1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to the field of photography, and in particular to film cassettes.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A 35 mm film cassette has been proposed which, unlike conventional film cassettes, can be operated to automatically advance a film leader out of the cassette shell simply by rotating the film spool in the unwinding direction. The film leader originally is located entirely inside the cassette shell. Specifically, in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 5,046,682, granted Sep. 10, 1991, there is disclosed a film cassette wherein a spool is supported for rotation in an unwinding direction inside a plastic shell, a filmstrip is coiled about the spool to form a film roll with an outermost convolution that is a non-protruding leader, a pair of flanges are coaxially arranged along the spool to radially confine the film roll to keep the roll captive, and a film stripper is located substantially adjacent a passageway out of the shell to be received between a leading end of the leader and a next-inward convolution of the film roll to divert the leading end into the passageway when the spool is rotated in the unwinding direction. Once the leading end is substantially advanced into the passageway, the transverse stiffness of the filmstrip serves to flex the flanges away from each other to permit the filmstrip to escape the confinement of the flanges.
A pair of black velvet or plush pads are affixed, such as by glueing, to respective walls of the passageway to prevent ambient light from reaching the film roll. The problem, however, is that glueing makes it difficult to separate the pads from the cassette shell when one attempts to recyle the plastic shell.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds