Optical sight with an aiming point iJ-lumiπated by a LED
Technical field
The invention relates to an optical sight with an aimpoint illuminated by a light emitting diode, and a battery for supplying the light emitting diode with power, the light emitting diode requiring a potential of at least 1.6 V to turn on.
A sight of this kind is disclosed in US-A-3 963 356. Nowadays, a lithium battery with a potential of 3 V is normally used in such sights as a power source for the light emitting diode. The battery is enclosed in a housing on the outside of a tube, forming at least to some extent the light tunnel of the optical sight, in which the light emitting diode is mounted. A lithium battery is relatively small, and thus affects the weight of the sight insignificantly, which is of course an advantage, since one tries to make the sight as light as possible. However, also drawbacks are associated with the lithium batteries : due to their small size, it may be difficult to perform battery exchange in the field, especially if you have to handle the battery and also open and close the battery housing in winter cold with gloves on the hands, and furthermore, these batteries may be hard to get hold of , because they as a rule are sold only by photographic dealers and other specialized shops, who are not available everywhere. Therefore, demands have been proposed by the army of the United States that in the optical sights of the kind mentioned herein, used i.a. in the army, conventional so- called penlight batteries of the size AA according to ANSI (American National Standards Institute) are to be used instead of lithium batteries. These batteries are very easy to obtain in the general commerce, since they are used in a vast number of utility products, toys and flashlights, and
therefore are sold in department stores, shops and kiosks of different kinds. However, the batteries have a voltage of 1.5 V only, and to reach the potential of at least 1.6 V, which is required in order to turn on and control the light emitting diode, it is closest at hand to connect two batteries in series. The series connection can be done with the batteries lying axially one after the other, or with the batteries lying in parallel to each other. Series connection in the way first mentioned, illustrated in US-A- 4 859 058, entails the drawback that the forces acting on the sight, and the batteries accommodated within it, at firing causes great stress, since the two batteries have a relatively great mass, which may lead to disruption in the electrical power supply circuit and cause damage to the batteries . The sight becomes unwieldy by the need for a battery housing for two batteries, which is directly contrary to the desire to make the sight light and slender. The same drawbacks exists if the batteries are placed in parallel to each other, as shown in US-A-3 565 539. In the latter case there is furthermore a need for a contact bridge for connecting the positive terminal on one battery to the negative terminal on the other battery, and this bridge must be electrically insulated against joining metal parts of the sight and is thereby space requiring. The conventional doubling of the batteries, known per se, is the solution of the problem to achieve with batteries of 1.5 V the necessary turn-on voltage of 1.6 V for the light emitting diode, which is close at hand for a person skilled in the art, but it is not ideal considering the drawbacks involved. The inventors of the present invention have become aware of this and propose as to regarding sights of the kind mentioned herein a new unconventional way to achieve the necessary turn-on voltage for the light emitting diode of 1.6 V with one single penlight battery of 1.5 V of the type AA without any
considerable increase in weight of the sight other than by the greater weight of the penlight battery in comparison to the lithium battery, and with preservation of a slender design. According to the invention, the solution consists in that an optical sight of the kind referred to above has obtained the characterising features of claim 1. The DC/DC converter has an almost insignificant weight and very small dimensions since it can be made as a miniaturized circuit on a small printed circuit board, which can be easily mounted in connection with the battery housing. Since it has insignificant mass it is not sensitive to the forces which it can be exposed to during firing, but forms a robust and reliable design.
Brief description of the drawings
An illustrative embodiment of the sight according to the invention will be described in more detail in the following with reference to the accompanying drawing, in which
Fig. 1 is a schematic cross sectional view of an optical sight, taken axially through the tube, which forms the light tunnel of the sight, and illustrates the functional principle of the sight, Fig. 2 is an enlarged axial cross sectional view of the battery housing of the sight, and
Fig. 3 is a circuit diagram of the electrical circuit system of the sight.
Detailed description of the invention
The sight comprises a light tunnel which is formed by an outer tube 10 to be attached to the barrel of the shotgun on which the sight is to be used, and mounted in said tube an inner tube 11 with one end fixed to the outer tube and the other end fixed to an adjustment device, not
shown here, for adjustment of the longitudinal axis of the inner tube relative to the longitudinal axis of the outer tube to the extent required to adapt the sight to the shotgun on which it is to be used. At said one end of the inner tube a double lens 12 is mounted with a coating 13 between the lenses reflecting red light. Inside the inner tube a light source 14 is provided comprising a light emitting diode which directs a beam of red light towards the sight 13 reflecting the light beam through a surface grinded glass plate 15 with anti reflex coating facing the right end of the light tube, as indicated by dot and dash lines in Fig. 1. When the shooter looks at the target through the light tunnel from this end, he sees a red dot which he puts on the spot on the target, where he wants the impact to take place.
On the outside of the outer tube 10 a battery housing
16 is provided, Fig. 2, which can be made integral with the outer tube or as a separate part, can be attached thereto.
The battery housing can have its longitudinal axis substantially parallel to the longitudinal axis of the outer tube or in an oblique angle thereto. In the battery housing, a cylindrical battery chamber 17 is provided, closed at one end thereof by a screw lid 18 and dimensioned to leave room exactly for a conventional penlight battery 19 of the type AA according ANSI with the voltage rating 1.5 V, which is delivered by the battery over conventional connectors in the battery chamber. The battery housing also comprises a chamber 20 in which the electrical circuit system 21 of the sight for operating the light emitting diode is received. This circuit system will be described in more detail with reference to Fig. 3.
The battery 19 is connected to a step-up transforming circuit 22 which is built in a way known per se, based on a DC/DC-converter LTS1307 from Linear Technology Corporation, USA, indicated at 23. The output voltage from the circuit 22 in this case is 3.3 V, i.e. a potential higher than that
needed for controlling the light emitting diode, and is tapped off at a terminal post 24 to which a circuit is connected for controlling the brightness of the light emitting diode 14 in dependence of the ambient light so that the brightness may be reduced at weak ambient light and increased at intense ambient light, whereby the illuminated aimpoint always is clearly visible in the sight without blinding independently of the current light conditions . The control circuit comprises a light sensor 25 which in principle consists of two Darlington coupled phototransistors, and this light sensor is placed in the inner tube 11, Fig. 1, in the area of the light emitting diode 14. Its field of view is indicated by double dot and dash lines. This field of view is larger than the field of view of the eye by which the shooter looks through the sight, in order that the light sensor shall integrate the ambient light . The light emitting diode 14 is connected to the light sensor 25 by a current mirror, comprising two transistors 26 and balanced by two resistors R4 and R5 for obtaining the correct transfer factor from the left to the right transistor 26. Across the current mirror 10 resistors R16-R15 are connected with a switch 27 by means of which the balance in the mirror may be varied for coarse adjustment of the brightness of the light emitting diode to a value (base value) adapted to current light conditions (i.e. day and night) and to the individual perception of the illuminated aimpoint in the sight. A switch 28 is provided for connection of the light emitting diode and associated control circuit, but this may be replaced by sensor automatics, e.g. an accelerometer which may be connected in such a way that battery voltage is applied to the circuit, when the accelerometer is activated, and the voltage is switched off if the accelerometer is not activated within a given period. A further possibility to
switch off the voltage is to use the shut down function in the DC/DC converter.
One inherent characteristic of the described circuit system is that the light emitting diode will twinkle, when the battery voltage approaches a value which is so low that the battery cannot operate the step-up transforming circuit and the light emitting diode. The light emitting diode is turned off when the voltage has dropped to the said value, whereupon the battery voltage recovers to again keep the light emitting diode twinkling during a short interval. The user thereby receives an indication, that battery replacement must take place .
The circuit system in Fig. 2 may as a whole be arranged in the chamber 20 in the battery housing 16 where it is indicated by the block 21, excluding the light emitting diode 14 and the light sensor 25, which, as mentioned, are arranged in the inner tube 11.