West Electric Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd.

Tsunemi Yoshino

Hiroshi Iwata

Akitoshi Morioka

Toshitsugu Kashihara

Katsuji Ishikawa

Toshihiko Taniguchi

Hajime Mitsui

Akira Takashima

Hiroshi Makino

Katsushi Sumisaki

Hirohiko Ina

Naofumi Aoki

Hiroshi Watanabe

Tadaharu Kihara

Kotaro Hatada

Kazuoh Murata

Taro Hagihara

Satoshi Amari

Naoyuki Furutsuka

A light emitting element drive device of the present invention includes a light emitting element; a drive unit for driving the light emitting element; an electricity storage element capable of storing electric power; a battery power supply capable of supplying electric power to the electricity storage element; and a boost chopper circuit having an inductor, for boosting voltage by opening and closing a switching element. The drive unit is switchable between three states: a storing state in which electric power from the battery power supply is stored in the electricity storage element; a first discharging state in which the electric power stored in the electricity storage element is supplied to the light emitting element; and a second discharging state in which electric power from the battery power supply is boosted by the boost chopper circuit and is supplied to the light emitting element.

Light emitting element drive device and mobile apparatus

A compact illuminating apparatus for viewing films by transmitted light and having uniform light distribution across a diffusing plate, comprising a shallow elongated box-like main body having a base with a bottom having alternately arranged mountains and valleys walls or side parts of the box adapted to hold said diffusing plate; a frame arranged to close the box like base; a reflecting member having reflectance higher than that of said base and arranged on said bottom of said base; and an illuminating member comprising (1) light sources disposed below said diffusing plate, and (2) light-source-control member connected electrically with said light sources for controlling the operation thereof.

Illuminating apparatus

A film winding system has a spool which houses a motor as a driving source and a driving force conveying mechanism including an epicycle gear. The driving force conveying mechanism for conveying the driving force from the motor to the spool further includes a clutch mechanism for facilitating film removal from the spool effected by pulling the film, without cutting the film or breaking gears.

Film winding system

A motor-driven film winder for a camera has an internal gear portion (5a) fixed to a motor (1), one or two step-shaped planet gears (7), (8) having first gears (7a), (8a) to mesh with a pinion gear (4) driven by the motor and the internal gear portion (5a) and second gears (7b), (8b) having a larger diameter than first gears (7a), (8b), and engaging with an internal gear (11a) provided on inside wall of the take-up spool (11), whereby rotation of the motor is transmitted to the take-up spool (11) with largely reduced speed of rotation and largely multiplied torque.

Motor-driven film winder

A drive device for a lens barrel and a diaphragm shutter is disclosed. The drive device of this invention comprises a stepping motor including a stator and rotors. The stator is constituted by a plurality of stator members disposed around a lens barrel, each having a bifurcate portion around which a conductor is wound, and the bifurcate portions are disposed in face-to-face relationship with each other with a predetermined space being interposed therebetween. The rotors are respectively disposed in the predetermined spaces. The driving forces of the rotors are independently transmitted at least to the lens barrel including a photographic lens element and to a diaphragm shutter.

Drive device for lens barrel and diaphragm shutter

Automatic focusing apparatus

Driving of camera lens (5) and driving of exposure mechanism (9) (shutter/aperture blades) are driven by a single motor (7) wherein a main body of exposure mechanism is affixed to the lens barrel, and a drive member (10) of the exposure mechanism (9) is slidably engaged to a sliding guide pin (11); and by selecting friction force between a hollow threaded driving member (1) and the threaded outer face of the lens burrel (4) appropriately, the exposure mechanism (9) can be driven through the friction force.

Drive apparatus of lens and exposure mechanism by motor

In a method of distance measuring and an optical distance measuring apparatus, a pulse-modulated infrared light beam is irradiated to an object to produce a reflected light beam, which is then received by a resonance circuit, and intensity of output of the resonance circuit is measured, wherein the modulation of frequency is sweepingly varied within a predetermined narrow frequency range; thereby, even when the circuit constants of the resonance circuit varies due to temperature change and so on, the distance measurement result is not affected, and stable measurement of a long distance is possible.

Method for measuring distance and optical distance meter

A driving circuit for a stepping motor drives the stepping motor in two-phase operation for most of the time period of driving and switches to a single-phase operation immediately before stopping the stepping motor, thereby achieving compatibility between high speed rotation and stable stopping position.

Driving circuit for a stepping motor

A photographic lens device with a built-in electronic aperture-stop control system or mechanism comprising a step motor and an aperture-stop setting device which are spaced apart from each other by a suitable distance in the direction of the optical axis of the photographic lens system and are coupled to each other through a coupling means. In one embodiment, the aperture-stop control system can be incorporated in the lens device simply by slightly enlarging the diameter of the lens device or barrel without increasing its axial length because of full possible use of a heretofore unused dead space available in the lens device.

Photographic lens device having a step motor mounted on the lens barrel

So far, the windows for displaying the number of frames exposed, a film speed, an aperture, a shutter speed and the like have been located at various positions on a camera body, but according to the present invention such photographic information can be displayed at the same place in the vicinity of a viewfinder or in the field of view thereof by a display device comprising an electro-optical display unit and a display information selection means adapted to cause the display unit to display the desired information.

Photographic information display device

A focus state indicator for a camera is provided such that the photographer may know a focus state in accordance with electrical signals respectively corresponding to the lens position in the previous focusing operation and a distance between a camera and a subject to be photographed. A circuit is arranged to generate a differential signal between the output electrical signals. The alarm operation of an alarm element is continuously changed between focused and out of focused states in accordance with the differential signal, so that the photographer can know the focus state.

Focus state indicator

A camera with a liquid crystal aperture stop means has a shift means adapted to shift the liquid crystal aperture stop means between a plurality of positions depending upon exposure conditions.

Camera with liquid crystal aperture control means

A lens shifting device comprising a stationary cylinder having a mounting means adapted to engage with a mating means of a main body of an equipment which uses an optical lens assembly which must be shifted for focusing, an inner cylinder which is slidably fitted into the stationary cylinder and in which is securely mounted a lens group, contact members is slidable contact with the inner cylindrical surface of the stationary cylinder, one of which is interconnected with the inner cylinder coaxially, locking means adapted to cause the contact members to lock to said stationary cylinder, and expandable-and-collapsible means interconnecting between the contact members. The inner cylinder is caused to slide step by step relative to the stationary cylinder in the axial direction thereof and forward or backward by activating the locking means and the expandable-and-collapsible means by desired timing relationship. The device is very simple in construction, but highly reliable and dependable in operation.

Device for shifting lens group

A photographic equipment provided with a focal-length sensing means for sensing the focal length of a photographic lens mounted on a camera body and generating the electrical output signal representative of the detected focal length and a beam-angle control means responsive to the output signal from the focal-length sensing means for changing, in response to the detected focal length, the beam angle of an electronic flash unit mounted on the camera body.

Growing community of inventors

Nara, Japan

Tsunemi Yoshino