The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Mar. 25, 2003
Filed:
Apr. 02, 2002
Tamotsu Koiwai, Tokyo, JP;
Ai Midorikawa, Saitama, JP;
Olympus Optical Co., Ltd., , JP;
Abstract
In a lens barrel, a cam groove has a pair of wall surfaces. One of the wall surfaces, which is located on the side thereof where a rotary frame is extended by a cam follower coming into sliding contact with the wall surface, is formed at a small inclining angle. The other of the wall surfaces is formed at a large inclining angle. The cam follower has a shaft mounting portion implanted in a fixed frame and has an edge formed around the circumference surface of the shaft mounting portion at the end thereof. The surface of the cam follower, which is engaged and comes into sliding contact with the cam groove, is composed of a base end side taper surface and an extreme end side taper surface. The base end side taper surface is formed on the shaft mounting portion side, has a small inclining angle, and comes into sliding contact with one of the wall surfaces. The extreme end side taper surface has a large inclining angle and comes into sliding contact with the other of the wall surfaces. With this arrangement, in the lens barrel in which lens frames are coupled with each other by a cam mechanism arranged as described above, the cam mechanism can firmly couples the lens frames even if unintentional external force is applied to the lens barrel. This arrangement has wide versatility and does not make it difficult to mold the cam groove.