Patent ID: 8490850

Claim:
A surgical instrument comprising: a body portion; a first clamping member mounted on the body portion and a second clamping member movable relative to the first clamping member; an approximating mechanism for moving the second clamping member relative to the first clamping member, the approximating mechanism including a longitudinally movable drive screw having a helical groove formed therein and a rotatable sleeve mounted about the drive screw, the rotatable sleeve including a drive pin extending into the helical groove such that rotation of the rotatable sleeve longitudinally translates the drive screw within the body portion; and a torque limiting mechanism engagable with the rotatable sleeve, the torque limiting mechanism including: a driven surface coupled with the rotatable sleeve; a driving surface engagable with the driven surface; a spring configured to bias the driving surface towards the driven surface; and a slider configured to selectively engage coils of the spring to selectively adjust the biasing force applied to the driving surface, wherein driving surface is configured to slip relative to the the driven surface at a predetermined engagement pressure.