Endoscope Cap with Detachable Raising Base for Sterilization
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing endoscopes have complex structures around the raising base that make cleaning time-consuming and difficult due to their intricate design.
Innovation Solution
An endoscope cap with a detachable design, featuring a rotatable raising base and lever connection mechanism, allows for easy attachment and detachment from the endoscope's distal end, simplifying cleaning by providing a sealed packaging for sterilization and using durable materials for electron beam sterilization.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If the endoscope is provided with a complex structure around the raising base, then the raising base can perform its function of bending and guiding treatment tools, but cleaning becomes time-consuming and difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The endoscope is divided into separable components: the endoscope cap can be detached from the insertion portion, and the raising base can be separated from the cap. This segmentation allows the raising base to be easily removed for cleaning without disassembling the entire endoscope, directly resolving the contradiction between maintaining complex functionality and enabling easy cleaning.
Solution Approach 2:
The raising base is extracted as a separate, detachable component from the endoscope cap. This extraction allows the raising base to be removed and cleaned independently, eliminating the time-consuming cleaning process associated with integrated complex structures while preserving the raising base's bending and guiding capabilities.
2Productivity
If the endoscope cap is made detachable to facilitate cleaning, then cleaning efficiency improves, but the reliability of preventing erroneous reuse may be compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The engagement portion and disengagement portion are designed with asymmetric geometries that provide directional engagement. The cap can be attached to the insertion portion in a specific orientation, and the lever connection portion must align precisely with the raising base connection portion. This asymmetry prevents erroneous reuse by allowing attachment only in the correct orientation while maintaining easy detachability for cleaning.
Solution Approach 2:
The cap is designed to be detached before cleaning operations, and the raising base is prepared for separate cleaning. This preliminary separation action enables efficient cleaning while the engagement mechanism ensures proper reassembly, preventing erroneous reuse through the designed engagement portions.
3Reliability
If the raising base is supplied in individual packaging for sterilization, then sterilization reliability improves, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The endoscope cap with the raising base is designed as a disposable component that is sterilized individually in each use. This approach ensures sterilization reliability by treating each cap as a separate unit, while the simplicity of the individual packaging requirement (compared to complex multi-component sterilization systems) minimizes the increase in device complexity.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Facilitates efficient cleaning and sterilization of the endoscope, reducing processing time between uses and ensuring the endoscope cap is easily attachable and detachable, thereby improving operability and preventing erroneous reuse.
Implementation Method 1
using durable materials for electron beam sterilization
Data Source
AI summary
To provide an endoscope cap with a raising base or the like which is easily attached and detached to and from a distal end of an endoscope.The endoscope cap includes: a cover that is attachable and detachable to and from a distal end of an insertion portion of an endoscope including a lever which is rotatably provided at the distal end of the insertion portion of the endoscope and a rotating portion which rotates the lever; and a raising base that has a lever connection portion connected to the lever and is rotatably provided inside the cover, and the endoscope cap is supplied in the state of being enclosed in an individual packaging member.