Canon Patent Application: Molded resin mounts coming to the EF-M series

Canon, in an effort to make the EF-M cameras smaller, lighter (and possibly cheaper - but this is never mentioned) is now looking at resin (plastic) mounts for the EF-M mount.  This most likely is for the bottom of the lineup, where cost and size and weight are more important than the upper end.

While some may scorn at such a plastic-fantastic camera, there is little doubt that the bottom end of the EF-M lineup will ultimately replace the Canon EF rebel lineup, and those cameras go quite low in terms of overall build quality and capability.

Why is this an EF-M patent application? Because in the Canon world, the only 9 pin mount connector is the EOS-M (EF-M) mount.  The EF mount has 8 pins and the RF mount has 12.

The purpose of this patent application is the creation of new contact pins that are suitable for a resin mount, and also are thinner, so that Canon can make the camera thinner.  Not only is Canon looking at making the mount thinner, but they are also attempting to reduce electrical noise, and decrease the resistance caused by the contact pins themselves.

From the patent application;

Recently, for the purpose of reducing the weight of a camera, a mount is manufactured by molding with a resin. The mount molded in this way is hereinafter referred to as a mold mount. For the purpose of reducing the thickness of the camera, the contact spring that biases the camera-side electrical contact pin in the protruding direction may be configured by a leaf spring.

..

According to the present invention, since the plurality of camera side contact pins are arranged at positions other than the mount center line in the normal posture in the camera side contact holding portion, each of the plurality of camera side contact pins in the leaf spring is attached. The pitch of the energized portion can be reduced. 
The occupied angle range of the contact pins can be reduced, and the camera can be downsized. In accordance with this, a plurality of accessory-side contact surfaces provided on the camera accessory are also arranged, so that the camera accessory can be reduced in size. 
 

In the present invention, the power supply contact (contact pin or contact surface) on the camera side and accessory side is arranged on the camera power circuit side and further on the power circuit side than the mount center. The number of contacts is larger than the number of contacts arranged on the camera side actuator side. As a result, it is possible to realize a camera and a camera accessory that have little loss due to wiring resistance in power supply and are resistant to noise. 

Japan Patent Application 2019-135566