Electricity: electrical systems and devices – Housing or mounting assemblies with diverse electrical... – For electronic systems and devices
Reexamination Certificate
2000-07-18
2002-12-31
Schuberg, Darren (Department: 2835)
Electricity: electrical systems and devices
Housing or mounting assemblies with diverse electrical...
For electronic systems and devices
C361S689000, C248S632000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06501645
ABSTRACT:
FILED OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to mounting structures of fixed or hard disk assembly (“HDA”) for use with magnetic disk drive units, and more particularly to a cable layout technique therefor.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Magnetic disk drives have been widely employed as external data storage units of modern computers. When magnetic disk drives are used in the form of unitary components, a single magnetic disk drive is accommodated within the interior of a personal computer as its storage module for example (as a logical equipment drive “C” in most cases). The same goes with other cases where it is used as a storage device adaptable for use in copying machines, land vehicle travel route guidance systems also known as “car navigation systems,” portable or “mobile” computers, electronic cameras, and other electronic devices.
On the contrary, large size computers, called main frames, are designed to employ external storage apparatus including redundant arrays of inexpensive disk (RAID) systems with a plurality of magnetic disk drives packed in a box-like housing and/or large-capacity magnetic disk devices. These magnetic disk devices (such as RAIDs and mass-storage disk devices) will be collectively called the magnetic disk devices of the broad sense hereafter in the description. One typical approach to mounting for installation such magnetic disk devices of broad sense is to settle around a unitary magnetic disk drive (magnetic disk device of the narrow sense or alternatively HDA) a vibration-absorptive or anti-vibration support mechanism capable of withstanding vibration and shocks as externally applied thereto.
An HDA support structure for exclusive use in RAID systems or mass-storage magnetic disk devices is disclosed in JP-A-8-161880 (and its corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 5,740,011) under the name of the same applicant. Typically a magnetic disk device of the narrow or strict sense, HDA, is structured from two major parts: a mechanical part including magnetic disk storage media and more than one magnetic read/write head (referred to as a head/disk assembly or simply “H/DA” hereinafter), and electronic circuitry part (referred to hereafter as electronic control circuit board) for use in controlling the mechanical part.
A standard H/DA is designed to include an arm that is swingably movable with a pivot as its center, a magnetic head provided at the distal end of such arm, a rotatable magnetic disk media, an actuator for positioning the magnetic head at a desired location over the magnetic disk media, and an enclosure housing with its sealed interior space in which the above components are disposed. And, the H/DA is secured via a support mechanism to a fixed frame or fixation section of substantially rectangular shape (so-called drive bay within an upper-level device in the case of the magnetic disk device of the narrow sense).
Further, since the H/DA is designed so that its arm's center of gravity is identical in position to a layout position of the pivot, any vibration and shocks as externally applied thereto to give the H/DA translational movement will no longer serve as disturbance with respect to position determination of the magnetic head involved. However, such vibration/shock application can result in occurrence of disturbance relative to magnetic head positioning in cases where moment components about the magnetic disk media's rotary shaft and actuator's rotation axis are included in such vibration or the like. It is thus required that the support mechanism for rigidly attaching the H/DA to its associative fixed frame is free from the risk of disturbance with respect to the positioning procedures of the magnetic head within the H/DA upon externally applying of vibration that would result in the fixed frame exhibiting translational motion. More precisely, it should be required that the position of the gravity center of the HDA be taken into consideration when attaching to the fixed frame the HDA including both the H/DA and the electronic control circuit board operatively associated therewith. Note here that the HDA's gravity center position and the H/DA's gravity center position may be substantially the same as each other in intended meaning and definition, depending on the mass of the electronic control circuit board.
On the other hand, it is deemed convenient to employ commercially available general purpose products or “after-market” items as the magnetic disk devices of narrow sense when mounting them into electronic equipment of interest. In addition, if it is permissible to employ HDAs of after-market items for RAIDs or large-size mass-storage disk devices, then production costs decrease in the resultant systems. Here, the HDAs of after-market items may refer to those magnetic disk drives of the form factor type with adaptability to several kinds of interface standards such as the integrated drive electronics (IDE), enhanced IDE (EIDE), small computer system interface (SCSI) and others, including but not limited to 3.5-inch type, 2.5-inch type, 1.8-inch type, and so forth. Also note that an after-market HDA product is provided with an electronic control circuit board operatively associated with the H/DA, which is connected to upper-level apparatus via a cable and a connector placed at an end portion of the H/DA.
While the prior art structure as taught by the above-identified Japanese document JP-A-8-161880 employs its special-purpose or “dedicated” HDA, it has been found by the inventors as named herein that an attempt to replace this dedicated HDA with a mere general purpose HDA of after-market item can result in occurrence of inconvenience. More specifically, in view of the fact that the dedicated HDA comes with its own electronic circuitry as internally built therein, a specially designed cable wiring structure of the exclusive use type is used for transferring electrical signals from the H/DA to the electronic control circuit board—in this case, such wiring structure did not affect in any way the behavior of an actuator as internally disposed in the H/DA. However, when an attempt is made to apply an HDA of after-market item in place of the dedicated HDA to a fixed frame that has been used for mounting of the dedicated HDA, extra cable wiring/routing schemes are required due to the necessity of separately converting the signals from the after-market HDA product into appropriate signals suitable for use therein. Another problem faced with the prior art lies in an inability to provide any sufficient spatial margins for accommodation of the support mechanism that is used to increase stiffness or robustness against vibration and/or shocks occurring due to rotation of the H/DA. Letting the fixed frame decrease in thickness in a way suited for the size of an HDA of after-market item would result in occurrence of bad influence upon the behavior of the actuator settled within the H/DA. In short, it has been found by the inventors that presently available FPC cables offer increased stiffness along the width and are thus incapable of being directly applied for use at narrow spaced locations.
It is estimated that the above-noted bad influence does not take place in the structure as disclosed in the JP-A-8-161880 because the use of its dedicated H/DA and the specially designed electronic control circuit board in combination permits achievement of any desired cable wiring and routing without suffering from limitations thereto. In other words, even where a cable is disposed in a narrow space defined within the fixed frame while being curved or folded at its one or several portions as shown in
FIG. 23
, the cable's counterforce hardly affects the dedicated H/DA's rotary support mechanism. The electronic control circuit board and the H/DA are separately attached in a way independent of each other; during this process, electrical connection between the HDA and the fixed frame did not affect the behavior of the actuator within the H/DA.
A currently available general purpose 3.5-inch form factor type H/DA and its a
Hanazawa Shigeyuki
Kojima Toshiaki
Matsuda Yasuhiro
Sega Masahiko
Chang Yean-Hsi
Schuberg Darren
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