Acoustic plug for a hard disk drive

Details Acoustic plug for a hard disk drive Acoustic plug for a hard disk drive

1998-07-17

2001-05-08

Letscher, George J. (Department: 2754)

Dynamic magnetic information storage or retrieval

Record transport with head stationary during transducing

Disk record

C369S263100

Reexamination Certificate

active

06229668

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an acoustic plug for a hard disk drive.
2. Background Information
Hard disk drives contain a number of magnetic recording heads that are located adjacent to a plurality of rotating magnetic disks. The disks are attached to a spin motor that is mounted to a base plate of the disk drive. Each recording head is mounted to a flexure arm. The flexure arms are attached to an actuator arm which has a voice coil motor. The voice coil motor can rotate the actuator arm and move the heads across the surfaces of the disks. The actuator arm is pivotally connected to the base plate of the disk drive. To prevent contamination of the magnetic disks, the drives typically have a cover which encloses the actuator arm assembly, spin motor and disks. The spin motor and actuator arm assembly are typically secured to the base plate by fasteners that extend through the cover.
The rotation of the disks and the movement of the actuator arm create audible frequencies which are transmitted through the cover and emitted from the hard disk drive. The sound of a disk drive can be an annoyance to an end user. Some disk drives incorporate acoustic damping features to attenuate the noise created by the spin motor and the actuator arm assembly. For example, some disk drives include an acoustic plate that is attached to the top surface of the cover. The acoustic plate is bonded to the cover by a damping adhesive that absorbs acoustic energy.
The acoustic plates have openings which provide access to the fasteners so that the disk drive can be disassembled. The openings are adjacent to the spin motor and the actuator arm assembly. It has been found that a significant amount of noise is still transmitted through the openings from the spin motor and the actuator arm assembly. It would be desirable to reduce the acoustic emissions of prior art hard disk drives.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is an acoustic plug for an acoustic plate that is attached to a cover of a hard disk drive. The hard disk drive includes a disk that is attached to a spin motor. The spin motor is attached to a base plate of the disk drive. An actuator arm assembly is also mounted to the base plate. The cover encloses the spin motor, disk and actuator arm assembly. The drive also has at least one fastener that extends through the cover. The fastener(s) can be attached to the spin motor and/or the actuator arm assembly. The acoustic plate has an opening that is located adjacent to the fastener. The acoustic plug is located within the acoustic plate opening.


REFERENCES:
patent: 5214549 (1993-05-01), Baker et al.
patent: 5875067 (1999-02-01), Morris et al.

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