JPS60241011A - Endoscope - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent the connection terminal of the lead wire of a surface plate type image sensor arranged at the tip part of the endoscope composed of a hard part and a bendable soft part from being broken by arranging the unbundled part of the lead wire at the hard part. CONSTITUTION:The rectangular surface plate type image sensor 32 is arranged on a plane containing the lengthwise center axis of the tip part 10 of the endoscope consisting of the hard part 12 and bendable soft part 14; and an objective optical system 20 is arranged in its lower space and an extractor-shaped channel 26, etc., are arranged in the upper space. One-terminal sides of the unbundled part 42 and bundled part 44 of the lead wire 40 which is connected to the extremely small photodetection body of the sensor 32 and sends a video signal are arranged at the hard part 12 and the remaining bundled part 44 is arranged at the bendable soft part 14. Therefore, the lead wire 40 is never broken when bent.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to an endoscope, and more particularly to an endoscope in which a face plate-like image sensor is disposed at its distal end as an imaging element.

In addition to endoscopes that use a so-called optical fiber bundle as an image guide, a TV endoscope has been proposed that uses a face plate-like image sensor that is a matrix arrangement of microphotoreceptors and is combined with a charge transfer device such as a CCD. has been done. This type of TV endoscope has advantages such as being more durable than conventional endoscopes using image guide fibers, being able to perform various types of processing on electrical signals as video output, and being cost-effective. It is excellent in this respect, and its practical application is being considered.

Incidentally, the face-plate image sensor used as the tip image sensor of a TV endoscope has recently become considerably smaller due to improvements in its manufacturing technology and degree of integration, but it is still insufficient for application to endoscopes. I can't say that. This is because, as is well known, the outer diameter of an endoscope must be small in order to be inserted into a body cavity; for example, for a gastroscope, an outer diameter of about 10 wm or less is desirable. Furthermore, even if the size of the image sensor that is provided has been miniaturized to a satisfactory degree, there is also a demand for improving the resolution, that is, increasing the number of picture elements on the image sensor. works in the direction of increasing.

Against this background, in constructing a so-called TV endoscopic mirror, it is important to consider how efficiently the endoscope tip structure, especially the image sensor or the objective optical system for forming an optical image on it, can be constructed in terms of space. An important point is where to place them.

In addition, as image sensors become more highly integrated, the number of lead wires naturally increases and the diameter of the IJ-1 wire bundle increases. This poses a major problem for endoscopes that require the placement of water channels. Furthermore,
Since the individual lead wires are made of extremely thin conducting wires, they are extremely weak in strength and must be handled with care. In particular, the connection end of the lead wire to the image sensor is configured in an unbound state, and there is a risk of the wire breaking easily if it is bent as the end of the insertion portion of the endoscope bends.

[Purpose of the invention]

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to propose an endoscope in which the connection end of the lead wire connected to the image sensor disposed at the tip of the endoscope insertion section does not break. There is.

[Summary of the invention]

The present invention focuses on the fact that the tip of the endoscope insertion section is composed of an unbendable hard part and a bendable soft part following the hard part, and allows the lead wires connected to the image sensor to be unbundled. The hard part is arranged in the hard part.

〔Example〕

Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the endoscope according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIGS. 1 and 2 show an example in which the present invention is applied to a direct-viewing endoscope, as a side sectional view and a schematic front view of the distal end, respectively. As shown in FIG. 1, the distal end portion 10 of the endoscope insertion section is composed of a rigid distal end portion 12 and a flexible portion 14. As shown in FIG. The rigid tip portion 12 is made up of a tip metal fitting 16 and is unbendable, while the soft portion 14 is made up of a plurality of connected joint rings 1.
8, and can be bent vertically and horizontally by a known operation wire (not shown). As shown in FIG. 2, in addition to the objective optical system 20, the endoscope tip 10 includes light guide channels 22, 24, forceps channels 26, and air and water channels 28 in the longitudinal direction of the endoscope (see FIG. 1). It is inserted in the left and right direction at the top. As is clear from FIG. 1, the objective optical system 20 generally has a plurality of lens configurations, but in the present invention, a right angle prism 30 is provided behind it, converting the optical path of the objective optical system 20 by 90 degrees, and A rectangular face plate-like image sensor 32 is bonded to the exit surface.

The image sensor 32 is located near the plane including the central axis in the longitudinal direction of the endoscope (line XX in FIG. 1 and line XX in FIG. 1), and The diameter can be used effectively. Note that although a dustproof effect can be obtained by bonding the image sensor 32 to the prism 30, bonding is not necessarily necessary, and for example, a lens, mask, etc. may be interposed therebetween. Further, a mirror may be used instead of the prism 30, and the optical path can be changed not only by 90 degrees but also by a slight width. Each optical component constituting the objective optical system 20 is mounted directly on the tip fitting 16 or on the lens frame 34.
It is fixed to the tip fitting 16 via etc. Openings are formed in the metal fitting 16 according to other various channels, for example, the forceps channel 26 has a forceps tube 3 as shown in FIG.
6 is connected, and forceps are inserted and used here. As is clear from FIGS. 1 and 2, the substrate 38 of the image sensor 32 is formed to be slightly longer than the image sensor 32 in the width direction (diameter direction of the endoscope insertion part), and The insertion portions are formed to have approximately the same length in the longitudinal direction. The lead wire 40 of the image sensor 32 is connected to the substrate 3
8 and to each microscopic photoreceptor of the image sensor 32. The lead wire 40 sends a drive signal from a drive circuit of a control unit (not shown) to the image sensor 32, and also sends a video signal from the image sensor 32 to the control unit/roll unit. The lead wire 40 is made up of extremely thin conductive wires, and is composed of a non-bundled part 42 in which the individual conductive wires are not tied together but a bundled part 44 that is covered with a tube or the like that follows this non-bundled part 42. . As is clear from FIG. 1, the unbound portion 42 of the lead wire 40
A part of the binding part 44 is located in the hard tip part 12, and the remaining binding part 44 is located in the soft part 4. Therefore,
The unbound portion 42 of the lead wire 40, which is weak in strength, is located in the hard tip portion 12 that is not bent, and the tied portion 44 of the lead wire 40, which is relatively strong in strength, is located in the flexible portion that can be bent. There is no possibility that the wire 40 will break when bent.

The distal end portion 10 of the endoscope insertion section is divided into an upper side and a lower side with the image sensor 32 as a boundary in FIG. The Goo 1' line 40 is located behind this objective optical system 20. That is, if the image sensor 32 is arranged on a plane including the central axis X-X in the longitudinal direction of the endoscope, the image sensor 3 can be highly integrated without making the tip of the endoscope thick.
2 can be arranged, and furthermore the relatively space-consuming forceps channel 26 and the objective optics 20 can be arranged above and below it. The folded cotton 40 can be placed in a space below the image sensor 32 and behind the objective optical system 20 without interfering with other members.

According to the embodiment of the endoscope according to the present invention configured as described above, it is possible to sufficiently accommodate an image sensor 32 whose size on one side is about the same as the outer diameter of the tip of the endoscope, and it is possible to accommodate the image sensor 32 even if the size of the image sensor 32 is approximately the same as the outer diameter of the tip of the endoscope. The side where the objective optical system 20 is not provided can be used as a space unrelated to the imaging system, and therefore, the forceps channel 26, air/water supply channel 28, etc. can be freely arranged in that space in the form described above. Become.

Also, lead I! The unbound part 40 of 40 is located in the hard part 12 at the tip of the endoscope insertion part, and the bound part 44 is located in the soft part 14. Therefore, it is the bound part 44 that is curved, and the unbound part 42 is curved. Since the lead wire 40 is not bent, there is no chance of the lead wire 40 breaking even though it is made of an extremely thin conductor wire. Furthermore, the Riet wire 40 can be freely placed in the space below the image sensor 32 and behind the objective optical system 20 in FIG. 1 without interfering with the other members.

Although the above embodiments have been described with respect to a direct-viewing endoscope, the present invention can also be applied to a side-viewing endoscope. In a side-viewing endoscope, it is necessary to change the arrangement of a side-viewing prism in the front part of the objective optical system 20 in addition to the prism 30 of the direct-viewing endoscope shown in FIGS. 1 and 2.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, according to the endoscope according to the present invention, the tip of the endoscope insertion portion consists of a hard part that cannot contain bacteria and a bendable soft part following the hard part, and is connected to an image sensor. Since the unbound portion of the lead wire is arranged in the rigid portion, there is no chance of the lead wire breaking.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a side sectional view showing a case where an embodiment of the endoscope according to the present invention is applied to a direct-viewing endoscope, and FIG. 2 is a schematic front view thereof. 10... Endoscope tip part, 12... Tip rigid part, 14
... Soft part, 20... Objective optical system, 30...
Prism, 32... Image sensor, 40... Lead wire, 42... Unbound part of lead wire, 44... Bind part of lead wire. Agent: Patent Attorney Kenzo Matsuura

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) In an endoscope that is provided with a face plate-like image sensor at its tip and outputs an optical image obtained by an objective optical system as a video electrical signal, the tip has a rigid part that cannot be bent and a curved part that continues from the rigid part. What is claimed is: 1. An endoscope comprising a flexible portion, and a non-tied portion of a lead wire connected to a face plate-like image sensor is disposed in the hard portion.