Not Applicable
Not Applicable
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a LED illumination assembly that is suitable for the medical instruments and in particularly this invention relates to replacing the LED lamp in the illumination assembly of the medical instruments.
2. Prior Arts
Physicians employ illumination assembly in medical instruments and devices to observe, record, take measurement and assist surgeries. Theses illumination assembly was used in both surgical and diagnostic microscope's, including but not limited to, for example, the slit lamp, the specular microscope, and the fundus camera, and various endoscopes that delivered the light via optical fiber into patients' body. Currently, Incandescent lamps, including halogen added Incandescent type incandescent lamps, and Xenon lamps are two major light sources for illumination of medical instruments and devices. The light emitted by incandescent lamps and the light emitted by Xenon lamps have very different spectrums. Incandescent lamps produce mostly long wavelength red radiation and Xenon flash lamps produce shorter wavelength blue-green radiation. Because of the differences in the spectrums, the reflection and scattering patterns of these two light sources are different. In clinical environment, physicians found that illuminated with different spectrum of lights revealed more information of the tissue health. It is therefore desirable for a light source that can be easily switch from one spectrum to another spectrum without complicate electrical, mechanical and optical arrangement in the medical instruments or devices.
Light emitting diode(LED) is a solid state light source that provides low energy consumption, spectrum range and temporal properties that were not attainable by the Incandescent lamp and/or Xenon lamps. But implementing LED into medical instruments and medical devices requires different design innovation that must accommodate all the unique features of the solid state devices. For example, LED can not function at temperatures higher than 75° C. while Incandescent lamps would be most stable at higher temperatures. Also, because LED has different radiation pattern from the incandescent and Xenon lamps There was no illumination assembly of LED in the medical instruments and medical devices that can accommodate these requirements and the need to change the LED's for different spectrum output or for the replacement. Our invention to accommodate all the unique features of the LED illumination is described in the following embodiment.
In many typical mounting arrangements, LEDs are mounted in a mounting assembly or mount which is then soldered to a printed circuit board(PCB) using reflow surface mount techniques. In such arrangements, to remove and replace a defective or burnt out LED, or to change one LED for another, it is necessary to heat the solder holding the original LED mount in place to its melting point and then remove the original mount, clean the board, and then to resolder a replacement LED mount in its place. Alternatively, a whole new replacement board may be utilized to avoid the steps of replacing LED mount completely. Both of these approaches have their drawbacks with respect to ease of replacement, cost or the like.
In an alternative approach, an LED has been mounted in a thread sleeve which fits in a traditional incandescent light bulb socket. While such an arrangement may have the benefit of being easy to replace in a manner intuitively obvious to the average consumers, it suffers from having a relatively bulky form factor that may prevent optimal design of a lighting fixture to take advantage of the small size of the LED light source. It also has a relatively costly.
Additionally, multiple LED fixtures are becoming more prevalent. These fixtures do not typically have a sufficiently easy and cost effective mechanism for replacing LED's.
It is therefore a primary object of the present application is to overcome the above noted deficiency or the prior arts.
It is another primary object of the present application to develop a LED assembly that can replace known medical instrument that utilizing incandescent lamps or Xenon lamps for illumination.
In accordance with the present invention, a LED illumination assembly can be used in medical instrument to replace the incandescent lamps and xenon lamps.
In one innovative aspect, the present innovation relates to the use of releasable and removable LED lamp in the illumination assembly.
In another innovative aspect, the present innovation relates to use of human hand, instead of soldering and electrical power, to replace LED in a medical instrument with a power supply.
In another innovative aspect, the present innovation relates to the use of different LED lamp in the same medical instrument without interfere with the electrical, mechanical and optical environment of the medical instrument.
The nature and mode of operation of the present invention will now be more fully described in the following detailed description of the invention taken with the accompanying drawing figures, in which:
In the description that follows, like parts are indicated throughout the specification and drawings with the same reference numerals. The present invention is not limited to the specific embodiments illustrated herein.
In our preferred embodiment, the electricity is delivered to an electrical connector, not shown in the drawings, on the heat dissipation component 105 and eventually to the connector 104 on the LED lamp 103 via connector 107 that is located on the cap 108. The locations of connectors on the heat dissipation component 105 and LED lamp 103 are configured in a way that the fastening of LED lamp 103 onto the heat dissipation component 105 can enforce the connectivity of the electrical connectors. The assembled units 106 and 103 may be attached to the main body of the medical instrument or medical device 13 via a mechanical attachment design using a set of at least two screw holes 113 and a set of at least two hand-turning screws 110. The LED lamp 103 and main heat sink element 105 are attached via attachment element 112, including but not limited to screws that can be turned by hand. In our preferred embodiment, the LED lamp 103 has a hole with screw groove, on the other side of the LED 102, that matches the screw 112 so the LED lamp 103 will be compressed to the surface of the heat dissipation component 105 to reduce the heat impedance between the surfaces of LED lamp 103 and heat dissipation component 105. In our preferred embodiment, such screw 112 can be turned with hand and the electrical connector 104 on the LED lamp will connect to the electrical connector 107 on the heat dissipation component about the same time.
In one embodiment, thermal pad, 114, may be inserted between the surfaces of the LED lamp 103 and the heat sink element 105. In other embodiment, thermal pad, 114 may be omitted between the surfaces of the LED lamp 103 and the heat sink element 105.
In operation, light emitting diode (LED) controller 14 may control LED array 102. In one embodiment, the LED controller 14 may control the LED array to emit light at different intensity. In another embodiment, the LED controller 14 may control the LED array to emit light at different color temperature and at different intensity.
There are numerous variations in the embodiments. Example of these variations include but not limited to, LED lamp 103 may have one or more LEDs; LED array 102 and LED module 103 may have LED of different colors. The patterns of the multiple LED array 102 include but not limited to the LED patterns with no LED element or elements in the center of the pattern. There may be one set of LEDs for emitting a relatively low first light level on LED array 102 or LED module 103, and another set of LEDs for emitting at high light levels. There may be light filters or color filter on the projection axis for changing the spectrum property of the light emitted from illumination assembly 2; the light pattern may change with the light level emitted by the LED light pattern generator using neutral density filters.
Although the embodiment of the invention has been illustrated and that the form has been described, it is readily apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications may be made therein without departing from the spirit of the invention.
This application claims the benefit of provisional patent applications with Ser. No. 61/275,383 filed 2009 Aug. 28, by the present inventors.
Number | Date | Country | |
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61275383 | Aug 2009 | US |