It is essential in certain medical procedures that the physician, surgeon, or Dentist has his or her hands free for manipulating various surgical diagnostic or therapeutic instruments. At the same time, the particular part of the patient's body that the physician or surgeon is treating must be adequately illuminated. For these purposes, doctors and surgeons have heretofore utilized surgical head lights, some of which require the user to remain attached by via fiber optics to a free-standing light source, and/or to a power outlet or an energy source.
Battery powered head-mounted lamps utilizing an incandescent lamp as a light have also been used. Typically, the high power consumption, relatively low light output, high weight, and short battery life of each device of the prior art have made their use difficult, uncomfortable, or otherwise unsatisfactory.
Even with such configurations, however, the amount of light illuminating upon the work area can be inadequate. There have been attempts to increase the light pinching upon the work area by utilizing xenon or halide lamps, which require high power and have a relatively short bulb life and generate substantial amounts of heat.
Some of the problems associated with such xenon and halide lights may be overcome by utilizing light-emitting diodes (LEDs).
Some prior art apparatus have used relatively high-powered LEDs to generate sufficient light output. Such LEDs typically generate so much heat that a heat sink is required; heretofore the prior art has not been able to satisfy the repairment of a heat sink or cooling system for LED light generation.
Several attempts to solve the problems described herein above have been made in the prior art. For example, published U.S. Pat. No. 6,055,444, published Jun. 2, 2005, and issued as a patent on Oct. 18, 2005 for Surgical Headlight by Suhil Gupta, teaches a head-mounted lamp assembly with at least two LEDs mounted side by side and focused utilizing a rear reflector. Such rear reflector use greatly diminishes the efficiency of the projection of the light generated by the LEDs and thus is unsatisfactory for providing a high intensity, focused light beam of the apparatus of the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,108,400 entitled Light Source Unit and Projector, by inventor Shuhei Yamada and Takeshi Seto, teaches the use of a LED light source for illumination of high ruminants, which includes a cooling system for the illumination of high ruminants, which generates substantial heat. This design utilizes two liquid heat source absorbers and is very complex and is much more difficult to implement than that cooling system taught by the present invention.
U.S. published Patent Application No. 2005/0243539 teaches a cooled light emitting apparatus comprising a light source including a close-packed array of light emitting diodes and a cooling system for cooling the light source. The cooling system is a thermoelectric cooling device in the form of a peltier device connected by a heat spreader to the light source and a heat exchange system for removing heat from the peltier device. The heat exchange system utilizes a liquid coolant to cool the peltier device in this instance the invention utilizes a heat pipe configuration or arrangement, and this is far less satisfactory than the liquid cooling system taught by the present invention.
In accordance with the present invention, there is provided a surgical headlight that overcomes the problems of head-mounted surgical headlamps of the prior art. A plurality of LED's are mounted in a circular arrangement on a printed circuit board that includes a metal substrate heat sink associated therewith that is in contact with a coolant chamber and a belt-mounted cooling liquid is pumped through the cooling chamber to control the heat output from the LED array mounted under and focused by a focus lens that is a single lens that focuses all of the diodes into a coherent focused pattern at a particular point of desired focus and intensity.
It is, therefore, an object of the invention to provide a head-mounted LED based headlamp for use by surgeons or other medical personnel, etc. It is another object of the invention to provide a head-mounted LED based headlamp comprised of a pair of individual lamp housings, each incorporating a plurality of LED cells and each unit mounted with associated with a focus lens that provides a 6″ focus angle for an effective 200 mm circle of light at 440 mm.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a head-mounted LED-based headlamp powered by rechargeable batteries.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a head-mounted LED-based headlamp which has a bulb life of at least 50 times that of a xenon/halide bulb while operating at a less than ⅙ the wattage requirement of such xenon/halide bulbs.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a head-mounted LED-based headlamp which is very reasonable in cost and provides a significant solid-state semi-coherent light for passage through a focus lens at a 6% ocus angle for an effective 200 mm circle of light at 440 mm.
TA complete understanding of the present invention may be obtained by reference to the accompanying drawings, when considered in conjunction with the subsequent detailed description, in which:
For purposes of brevity and clarity, components and elements of the apparatus of this invention will bear the same designations or numbering throughout the Figures.
The present invention provides a surgical headlight which may be used by surgeons, physicians, dentists, etc., who require a reliable, portable, high density, battery-power light source. For the sake of brevity, the term surgeon is used hereinafter to refer to any user of the head-mounted headlamp of the invention.
Referring first to
The band 12 mounts then to a mounting plate 16 which attaches itself to a further forehead plate 18 and plate 18 operates through a ratcheting swivel 20 to provide an actual mounting plate 22 which carries the improved head-mounted headlamp 24 of the invention. The basic headlamp 24 is composed of two separate lamps 24, as best seen in
The auxiliary package is indicated generally by 30 and this is remotely mounted, normally on the waist or the back, through a belt arrangement typically suitable for the user. This auxiliary package incorporates a LED power supply 32 is a conventional rechargeable battery typically used for this type of system and is conveniently located for replacement or recharging in the box assembly 30. The box 30 also incorporates a coolant reservoir 34, again shown in dotted line, and coolant reservoir incorporates a coolant pump 36, again shown in dotted line and the pump 36 transmits coolant through a coolant tube 38, also indicated by dotted line within the box 30 and then there is a quick connect or disconnect unit 40 located between the flexible tubing that constitutes the tubing 42 that sends the coolant fluid up and into its appropriate use for cooling in the headlamp assembly 24.
Referring now to the headlamp assembly 24 shown in
The LEDs 44 are wired in series to the power supply, as shown in
Referring again to
The heat generated from the LEDs is drawn out through an aluminum heat sink layer 50. With the coolant flowing in the coolant chamber 52, excess heat is carried away from the assembly via the coolant output 54 and coolant input 56, which brings the coolant into the chamber 52. Coolant input 56 and output 54 are connected to a coolant reservoir and pump with flexible tubing, as already described with respect to
Referring now specifically to
The connector portion of the tubing 42 is shown on the right side of
Since other modifications and changes vary to fit particular operating requirements and environments it will be apparent to those skilled in the art. Invention is not considered limited to the examples chosen for purposes of disclosure and covers all changes and modifications which do not constitute departures from the true spirit and scope of the invention.
Having thus described the invention, what is desired to be protected by letters patent is presented in the subsequently appended claims.
This new invention is a continuation in part of application Ser. No. 11/638,940 filed Dec. 14, 2006, entitled Surgical Headlamp. The present invention pertains to lights that can be worn on a user's head to provide illumination in an area of work, and, more particularly, to a headlight for surgeons, dentists or other medical personnel or craftsmen. The light uses two independent lamp housings working cooperatively to converge light beams at a predetermined distance from the LED light sources.
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 11638940 | Dec 2006 | US |
Child | 11803094 | US |