Dynamic information storage or retrieval – With particular cabinet structure – Slotted for edgewise insertion of storage disc
Reexamination Certificate
1999-09-07
2001-05-01
Ometz, David L. (Department: 2652)
Dynamic information storage or retrieval
With particular cabinet structure
Slotted for edgewise insertion of storage disc
Reexamination Certificate
active
06226250
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
a) Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a disk type data storage device and, in particular, to a loading mechanism of a disk type data storage device.
b) Description of the Prior Art
In recent years, disk type data storage devices such as optical disk drives have been widely used. loading mechanism of a disk type data storage device is a relatively important part of the device. In order to upgrade the performance of the disk type data storage device, manufacturers have been continuously upgrading the rotation speed of the spindle motor of the device to increase the speed of reading and writing data.
There are a number of types of disk loading mechanism. A conventional loading mechanism of this type is proposed in the U.S. Pat. No. 5,726,967 issued to Tanaka, et al., entitled “Disk Playback Apparatus For A Disk Player”. As shown in
FIG. 4
of the patent, the loading mechanism employs a cam gear having a cam groove to drive the ascending or descending of an optical pick-up module (clamping the disk or releasing the disk) and a gear to load or unload the disk tray. This type of mechanism has an unbalanced support to the optical pick-up module, and causes vibration at high rotation speed of disk. Thus, reading of data is affected. In addition, this type of cam gear design occupies a larger space which limits the accommodation space for other mechanical parts or electronic elements.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the invention is to provide a loading mechanism of a disk type data storage device in which the optical pick-up module is stably supported and guided and of smaller size to allow other mechanical or electronic parts to be mounted.
An aspect of the present invention is to provide a loading mechanism of a disk type data storage device comprising a loading mechanism of disk type data storage device for accessing data from a disk, comprising a main chassis having a sliding slot and a rotating shaft; a disk tray, insertably mounted to the main chassis for the loading of the disk, including a projected sheet, an elongated cam, and a rack; an optical pick-up module, mounted to the main chassis, for data accessing from the disk; a height controlling arm to control the height of the optical pick-up module by rotating the arm; a gear transmission module to drive the retractable movement of the disk tray and to drive the height controlling arm to rotate; a motor for driving the transmission gear module; a sliding rack having a hole and being contained within the sliding slot of the main chassis and being moved by the transmission gear module so as to drive the height controlling arm; a first detecting switch to stop the motor by triggering the height controlling arm after the disk tray is fully loaded into the main chassis; and a second detecting switch to stop the motor by triggering the disk tray after the disk tray is fully unloaded from the main chassis; wherein the height controlling arm has a front, a rear and two terminal ends and includes a central hole adapted for the rotating shaft of the main chassis so that the height controlling arm rotates about the central hole with the rotating shaft; a pair of height controlling cams vertically mounted to the two terminal ends at the front of the height controlling arm, said cams having opposite inner side face and outer side face to drive the height of the optical pick-up module; a first and second lateral board being respectively and vertically mounted to the outer side face of the height controlling cam; a first pin vertically mounted to the first lateral board for driving the projected sheet of the disk tray and being drivable by the projected sheet so as to control the height of the optical pick-up module and the retractable movement of the disk tray; a second pin vertically mounted to the second lateral board and movably contained in the elongated cam to restrict the moving direction of the height controlling arm to stably support and guide the optical pick-up module; and a third pin mounted at the rear face of the height controlling arm and contained in the hole of the sliding rack to control the movement of the sliding rack.
The sliding rack and the height controlling arm are formed integrally, and if the sliding rack and the sliding slot are made into curving shapes, corresponding to each other, another embodiment of loading mechanism is obtained.
The extension section of the main chassis, corresponding to the moving direction of the sliding rack, is provided with a dent to provide withdrawal of the disk tray by pushing the front end of the sliding rack when the power supply is cut off while the disk is loaded on the tray.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5497365 (1996-03-01), Lee
patent: 5726967 (1998-03-01), Tanaka et al.
patent: 5768241 (1998-06-01), Kanazawa et al.
patent: 5862012 (1999-01-01), Tsuchiya
Tsai Ching-hsiang
Wang Wei-chien
Altman, III Franklin D.
Bacon & Thomas PLLC
Industrial Technology Research Institute
Ometz David L.
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