Bulb Substitution Patents (Class 396/192)
  • Patent number: 5871345
    Abstract: A compact flash lamp array includes a housing defining a plurality of cavities. Each cavity has a light emitting opening and a primer vent opposite the light emitting opening. A combustible mass is deposited in each cavity over the primer vent and a primer mass is deposited on the outside of the housing over each primer vent. A primer is cover secured over each primer mass, and a sheet of transparent material is bonded over the cavities in the housing.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 24, 1997
    Date of Patent: February 16, 1999
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventor: Stanley W. Stephenson
  • Patent number: 5871344
    Abstract: A compact flash lamp array includes a housing defining a plurality of cavities, with each cavity having a light emitting opening and a combustible mass deposited in each cavity. A firing means such as an electrically heated filament or percussive primer is provided for individually firing the combustible mass in each cavity. Each cavity in the housing is provided with a porous portion communicating to the outside of the cavity having sufficient porosity to maintain cavity integrity during combustion of the combustible mass contained in a cavity while retaining combustion by-products.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 24, 1997
    Date of Patent: February 16, 1999
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Stanley W. Stephenson, Arun K. Mehrotra
  • Patent number: 5864718
    Abstract: A one-time-use flash camera comprising a camera housing that contains a cartridge chamber holding a film cartridge and a film roll chamber holding an unexposed film roll on which a predetermined maximum number of exposures can be made, and a flash device, is characterized in that the flash device has a total number of flash lamps that is equal to the predetermined maximum number of exposures that can be made on the unexposed film roll, and is connected non-removably to the camera housing in order that the flash device must be broken off the camera housing to separate the flash device from the camera housing, whereby once each one of the flash lamps is used there will not be any exposures that can be made and the one-time-use flash camera must be discarded.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 24, 1997
    Date of Patent: January 26, 1999
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Stanley W. Stephenson III, Alan G. Codd, Jr.
  • Patent number: 5768638
    Abstract: A single-use camera including a camera body, a shutter driver, a battery, a film advance mechanism and a film frame counter connected to the film advance mechanism, includes a chemical flash arrangement having a compact photoflash lamp array. The photoflash lamp array employs a flexible circuit having a plurality of electrical conductors leading to an array of igniter links and defining the contacts of a commutator, and a common electrical connection to each igniter link. A combustible mass is deposited over each igniter link and a grid defining a corresponding array of combustion cavities is bonded to the substrate. A sheet of transparent material is bonded over the grid to contain the combustion products of the combustible mass. A commutator contact carried by the frame counter contact carries current from the battery and cooperates with the contacts on the flexible circuit to provide sequential electrical connection to successive igniter links.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 23, 1997
    Date of Patent: June 16, 1998
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventor: Stanley W. Stephenson
  • Patent number: 5761551
    Abstract: A camera comprising a main body part having a film chamber, and a multi-lamp flash wheel supported for rotation to move successive flash lamps from a storage to a use position for illuminating a subject to be photographed. The multi-lamp flash wheel is rotatable about the film chamber to make the camera relatively compact.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 14, 1997
    Date of Patent: June 2, 1998
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Joel S. Lawther, Ralph M. Lyon
  • Patent number: 5752104
    Abstract: A camera is intended to be used with a multi-lamp flash wheel having flash lamps that are tilted from storage orientations to ignition orientations as the respective lamps are moved to behind a flash emission window. Tilting the flash lamp to its ignition orientation cocks a striker finger, which when released triggers flash ignition.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 2, 1996
    Date of Patent: May 12, 1998
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Michael Joseph O'Brien, Robert Cooper Bryant, Richard Alexander Colleluori
  • Patent number: 5697003
    Abstract: A camera comprising a light sensitive film on which a certain number of exposures can be made, and a multi-lamp flash source having a plurality of one-time-use flash lamps equal in number to the total number of exposures to be made on the film, is characterized in that the multi-lamp flash source has consecutive indicators proximate the respective lamps for indicating the number of exposures available to be made and is supported for movement to move the respective lamps from a storage to a use position for illuminating a subject to be photographed and, substantially simultaneously, to move the respective indicators from a concealed to a visible position.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 28, 1996
    Date of Patent: December 9, 1997
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Ralph Merwin Lyon, Joel Sherwood Lawther
  • Patent number: 5678076
    Abstract: A camera for use with a first group of successive flash lamps and with a second group of successive flash lamps, comprises a flash emission window and means for moving the first lamp group relative to the second lamp group to move the respective lamps of the first lamp group to a use position at the flash emission window and for moving the first and second lamp groups in unison after the respective lamps of the first lamp group have been used in order to move the respective lamps of the second lamp group to a use position at the flash emission window.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 11, 1996
    Date of Patent: October 14, 1997
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Michael Joseph O'Brien, Robert Cooper Bryant, Richard Alexander Colleluori