which is flexible in a direction approximately perpendicular to its longitudinal direction, the opposite ends of each flexible connection member being secured to the ring link members.
5 more elements
A bending tube part comprising:
- ring link members having peripheral holes, the wires passing through the peripheral holes;
- and
- flexible connection members for coupling two adjacent ring link members at alternate pairs of sides to connect the ring link members with one another in series, each flexible connection member being composed of a single flexible elongate member which is flexible in a direction approximately perpendicular to a longitudinal direction thereof, opposite ends of each flexible connection member being secured to the ring link members.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.