JP2003079075A - Portable device with built-in imaging device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To obtain a portable device with built-in imaging device capable of preventing the failure or malfunction of electronic circuit components such as ICs or the like. SOLUTION: A digital camera 10 is provided with, in the right half of the camera viewing from the rear side, a coil 60 generating an electromotive force by the magnetic field produced by a charger, a charging control board 68 mounted with components which comprise a charging control part, capacitor 70, battery 26 charged by electromagnetic induction produced by the coil 60, and strobe control board 72, etc., which are hardly influenced by the magnetic field produced in charging the battery. On the other hand, provided in the left half side of the camera, are an IC composing an imaging device 30, IC composing an A/D convertor 38, IC composing an analog signal processor 36, IC composing a memory 42, and ICs 74-78, etc., in a prescribed arrangement, which are readily influenced by the magnetic field, since those ICs handle very weak current or having fine wiring.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a portable device with a built-in image pickup device, and more particularly to a portable device with a built-in image pickup device which uses a rechargeable secondary battery as a power source to charge the secondary battery by electromagnetic force. Regarding

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, as a power source of a camera for recording a photographed image on a photographic film, a non-rechargeable primary battery is generally used, and when the power supply of the battery is lowered,
It is necessary to remove the battery from the camera and install a new battery. Even when using a rechargeable secondary battery,
It was necessary to remove the battery from the camera to charge it each time it was charged, and then install the battery after charging was completed.

As described above, in the conventional camera, every time the power supplied to the battery decreases, the battery must be removed from the camera body and replaced with a new battery, or the battery after charging must be mounted, which is complicated. Met.

In order to solve this problem, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 7-14
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 615 discloses a power supply system for a camera that uses a secondary battery as a power supply, in which the secondary battery is contactlessly charged by electromagnetic induction while the secondary battery is attached to the camera.

[0005]

However, in the above prior art, since the secondary battery is charged by electromagnetic induction,
When applied to a digital camera equipped with an image pickup device such as a CCD or an IC such as a signal processing circuit, a strong magnetic force is applied to the IC, which may damage or malfunction the IC.
There was a problem.

In view of the above facts, an object of the present invention is to obtain a portable device with a built-in image pickup device capable of preventing electronic circuit parts such as IC from being damaged or malfunctioning.

[0007]

In order to achieve the above object, the invention according to claim 1 is a portable device with a built-in image pickup device having at least an image pickup device for picking up an image of a subject. The area of
One area of the plurality of areas is arranged as a coil side area to accommodate an element that utilizes a magnetic field, and one area of the plurality of areas other than the coil side area is a weak area, and a weak current. It is characterized in that it is arranged so as to accommodate an element utilizing the.

The portable device with a built-in image pickup device has at least an image pickup device for picking up an image of a subject. Examples of the portable device with a built-in image sensor include a digital camera and a mobile phone with a camera. As the image sensor, for example, CC
There are D and CMOS sensors.

A plurality of regions which do not overlap each other are defined in the inside of the portable device with a built-in image pickup device, and one region of the plurality of regions is defined as a coil side region. The coil side region is a region for accommodating an element that utilizes a magnetic field generated from a charger or the like, and, for example, as described in claim 2, a coil that generates electromotive force due to a magnetic field, or a coil generated. A battery that is charged by the generated electromotive force, an element that constitutes a charging unit that charges the battery,
And at least one of the elements forming the strobe that emits the auxiliary light. That is, in the coil side area,
Mainly electric circuit components that are not affected by the magnetic field are housed.

In addition, one of the plurality of regions excluding the coil side region is a weak region. This weak region is a region for accommodating an element that utilizes a weak current, and for example, as described in claim 3, an image sensor and an analog signal processing unit that processes an analog signal of an output signal from the image sensor are provided. At least one of the constituent elements and the constituent elements of the A / D conversion unit that converts an analog signal into a digital signal is accommodated. That is, in the weak region, an electronic circuit component that is an element that uses a weak current that is easily affected by a magnetic field,
In particular, ICs and the like are stored.

As described above, by separating the region for accommodating the element utilizing the magnetic field and the element utilizing the weak current, the element utilizing the weak current may be damaged or malfunction due to the influence of the magnetic field. Can be prevented.

Further, as described in claim 4, it is preferable that the element is arranged so that a surface including the element accommodated in the weak region and a direction of the magnetic field are substantially parallel to each other. Thereby, the influence of the magnetic field can be further reduced.

Further, as described in claim 5, a separating portion for separating the coil side region and the weak region may be provided substantially in the center of the inside of the apparatus. The separating unit uses, for example, a shield plate that shields a magnetic field. Thereby, the influence of the magnetic field can be further reduced.

Further, as described in claim 6, a boosting coil for boosting the voltage generated in the coil and a strobe for emitting auxiliary light by the voltage boosted by the boosting coil may be further provided. Good. That is, the trigger coil for causing the strobe to emit light and the charging coil are shared. This can reduce the number of parts,
The device can be constructed inexpensively.

In this case, as described in claim 7,
The battery may be charged by the voltage boosted by the boost coil. That is,
The charging coil and the trigger coil for strobe emission are shared, and the boosting coil for charging and strobe emission is shared. As a result, the battery can be sufficiently charged even when the magnetic field generated by the charger or the like is weak.

Further, as described in claim 8, a screw hole for fixing the apparatus body to the tripod may be further provided, and the coil may be wound around the screw hole. In this case, by passing a current through the primary side coil in a state where the magnetic core around which the primary side coil is wound is inserted into the screw hole, electromotive force is generated in the coil wound around the screw hole, and the battery can be charged. .

[0017]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. As shown in FIGS. 1 (A) and 1 (B), the main body 11 of the digital camera 10 to which the present invention is applied is a substantially box type, and on the left side when viewed from the front,
A grip portion for facilitating the grip of the main body 11 is formed.

As shown in FIG. 1 (A), a lens 14, a finder 15 for visually confirming a photographing range, and auxiliary light are emitted on the front side of the main body 11 in the case of photographing in a low illuminance. A strobe 16 is attached for this purpose.

A slot 23 into which a memory card 18 as an information recording medium such as a smart medium can be loaded is provided on the right side surface of the main body 11 when viewed from the front. 1A, the mode dial 47 and the power switch 21 are provided on the left side, and the central portion of the mode dial 47 is the shutter button 12.
Has become. In addition, the battery 2 that is the power source of the digital camera 10 is provided on the left side surface when viewed from the front of the main body 11.
Six storage ports 28 are provided. The battery 26
It is charged by electric power supplied from a charger 50 described later.

Further, a screw hole 32 for fixing the digital camera 10 to a tripod is provided on the bottom left bottom surface of the main body 11 when viewed from the front.

The mode dial 47 is a dial for selecting the operation mode of the digital camera, and includes, for example, an auto shooting mode, a manual shooting mode, a self-timer shooting mode, a playback mode, a PC mode for connecting to a personal computer and outputting an image. Select one of the setup item setting modes for setting the initial conditions of various functions. In the compression method switching program, a compression method switching mode in which the compression method is switched according to the size of the activity value of the image and a Basic mode in which the image is always compressed in the JPEG method are selected. Also,
The shutter button 12 is configured to be half-pressed for AF locking and fully-pressed for image processing.

Further, as shown in FIG. 1 (B), the main body 11
On the lower side of the back of the LCD, a reflective LCD or a transmissive front LCD
Is attached to the upper side of the display 46. The monochrome liquid crystal display panel 13, the strobe button 17, the cross button 19,
Also, various selection buttons such as the menu execution button 25 are provided.

The display 46 is composed of a liquid crystal display panel having a screen size of, for example, 640 × 480 pixels, and when there is an image display instruction, a memory 4 which will be described later.
The image is displayed on the entire screen based on the image file stored in 2 or the image file read from the memory card 18, a plurality of reduced images are displayed side by side (hereinafter, referred to as thumbnail display), and various function selections are performed. Display the screen. The liquid crystal display panel 13 displays the current settings of the digital camera such as operation mode, image quality, battery amount, strobe light emission / non-light emission, and the number of shootable images.

The cross button 19 is a button for selecting a button displayed on the display 46 or moving a cursor when the display 46 is a various item selection screen. The strobe button 17 is a button for issuing a forced light emission instruction when the strobe is forcibly fired or for issuing a light emission prohibition instruction when the strobe is forbidden to emit light. The menu execution button 25 is displayed on the display 46 and the cross button is pressed. A button for issuing an execution instruction of the item selected in 19.

FIG. 2 shows the configuration of the electric system of the digital camera 10. Specifically, the lens 14 is a zoom lens (focal length variable lens) including a mechanism (auto focus (AF) mechanism) capable of changing the focal position by the driving force of a driving source such as a stepping motor.
The mechanism and the zoom mechanism are driven by the drive circuit 24a. The drive circuit 24a also controls the drive of various components such as the drive of the strobe 16 and an image pickup device (image pickup element) 30 described later. Further, instead of the lens 14, a fixed focal length lens having only an AF mechanism may be used.

An image pickup device 30 made of an area CCD and provided with an electronic shutter mechanism is arranged at a position corresponding to the focal position of the lens 14 inside the main body 11, and the image pickup device 30 is reflected from a subject and made incident on the lens 14. The light is focused on the light receiving surface of the imaging device 30. The image pickup device 30 may use a CMOS sensor instead of the CCD.

The image pickup device 30 is driven by the drive circuit 24a, and the drive circuit 24a drives the image pickup device 30 at a timing synchronized with the timing signal generated by the timing signal generation circuit 27 to generate an image signal (on the light receiving surface). A signal indicating the amount of light received by each of the plurality of photoelectric conversion cells arranged in a matrix.

The timing signal generation circuit 27 is controlled by the control unit 22 composed of a microcomputer and generates various timing signals (clock signals) for operating the image pickup device 30, the A / D conversion unit 38 and the like.

Further, the image pickup device 30 converts the image signal into
The signal is output to the analog signal processing unit 36 via an amplifier (not shown). The analog signal processing unit 36 is connected to the A / D conversion unit 38, and the signal output from the imaging device 30 is amplified by the amplifier and converted into digital data by the A / D conversion unit 38.

The output terminal of the A / D conversion section 38 is connected to the digital signal processing section 40 via a correlated double sampling circuit (CDS circuit) not shown and an internal interface (I / F) circuit not shown in order. . In the CDS circuit,
The feedthrough data indicating the level of the feedthrough signal and the pixel data indicating the level of the pixel signal are sampled, and the feedthrough data is subtracted from the pixel data for each pixel. Then, the calculation result (pixel data that accurately corresponds to the amount of accumulated charge in each CCD cell) is sequentially output to the digital signal processing unit 40 as a scan image file via the I / F circuit.

The digital signal processing section 40 performs predetermined digital signal processing (for example, shading correction processing) on the input digital signal and outputs it as an original image file to the memory 42 via the data bus 88. The digital signal processing unit 40 also outputs a video signal when an external device (not shown) is connected to the video output terminal. Further, when a thumbnail display instruction is issued from the control unit 22, the digital signal processing unit 40 displays on the display 46 a plurality of thumbnail images stored in association with each of the plurality of image files stored in the memory 42. Let

The memory 42 temporarily stores an image file read for retrieval during reproduction, and a data bus 88.
The image file output from the digital signal processing unit 40 via is stored. At this time, if there is a write instruction to the memory card 18 such as a smart media or floppy disk, after the stored image file is subjected to a predetermined image compression process (for example, JPEG process) by the compression / expansion unit 44, the memory card drive 20 Output to the memory card via the external interface (external I / F) 43. The compression / expansion unit 44 can also be set to write without compression.

The external I / F 43 has a digital IO.
A port 31 is provided, and the image file can be output to another device connected to the digital IO port 31.

When an instruction is given to reproduce (display) an image by the image file stored in the memory card loaded in the slot 23, the image file is read from the memory card. If the read image file is compressed and stored, the compressed image file is decompressed (decompressed) by the compression / decompression unit 44 and then stored in the memory 4
Stored in 2. Then, the digital signal processor 40 processes the image file stored in the memory 42 by the liquid crystal drive circuit 24.
The image is transferred to b and the image is displayed (reproduced) on the display 46.

The control unit 22 includes a CPU, a ROM and a RAM.
The shutter button 12, the memory card drive 20, the drive circuit 24a, the memory 42, the compression / expansion unit 44, and the display 4 directly or via the data bus 88.
6, the menu execution button 25, and the charging control unit 34 are connected.

The ROM stores a program for controlling the above-mentioned various components connected to the control unit 22, a compression method switching program, and the like. Further, the RAM stores various data required for each program input via the data bus 88.

The CPU reads various programs from the ROM to control each part, and also reads the compression method switching program from the ROM in the recording mode at the time of shooting to save the image data representing the shot image. The compression method is selected, and the image data is compressed and saved by the selected compression method.

A power supply circuit 35 is connected to the charging controller 34. The power supply circuit 35 charges the battery 26 with the electric power supplied from the charger 50 shown in FIG. The charging control unit 34 controls the power supply circuit 35 and controls the battery 2
Control charging to 6.

As shown in FIG. 3, the charger 50 has a control section 52. A power supply unit 54 and a charging start switch 56 are connected to the control unit 52. A coil 58 is connected to the power supply unit 54.

The charging start switch 56 is for the battery 26
Is a switch that should be turned on when starting charging to. When the charging start switch 56 is turned on, the control unit 52 controls the power supply unit 54 so that the current flows through the coil 58. As a result, the power supply unit 54 adjusts the electric power supplied from, for example, a general household power supply (AC 100 V) and supplies a current to the coil 58.

The charging start switch 56 may be a switch that is turned on by the weight of the charger 50 when the digital camera 10 is set in the charger 50, for example. As a result, charging can be started simply by setting the digital camera 10 in the charger. Alternatively, the switch may be turned on by a user operation.

On the other hand, the charge controller 3 of the digital camera 10
4 is connected to the coil 60, and when the digital camera 10 is set in the charger 50, the coil 60 shown in FIG.
As shown in (A), the coil 58 of the charger 50 and the coil 60 of the digital camera 10 face each other.

Therefore, the digital camera 10 is connected to the charger 5
When set to 0 and a current flows through the coil 58,
As shown in (A), the magnetic field 62 is generated in the direction of the arrow in the figure by the current flowing through the coil 58. And this magnetic field 62
As a result, a current according to the winding ratio of the coils 58 and 60 flows through the coil 60. The charge controller 34 controls the battery 26 to be charged by the current generated in the coil 60 while monitoring the charge amount of the battery 26. Then, when the battery 26 is fully charged, the charging is stopped.

As described above, since the battery 26 can be charged by so-called electromagnetic induction, the digital camera 1
It can be charged without removing the battery 26 from 0.

As shown in FIG. 4B, the coils 60A and 60B may be wound around the magnetic core 64 on the digital camera 10 side, and the coil 58 may be wound around the magnetic core 66 on the charger 50 side. In this case, a magnetic field is generated from the charger 50 side toward the digital camera 10 side by the current flowing through the coil 58 (direction of arrow in the figure). A current flows through the coil 60A due to the generated magnetic field. And the coil 6
The magnetic field generated in the magnetic core 64 by the current flowing in 0A causes a current to flow in the coil 60B, and the battery 26 is charged by this current.

As described above, since the electromagnetic induction is used to charge the battery 26, the battery 50 is directed from the charger 50 side to the digital camera 10 side, that is, the digital camera 1 side.
A magnetic field from 0 to the upper side is generated. Therefore, when an IC such as a CCD is arranged near the coil 60, the IC may be damaged or malfunction due to the magnetic field generated during charging.

In particular, the image pickup device 3 that handles analog signals
When an IC such as 0 is arranged near the coil 60, there is a high possibility that the IC will be damaged or malfunction.

Therefore, in the present embodiment, as shown in FIG. 5, the coil 60 is arranged at the lower right when viewed from the back surface of the digital camera 10, and the IC of the image pickup device 30 is arranged at a position farthest from the coil 60. ing.

Also, electric circuit components for the power supply system are mainly arranged on the right half side when viewed from the rear side of the digital camera 10, and the signal processing circuit is mainly arranged on the left half side (weak area) when viewed from the back side of the digital camera 10. IC parts that configure an electronic circuit such as the above are arranged.

More specifically, the charge control board 6 on which the coil 60 and the parts constituting the charge control section 34 are mounted on the right half side (coil side area) of the digital camera 10 when viewed from the rear side.
8. Capacitor 7, which is a component of power supply circuit 35
0, the battery 26, and a strobe control board 72 on which at least a part of a drive circuit 24a for driving and controlling the strobe 16 is mounted.

The element arranged on the left half side corresponds to the element utilizing the magnetic field of the present invention, and the element arranged on the right half side corresponds to the element utilizing the weak current of the present invention.

As described above, on the right half side when viewed from the rear surface of the digital camera 10, there are arranged components which are less likely to be adversely affected by the magnetic field generated by the coil 60.

On the left half side of the digital camera 10 when viewed from the rear side, the IC, A /
IC that constitutes the D conversion unit 38, analog signal processing unit 36
Are arranged, the ICs forming the memory 42, and the other ICs 74 to 78 are arranged. IC 74-78
Is an IC that constitutes, for example, the timing signal generation circuit 27, the digital signal processing unit 40, the liquid crystal drive circuit 24b, and the like.

In this way, an IC group such as an IC for handling a weak current or an IC having a fine wiring is arranged on the left half side when viewed from the back surface of the digital camera 10. Specifically, the separation distance from the coil 60 is increased as the IC is more likely to be adversely affected by the magnetic field. In particular, ICs that handle analog signals
The distance from the coil 60 is increased.

As described above, on the left half side when viewed from the rear surface of the digital camera 10, the parts which are greatly affected by the magnetic field generated by the coil 60 are arranged.

This makes it possible to prevent the IC from being damaged or malfunctioning due to the influence of the magnetic field generated during charging. The surface including the substrate on which the IC and the like are mounted and the coil 60
It is preferable to dispose the substrate in a direction that is not orthogonal to the direction of the magnetic field generated by, that is, in a direction that is substantially parallel. Thereby, the influence of the magnetic field can be further reduced.

In addition, the digital camera 10 is substantially centered (see FIG. 5).
A shielding plate (separating portion) for shielding the magnetic field may be provided at the position indicated by the alternate long and short dash line). This causes I due to the magnetic field.
It is possible to more effectively prevent malfunction of C and the like.

In FIG. 4B, as the structure of the power generation unit for charging the battery, the coils 60A and 60B are wound around the magnetic core 64 on the digital camera 10 side, and the coil 58 is wound around the magnetic core 66 on the charger 50 side. Although the configuration is shown,
As a modification of this, as shown in FIG. 6A, the trigger coil included in the circuit for emitting light from the strobe 16 forming a part of the drive circuit 24a is shared with the coil 60A, and the trigger coil (primary coil It is also possible to have a structure in which a booster coil (secondary side) 88 for boosting the voltage generated on the side) is wound around the magnetic core 66. The winding ratio between the trigger coil and the boost coil is, for example, 1:30.

In this case, the magnetic field generated by the current flowing in the coil 58 causes a current to flow in the coil 60A, and the magnetic field generated in the magnetic core 64 causes a current to flow in the coil 60B. The battery is charged by the current flowing through the coil 60B. The battery may be charged by the current flowing through the boost coil 80.

When strobe light is emitted, the coil 60A is used.
A current is caused to flow through this, and the current flowing through the boosting coil 80 causes strobe emission.

As described above, since the power generation unit for charging the battery and the power generation unit for stroboscopic light emission are shared, the number of parts can be reduced and the cost can be reduced.

Further, as shown in FIG. 6 (B), the coil 6
0B may be shared with the boost coil 80. That is, the terminal b is drawn out from a position corresponding to the number of windings of the coil 60B, and when the battery is charged, the voltage Vab generated between the terminals a and b (or the voltage Vbc generated between the terminals b and c) is used to strobe the flash. At the time of light emission, the voltage Vac generated between the terminals ac is used. With such a configuration, the number of parts can be further reduced.

Further, as shown in FIG. 7A, the coil 60 may be wound around the screw hole 32 for fixing the tripod. In this case, a magnetic core 82 such as a ferrite core is attached to the charger 50 so that a part thereof protrudes. The length of the protruding portion of the magnetic core 82 is determined by the screw hole 3
2 and the diameter of the magnetic core 82 is approximately equal to the depth of 2
Slightly smaller than the diameter of.

At the time of charging, as shown in FIG. 7B, the digital camera 10 is set in the charger 50 so that the protruding portion of the magnetic core 82 of the charger 50 is housed in the screw hole 32. As a result, when a current flows through the coil 58, a magnetic field is generated in the longitudinal direction of the magnetic core 82, and the generated magnetic field causes a current to flow through the coil 60, which allows the battery 26 to be charged.

In the present embodiment, the case where the present invention is applied to a digital camera has been described, but it goes without saying that the present invention is also applicable to, for example, a camera-equipped mobile phone and the like.

[0066]

As described above, according to the present invention, since the region for accommodating the element utilizing the magnetic field and the element utilizing the weak current are separated, the element utilizing the weak current is damaged by the influence of the magnetic field. There is an effect that it is possible to prevent a malfunction or a malfunction.

[Brief description of drawings]

1A is a front view of a digital camera, and FIG. 1B is a rear view of the digital camera.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an electric system of the digital camera.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a configuration of a power supply system of a digital camera and a charger.

FIG. 4 is a schematic configuration diagram showing a schematic configuration of a power generation unit.

FIG. 5 is a layout diagram showing a layout of each component of the digital camera.

FIG. 6 is a schematic configuration diagram showing another example of a power generation unit.

FIG. 7 is a schematic configuration diagram showing another example of a power generation unit.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 digital camera 16 Strobe 26 Battery 30 Imaging device 32 screw holes 35 power supply circuit 36 Analog signal processor 38 A / D converter 40 Digital signal processor 42 memory 50 charger 58 coils 60 coils 68 Charge control board 72 Strobe control board 80 booster coil

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Claims (8)

[Claims] 1. A portable device with a built-in image pickup device having an image pickup device for picking up an image of at least a subject, wherein a plurality of regions which do not overlap each other are defined inside the device, and one region of the plurality of regions is defined as a coil side region. And an element that utilizes a magnetic field is arranged to be accommodated, and one region of the plurality of regions excluding the coil side region is a weak region, and an element that utilizes a weak current is arranged to be accommodated. Portable device with built-in image sensor. 2. The element housed in the coil side region constitutes a coil that generates an electromotive force by the magnetic field, a battery that is charged by the electromotive force generated by the coil, and a charging unit that charges the battery. 2. The portable device with a built-in image pickup device according to claim 1, wherein the mobile device has at least one of an element and an element forming a strobe for emitting auxiliary light. 3. An element to be housed in the weak area is the image pickup element, an element forming an analog signal processing unit for analog signal processing an output signal from the image pickup element, and an A / D converting the analog signal into a digital signal. The portable device with a built-in image pickup device according to claim 1 or 2, which is at least one of the elements that form the D conversion unit. 4. The device according to claim 1, wherein the element is arranged such that a surface including the element accommodated in the weak region and a direction of the magnetic field are substantially parallel to each other. A portable device with a built-in image sensor described in the above. 5. The image pickup device according to claim 1, further comprising: a separation unit that separates the coil side region and the weak region from each other substantially at the center of the inside of the apparatus. Built-in mobile device. 6. A booster coil for boosting a voltage generated in the coil, and a strobe for emitting auxiliary light by the voltage boosted by the booster coil. The portable device with a built-in image sensor according to any one of 1. 7. The portable device with a built-in image pickup device according to claim 6, wherein the battery is charged by a voltage boosted by the boosting coil. 8. The image pickup device according to claim 2, further comprising a screw hole for fixing the main body of the apparatus to a tripod, and the coil is wound around the screw hole. Built-in mobile device.