Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi-lg Data Storage, Inc.

Hisahiro Miki

Yoshiaki Yamauchi

Ikuo Nishida

Tomoki Hirata

Shinobu Yoshida

Seiji Hamaie

Shigeki Mori

Takashi Kouno

Yoshiyuki Tanaka

Kuniyuki Kimura

Mitsutaka Shizuya

Yoshihiro Sato

Yoshihiro Satou

Takashi Ishikawa

Noriyuki Kumasaka

Hiroyuki Tanaka

Shinya Asano

Yasuhiro Yoshimura

Yoshishige Endo

Katsutoshi Nii

Shozo Saegusa

Shinya Tsubota

Nozomu Harada

Kazuto Oyama

Kouhei Takita

Tatsumi Uchigiri

Kuniaki Hirayama

Keiji Sasao

Yoichi Narui

Shinsuke Takatsuka

Kohei Takita

Kiyoshi Yamamuro

Kazuo Tsukiyama

Hisanobu Tajima

The present application relates to an optical disc apparatus for carrying out at least one of recording and reproduction of signals onto or from a data recording surface of an optical disc loaded in the optical disc apparatus. The optical disc apparatus is capable of being thinned and lightened while ensuring a mechanical strength and a stiffness, and also capable of restraining sticking of a flexible printed circuit (FPC) connected to the optical pickup and reducing the sliding resistance of the FPC during movement of the optical pickup.

Optical disc apparatus

There is provided a disc drive by which the fluid loss of a disc is reduced and the electric power consumption of a spindle motor can be decreased. In the disc drive according to the present invention, a rotation load reducing member is provided between a top cover and the disc. The rotation load reducing member is movably supported by a clearance adjustment member. While the disc is rotating, the rotation load reducing member is moved in the direction approaching the disc. Thereby, the thickness of an air layer on the upper surface of the disc is decreased.

Disc drive with clearance adjustment member

An optical disc apparatus including first to fourth disc guides. At the end of disc loading, the first one, in a fixed position, contacts a peripheral side face of the optical disc at a first point thereon to support the disc; the second one has a plane opposite to the peripheral side face which contacts the peripheral side face of the optical disc at a second point to support the disc while restrained from moving away from the side face; the third one contacts the peripheral side face of the optical disc at a third point to support the disc while biased by a spring; and the fourth one contacts the side face at a fourth point while biased by a spring to support the disc, and is restrained from moving against the resilience of the spring. The disc, supported by those disc guides, is chucked by a clamper.

The invention makes it possible to carry out an emergency eject motion without attaching and detaching teeth between gears in a transmission system of a driving force of a loading motor, in an optical disc apparatus. At least one of gear units in a gear train constructing a transmission system between a loading motor and a disc moving mechanism is structured such that a driving gear is coupled in an inner diameter side of a large diameter driven gear in such a manner as to be movable in an axial direction and be rotatable integrally with the driven gear, and the driving gear moves and displaces in an axial direction with respect to the driven gear, thereby being canceled the coupling with the driven gear while keeping an engagement with a gear in the next stage, canceling the coupling by an external force by a manual operation so as to set the transmission system to a disconnection state at a time of an emergency eject, making the disc moving mechanism carry out a disc discharge motion by the external force, and discharging an optical disc out of the apparatus.

Since a disc vibrates in a natural mode at a predetermined rotation speed, a variation in a tilt of the disc relative to an optical head is caused. As a result, the read/write performance of a disc drive is deteriorated. The disc drive has a disc tilt database for recording a relative tilt angle of the disc in a tangential direction thereof associated with the disc natural mode and the disc rotation speed at which such tilt occurs, a circuit for detecting a disc rotation speed, and a tilt drive circuit. An objective lens is tilted so that the relative tilt angle is corrected, and thus, stable read/write performance of the disc drive is achieved.

Disc drive

An optical disc drive may include a tray movable for the sake of mounting and dismounting a disc, a disc rotation mechanism arranged at the center to rotate the disc, and a pickup arranged on a backside of the center to write and read the disc within a housing. The optical disc drive may be arranged with a first opening for inhaling outside air in a height range between the bottom surface of the tray and the proximity to the bottom end of the pickup on a back surface or a side surface around a corner on a right side viewed from the backside of the housing, and a second opening for exhausting internal air, arranged higher than a top surface of the tray on the back surface or a side surface around a corner on a left side viewed from the backside.

Optical disc drive having openings in the housing to allow air therein

A disc drive unit capable of preventing occurrence of errors in a recording system such as a CD or a DVD, using an optical head for recording data on a disc or reproducing data recorded on the disc. A disc tray is adapted to accommodate the disc, and load and unload the disc. A top cover is arranged above the disc. The top cover is formed therein with a concave and convex part for avoiding positioning a node of each of vibration modes (0, n) (where n=2, 3, 4) caused by a critical rotating speed of the disc, at a position right above the optical head.

Disc drive unit

The invention provides an optical disc apparatus having a dynamic damper mechanism which does not use any part for exclusive use for absorbing a shock of an optical pickup. The optical disc apparatus is provided with a chassis attached to a base chassis via a first elastic body, shafts provided on the chassis, an optical pickup moving on the shaft, and a weight attached to the chassis via a second elastic body, the weight is provided with stoppers on a moving path of the optical pickup.

Optical disc apparatus having dynamic damper mechanism

In the case when a disk is transported into or out of an apparatus, local contact noise is generated in a drive transmission gear and a clutch portion of a disk loading mechanism. Also, this phenomenon gives rise to problems relating to damage of parts, life of a loading motor and the like. Thus, a disk loading mechanism is provided to perform two operations of driving a disk tray in a disk transportation direction by means of a loading motor provided with a worm gear, via a first wheel gear and a second wheel gear, and also vertically raising and lowering a unit mechanism via a slide plate. In addition, a unit for controlling whirling of the above worm gear is provided to reduce contact noise of the gear and clutch portion and improve the reliability of a disk drive apparatus.

Disk drive apparatus

Disk storage devices have exhibited an increase in rotational vibrations which attend high speed rotation due to weight unbalance of a disk. Accordingly, an unbalance correcting mechanism, provided with correcting balls to correct the aforesaid unbalance, meets a problem that the correcting balls are made unstable at the time of low speed rotation to generate vibrations and noises. A disk drive device is provided with an unbalance correcting mechanism comprising an annular-shaped groove provided in a turntable on a spindle motor and a plurality of correcting balls received in the groove, and in which a sliding resistance member is provided on a bottom surface of the annular-shaped groove to suppress a sliding resistance of the correcting balls on the sliding resistance member, and a correcting ball motion auxiliary member is provided on an inner peripheral side wall of the groove (toward an axis of rotation).

Disk drive device

A disk drive apparatus is provided in which there is a disk tray having a disk-receiving face shaped in the form of a circular groove for mounting a recording disk thereon. The disk tray has a plurality of disk holding parts for holding a recording disk onto the disk-receiving face. A disk loading mechanism provides for loading/unloading the disk tray in/out of the apparatus, and a disk position regulator is placed near the disk tray to position the disk when the disk tray is loaded/unloaded. The regulator has a contact surface contacting a part of the rim of a recording disk protruding out of the sides the disk tray.

A disk drive is realized, which omits running-in for stabilizing a change in a correcting function produced by sliding between balls and a rolling groove in an unbalance correcting mechanism, and prevents immobility and straying of balls, and which comprises a unit mechanism assembled by using 12 balls subjected to surface treatment with heptadecafluorodecyltrimethoxysilane and a turntable plated with a chemical nickel plating containing phosphorus and boron to have a thickness of 5 &mgr;m and by injecting 1 microliter of ester oil into the rolling groove, and further comprises a recess formed in a sidewall of the rolling groove of the unbalance correcting mechanism to prolong the service life of the correcting function.

Disk drive with unbalance correcting mechanism

The number of revolutions of a disk is once increased to a higher level than a resonance frequency of a rotation support system at the startup of rotation of the disk, and subsequently servo control for a pickup actuator is made to work to read information from the disk. It is possible to increase reproducibility of the disk unbalance correction and improve the apparatus in reliability without generation of vibrations and noises, and to spin the disk at high speed.

Disk type reproducing apparatus and revolution control method

A disc device which includes a rotary drive mechanism for rotating a replaceable recording medium. An unbalance correcting mechanism adapted to correct unbalance is incorporated in a rotary body rotating unit in the rotary drive mechanism, and includes a holding system having a holding member for holding the rotary drive mechanism and a head having at least a reproducing function. Further included is a support member composed of resilient members, for supporting a casing and a unit holder to each other. The holding system has a natural frequency higher than 30 Hz but lower than 70 Hz, and exhibits a transmission characteristic having a lift-up degree of higher than 8 dB at a resonant point.

Disc device having disc in balance correcting arrangements

A brushless motor includes a minimum number of parts and is assembled easily. A molded, substantially annular plastic permanent magnet on a rotor is magnetized in axially opposite directions alternatively such that a plurality of pairs of S and N poles are formed alternatively. The substantially annular permanent magnet includes an annular portion associated with air-core coils provided on a stator for generating a driving torque for the rotor and associated with a frequency signal generating circuit pattern provided on the stator for generating an electric signal indicative of a rotor speed and a protruded portion protruding from an outer peripheral side surface of the annular portion and associated with a rotor position detecting means provided on the stator for generating an electric signal indicative of a rotor position. A boundary line between an S and N pole of one of the plural pole pairs passes through the protruded portion. Lead portions for connecting terminals of the frequency signal generating circuit pattern to external circuits are formed such that they are overlapped to prevent degradation of frequency signal generator characteristics.

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Chigasaki, Japan

Hisahiro Miki