Electricity: electrical systems and devices – Housing or mounting assemblies with diverse electrical... – For electronic systems and devices
Reexamination Certificate
1999-06-09
2001-06-12
Feild, Lynn D. (Department: 2835)
Electricity: electrical systems and devices
Housing or mounting assemblies with diverse electrical...
For electronic systems and devices
C361S724000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06246574
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention is directed to an assembly for a building block system having a minimal standard front height and a minimal standard front width, whereby the assembly is composed of at least two sections that have a shared front panel and a shared carrier plate, whereby the front height and the front width of each section correspond to the minimal standard front height or, respectively, to the minimal standard front width.
Internationally standardized building block systems for electrical systems such as, for example, the inch-based building block system ES902C of Siemens AG or similar systems contain an assembly carrier with standardized dimensions into which corresponding assemblies can be inserted next to one another.
Such an assembly normally contains a front panel and a principal printed circuit board vertically connected to the front panel on which the electrical and electronic components of the assembly are secured and that can be inserted into standardized guide rails in the assembly carrier. What is understood below by an assembly is not only a traditional assembly having one or more printed circuit boards but also a rack for mounting electrical or electronic components or devices that mates with the building block system and can be inserted there into.
The height of the assembly carrier and the assemblies appertaining thereto as viewed from the front side is generally a whole multiple of a minimal standard front height, and the width of an assembly is a whole multiple of a minimal standard front width. In a widespread type of building block systems, the front height is recited in height units, whereby a height unit amounts to 44 mm and the minimal standard front height amounts to 3 height units or 132 mm. The front width is recited in division units, whereby a division unit amounts to 5.8 millimeters and the standard front widths amount to one or more division units. A standard front width that approximately corresponds to the thickness of a disk drive or, respectively, something larger is referred to here as minimum standard front width even though it can also be smaller in other applications. Eight division units or 40.64 mm are generally adequate for commercially available hard disk or moving head disk drives.
An individual assembly with an individual front panel and an individual principal printed circuit board can have a width of several standard front widths. In addition, given a corresponding height of the assembly carrier, it can have a height of a plurality of minimal standard front heights, so that the principal printed circuit board is to be designed correspondingly larger. Such an assembly having a plurality of standard front widths and/or a plurality of minimal standard front heights can be imaged as being composed of a plurality of elementary sections, each of which respectively has the standard front dimensions and that vertically or, respectively, horizontally adjoin one another.
In some instances, it is desirable that a device, for example for the control of an electrical system, that is realized on the basis of such a control system contains one or more disk drives, for instance a hard disk drive and a moving head disk drive such as a floppy disk drive. Commercially obtainable disk drives, however, cannot be integrated without further ado into the standardized building block system for electrical systems, so that such a disk drive hereinbefore had to be mounted either outside the building block system or within the building block system in an expedient way.
DE 93 05 272 U1 discloses a pluggable periphery box that contains a hard disk drive and a moving head disk drive. The two drives are mounted at a distance from one another. The interspace between the drives serves for the acceptance of a connector means in order to electrically connect the drives to a base plate.
The catalog of the Schroff Company, 6/93 Edition, page 36.20, describes standard electronics housings that have inserts for drives. The drives are arranged in transverse format and each respectively have a printed circuit board.
DE 88 12 270 U1 describes an electronics housing for the acceptance of electro mechanical data processing modules. The individual modules can be inserted into the housing with guide rails.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,214,567 describes an assembly that contains two disk drives. These disk drives are respectively mounted at an end of the assembly lying opposite one another.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,566,383 discloses an assembly wherein two disk drives are arranged on a single carrier plate. The disk drives can be at a distance from the front panel.
The connecting lines for the two disk drives are arranged at the back end of the carrier plate and point in the same direction.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the invention is to integrate the disk drives in a building block system in a simple, mechanically stable and space-saving way.
This object is obtained by an assembly for a building block system with at least two sections that have a common front panel and a common carrier plate which extends perpendicular to the front panel, the front height and front width of the panel in every section is at least equal to a minimal standard front height and minimal standard front width, whereby a disk drive is accommodated in each of the sections and the disk drives are respectively mounted flat and offset relative to one another on the vertically arranged common carrier plate with at least one of the two disk drives being spaced from the front panel. The improvement is that the disk drives are arranged offset relative to one another, as seen in the direction of the depth of the assembly, so that a space is created between the inside of the front panel and a surface of the rearmost disk drive facing toward the front panel and the space is arranged offset and spaced from a front panel in which space connecting lines both for the first disk drive as well as for the second disk drive can be arranged so that the connecting lines outgoing from the disk drives point in opposite directions and in that the connecting lines are conducted to plug-type connectors that are secured in that part of the front panel facing toward the disk drives that are arranged offset.
The invention is based on the perception that it would be uneconomical to provide a separate assembly for each of the two disk drives, as shall be explained below.
The backside of the building block system is usually occupied by a wiring backplane that, for example, contains a system bus or a multi-bus for connecting the assemblies to one another. The assemblies are also supplied with power proceeding from the backplane. The data lines and power supply lines of a commercially obtainable disk drive are generally not compatible with the data lines and power supply lines of the building block system and must therefore be conducted out at the front side of the assembly. Plug-type connectors that are secured in the front panel are preferred for this purpose.
An assembly having at least two sections would then be required for a single moving head disk drive, i.e., an assembly having at least twice the height or twice the width. An area that corresponds to somewhat less than a section is required at the front side of the assembly for the slot for the input and output of recording media such as, for example, diskettes. The data and power supply terminals of a moving head disk drive are usually located at the backside thereof, and a second section is required for corresponding plug-type connectors in the front panel of the assembly.
The space in the assembly behind the plug-type connectors then remains essentially unutilized.
Although one assembly having only one section is adequate in an of itself for the accommodation of an individual hard disk drive for which only plug-type connectors in the front panel are required, a suitable assembly must be just as high in case the building block system is designed for a multiple of the minimal standard front height, for instance twice or three times the standard front height, so tha
Feild Lynn D.
Oce Printing Systems GmbH
Schiff & Hardin & Waite
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