Dynamic information storage or retrieval – With stylus cleaning or treatment
Patent
1997-09-15
2000-02-22
Klimowicz, William J.
Dynamic information storage or retrieval
With stylus cleaning or treatment
G11B 358
Patent
active
060288302
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to a cleaning device and to a method for cleaning a lens of an optical head or heads, typically, a laser head or heads of an optical disc player and/or recorder unit.
There are many types of optical disc player and/or recorder units, a typical unit is a compact disc player. Other such units, for example, are used for reading data from CD-ROMs, and also for writing data onto CD-ROMs. Another type of optical disc player and/or recorder unit records and plays video signals. Indeed, recordable compact discs are now becoming quite common both in the field of audio and video and computers. Compact disc player/recorder units are also being provided for recording onto and playing from such compact discs.
All such player and/or recorder units, comprise an optical disc receiving location into which an optical disc is placed, and a rotatably mounted drive spindle within the receiving location engages the disc for rotation thereof. An optical head, which comprises a laser light source from which laser light is directed onto the disc comprises a lens through which the laser light is focused and directed onto the optical disc. Reflected light from the optical disc is received by the optical head, and the reflected light contains signals which are recorded on the optical disc. The optical head is moveable radially relative to the rotational axis of the drive spindle from an inner position relative to the optical disc to an outer position. The inner position is located relatively closely to the drive spindle axis, and coincides with the inner periphery of the recorded area of an optical disc. The outer position coincides with the outer periphery of the recorded area of an optical disc. It is important that the lens of the optical head be kept clean.
Cleaning devices for cleaning the lens of an optical head of an optical disc player and/or recorder unit are known. A common type of such cleaning device comprises a standard optical disc, and in the case of a compact disc player, a standard compact disc is provided for placing in the optical disc receiving location of the player. One or two relatively narrow radially extending brushes are located in the compact disc, and extend from the surface of the disc which faces the optical head for wiping and cleaning the lens of the optical head as the disc rotates. In general, such radially arranged brushes, as well as being relatively narrow in a circumferential direction, extend for a relatively short distance in a radial direction. The brushes are generally equi-spaced circumferentially around the disc, and are located in various positions, generally, between the inner and outer peripheries of the recorded area of a normal compact disc. Thus, as the disc rotates, the brush or brushes are urged in a circumferential cleaning path or paths around the axis of rotation of the disc, and when the optical head is in a position which corresponds to the path of movement of one of the brushes, as the positions of the brush and the optical head coincide, the brush wipes across the lens in a generally circumferential direction relative to the direction of rotation of the disc for cleaning the lens. That is provided that the length of the fibres of the brush or brushes extending from the surface of the disc is sufficient to contact the lens. Typical of such cleaning devices are those which are sold under the Trade Marks ALCON model CD-16, ALLSOP model 56,500, MAXELL model CD-345, and DISCWASHER model CDL2.
In order that the optical head passes beneath the path or paths of the brushes when the cleaning device is rotating in the normal compact disc receiving location, the user instructs the optical head to read a track of the disc which is at a radius greater than the radius at which the brushes are located. This causes the optical head to move radially from the inner position which the optical head normally takes up, outwardly to the selected track. As the optical head moves to the selected track, the optical head crosses the cleaning path of the brush or brushes, a
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Fritsch Joseph F.
Fritsch Roxanne Yvonne
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