JP3315784B2 - Manufacturing method of polymer material part for endoscope - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION This invention relates to a method of manufacturing parts articles made of a polymer material used for each part of the endoscope.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Many parts made of a polymer material are used for an insertion tube, a connecting tube, a built-in tube of an endoscope, a guide tube for guiding an insertion tube of an endoscope, and other endoscope accessories. Have been.

[0003] For example, the outer cover of an insertion tube, a guide tube or the like is formed of a polyurethane resin, a vinyl chloride resin, a thermoplastic elastomer or a rubber-based material which is not toxic to the human body.

[0004] However, these materials have a relatively large coefficient of friction and poor slipperiness, so that when inserted into a body cavity, a patient may feel considerable pain. In addition, when an insertion tube having poor slippage is inserted into a guide tube having poor slippage, the surfaces of each other may be pulled by each other and may be damaged.

On the other hand, a forceps channel tube or the like built in an insertion tube or the like is made of a tetrafluoroethylene resin or the like having good slipperiness. However, such a material is hard and easily breaks, so that if it is bent with a small radius of curvature, it may immediately buckle and become unusable.

Therefore, conventionally, parts have been conventionally formed by dispersing a lubricating powder such as molybdenum disulfide in a polymer material to form a part, or as disclosed in JP-A-58-86132.
Lubricating powder such as fluororesin is dispersed in a binder and applied to the surface of a polymer material component.

[0007]

However, as described above, even if the lubricating powder is dispersed in a polymer material or a binder, the lubricating powder exposed on the surface of the component is extremely small. Even if it is exposed, since the surface is covered with a thin layer of a polymer material or a binder resin, the slipperiness of the surface is only slightly improved, and is not significantly improved.

Therefore, if the mixing amount of the lubricating powder is increased to improve the slipperiness, the moldability is deteriorated and the dimensional stability is also deteriorated. Various drawbacks occur, such as unevenness.

In the case where a binder in which lubricating powder is dispersed is applied to the surface of a polymer material part, the lubricating powder hardly appears on the surface layer. As a result, not only is the improvement in the slipperiness small, but also there is a problem in durability such as the binder layer peeling off from the surface during repeated washing and disinfection after use.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a polymer component of an endoscope which is flexible and has good surface slipperiness and good durability, and a method of manufacturing the same.

[0011]

In order to achieve the above object, a polymer material part of an endoscope according to the present invention comprises a solvent for dissolving the polymer material on a surface of a part formed of the polymer material. The lubricating powders are integrally joined by the above.

In the method of manufacturing a polymer material part of the endoscope, a solvent for dissolving the polymer material is applied to the surface of the part formed of the polymer material to dissolve the surface of the part. After that, spray the lubricating powder on the melting part,
The lubricating powder is integrally bonded to a surface of the component by evaporation of the solvent.

Further, the lubricating powder is dispersed in a solvent in which the polymer material is dissolved, applied to the surface of a component formed of the polymer material, and the lubricating powder is dispersed by evaporation of the solvent. Characterized in that they are integrally joined to the surface.

Alternatively, after the lubricating powder is mixed into the polymer material to form a part, the surface portion of the polymer material is removed so that the lubricating powder is exposed on the surface. I do.

Further, after applying a binder in which the lubricating powder is dispersed to the surface of the component made of a polymer material to form a film, the binder is so exposed that the lubricating powder is exposed on the surface. The surface portion is removed.

[0016]

An embodiment will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows a first embodiment of the present invention, wherein 1 is a flexible tube formed of a polymer material such as a polyurethane resin. A vinyl chloride resin or another polymer material may be used.

Here, first, a solvent such as dimethylformamide for dissolving a polyurethane resin is applied to both the inner and outer surfaces of the tube 1 to dissolve the surface portion of the tube 1. The dissolved part has a strong tackiness as a sticky. In addition, as a solvent, tetrahydrofuran, dimethylsulfoxide, dioxane, m-cresol, cyclohexanone, or the like can be used.

In this state, a lubricating powder 2 made of, for example, ethylene tetrafluoride resin powder is sprayed on the inner and outer surfaces of the tube 1. You may rub. Then, excess lubricating powder 2 is removed.

After the lubricating powder 2 has uniformly adhered to both the inner and outer surfaces of the tube 1, the process waits for the solvent to evaporate. Heating may be used to promote evaporation. When the solvent evaporates, the surface of the tube 1 dissolved by the solvent solidifies, so that the lubricating powder 2 adhered to the tube 1 is strongly adhered to the surface of the tube 1. Therefore, the excess lubricating powder 2 that has protruded is further removed, and the process is completed.

Since a layer in which the lubricating powder 2 is directly exposed is formed on the surface of the tube 1 thus treated, a very excellent sliding property can be obtained. In addition, the surface of the tube 1 is eroded by the solvent, and fine irregularities are formed thereon. This causes an effect of preventing sticking with a counterpart which comes into contact during use, thereby further improving the slipperiness.

The lubricating powder 2 includes molybdenum disulfide-based powder, silica-based powder, talc-based powder, silicon-based powder,
Fluorine-based resin, carbon, BN powder and the like can be used, and a plurality of types may be mixed and used. This is the same in the second and subsequent embodiments.

FIG. 2 shows a second embodiment.
A liquid is formed by uniformly dispersing the lubricating powder 2 in a solvent in which the polymer material (for example, polyurethane resin) forming the tube 1 is dissolved. Then, the liquid is applied to both the inner and outer surfaces of the tube 1 to dissolve the surface portion of the tube 1,
Wait for the solvent to evaporate.

In this manner, a tube having good lubricity similar to that of the first embodiment can be obtained with a smaller consumption of the lubricating powder 2 than in the first embodiment. If the connection between the tube 1 and the lubricating powder 2 is not good,
The lubricating powder 2 may be rubbed when the contact time is extended or when the solvent is half-dried during the evaporation.

FIG. 3 shows a third embodiment. First, as shown in FIG. 3A, a tube 1 is formed by mixing a lubricating powder 2 into a polymer material (for example, polyurethane resin). .

In this state, since the amount of the lubricating powder 2 exposed on the surface is very small, both the inner and outer surface portions of the tube 1 are removed by a file or the like. Its thickness is several μ
m.

Then, as shown in FIG. 3B, the lubricating powder 2 is exposed on the surface of the tube 1. As a result, the slipperiness of the surface is greatly improved, and the slipperiness is further improved by forming irregularities on the surface by the removal processing. It should be noted that etching or other processing means may be used instead of the deletion processing using a file or the like.

FIG. 4 shows a fourth embodiment.
As shown in FIG. 4, a binder 3 in which a lubricating powder 2 is dispersed is applied to both the inner and outer surfaces of a tube 1 made of a polymer material (for example, polyurethane resin) to form a thin film. As the binder 3, a thermoplastic resin such as polyurethane, cellulose, or acrylic, or a thermosetting resin such as phenol or epoxy can be used.

Then, by removing the surface portion of the binder 3 in the same manner as in the third embodiment, the lubricating powder 2 is exposed on the surface to obtain a flexible tube having good slipperiness. Can be.

In each embodiment, the present invention is applied to both the inner and outer surfaces of the tube 1, but may be applied to either one of the surfaces. The flexible tube formed in each embodiment in this manner is flexible and has good slipperiness. In particular, the ones according to the first to third embodiments do not cause the separation of the surface by the disinfecting liquid and the durability. Are better.

Therefore, the present invention can be applied to various parts of an endoscope. For example, the endoscope 10 shown in FIG.
Can be used for each component such as the flexible tube 11 of the insertion portion, the flexible tube 12 for connection to the light source device, or the forceps channel tube 13 built in the flexible tube 11 of the insertion portion. Also,
The present invention can also be applied to the tubes 22, 23 of the guide tube 20 for inserting the insertion portion of the endoscope as shown in FIG.

In FIG. 6, reference numeral 21 denotes a tip cap, 22 and 23 are polyurethane resin tubes having different hardnesses,
Numeral 24 denotes a connecting member between tubes, and numeral 25 denotes a rear end cap.

The parts are assembled by bonding using an adhesive or the like. Since the surface where the lubricating powder 2 is exposed has poor adhesiveness, the lubricating powder 2 is removed by roughening the bonded surface with a chemical or cutting.

[0033]

According to the present invention, since the lubricating powder is reliably exposed on the surface of the component formed of the polymer material,
A flexible and extremely slippery endoscope polymer material part can be obtained, and those which do not use a binder can obtain excellent durability without any separation phenomenon of the surface film.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory view of a manufacturing process of a first embodiment.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory view of a manufacturing process according to a second embodiment.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory view of a manufacturing process of a third embodiment.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory view of a manufacturing process according to a fourth embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a schematic view of an endoscope.

FIG. 6 is a schematic view of an endoscope guide tube.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Flexible tube 2 Powder for lubrication

Continuation of front page (72) Inventor Yoshinori Maruyama 2-36-9 Maeno-cho, Itabashi-ku, Tokyo Asahi Optical Industry Co., Ltd. (56) References JP-A-58-86132 (JP, A) International Publication 92/18560 (WO, A1) (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) A61B 1/00-1/32 C08J ⁷ /00-7/18 C08J 3/00-3/28

Claims (3)

(57) [Claims] A solvent for dissolving the polymer material is applied to the surface of the component formed of the polymer material to dissolve the surface of the component, and then lubricating powder is sprayed on the dissolved portion. A method of manufacturing a polymer material part for an endoscope, wherein the lubricating powder is integrally bonded to a surface of the part by evaporation of the solvent. 2. A component is formed by mixing a lubricating powder into a polymer material, and a surface portion of the polymer material is removed so that the lubricating powder is exposed on the surface. Of manufacturing polymer material parts for endoscopes. 3. A method in which a binder in which a lubricating powder is dispersed is applied to the surface of a component made of a polymer material to form a film, and then the binder is exposed so that the lubricating powder is exposed on the surface. A method for producing a polymer material part for an endoscope, wherein a surface portion is removed.