Asaca Corporation

Hitoshi Nakamura

Akio Hayashi

Koutaro Onso

Tetsuya Yoshioka

Kouichi Shibasaki

Katsuhiko Tanaka

Noritada Kuwayama

Yoshihisa Ohno

Takashi Nakagomi

Hidemi Tachikawa

An automatic disc exchanging apparatus including pallets each of which can support a disc D, storage cabinets which stores said pallets , recording and reproducing drives for recording and reproducing information on and from said discs D, and a transporting mechanism for transporting said pallets between said storage cabinets and said recording and reproducing drives, magnetic members are provided in the vicinity of claw portions of the pallet . The storage cabinet has an opening through which the pallet can move into and out of the storage cabinet, side walls having grooves formed therein for guiding side edges of the pallet , and a rear wall which receives an end of the pallet , and magnets which attract said magnetic members in the pallet are provided on the rear wall

Automatic disc changing device

A rotating frame,is supported by a stationary frame,rotatably by 180 degrees, and in both side plates,of the rotating frame,there are formed four pairs of guide grooves,for guiding pallets,and slots,for moving claw members,said slots corresponding to said guide grooves,On an inner wall of a rear plate,of the rotating frame,there is provided an up and down movable member,which moves downward together with the claw members,when the rotating frame,is rotated by 180 degrees. Into the first and third guide grooves,and,there have been previously inserted empty pallets,with such a posture that their front surfaces,face downward. By moving the claw members,along the slots,the pallets,having discs D placed thereon are drawn into the second and fourth guide grooves,and,such that these pallets,are opposed to the upper empty pallets,In this condition, when the rotating frame,is rotated by 180 degrees, the discs D are turned-over and are placed on the lower empty pallets

Disc inverting mechanism and disc automatic changer with the mechanism

An apparatus for automatically exchanging a number of record medium cassettes includes a housing, a cassette storing device arranged within said housing for storing the cassettes, recording and reproducing devices arranged within said housing for recording and reproducing information on and from the record medium cassettes, a cassette transporting device arranged within said housing for transporting a plurality of cassette hand over units, a mail box having a cassette supply room and a cassette receipt room, a transport unit for transporting the cassettes between the cassette hand over units and the mail box. By using a plurality of cassette hand over units, the cassettes can be transported efficiently. By using the mail box, a new cassette can be automatically supplied into the housing and an unnecessary cassette can be automatically removed from the housing.

Cassette transfer apparatus

An apparatus for automatically exchanging a number of record medium cassettes. The apparatus includes a plurality of cassette exchange units 21-24. Each cassette exchange unit has a cassette storing device 32 in which a plurality of record medium cassettes are installed, one or more recording and reproducing devices 33, a cassette transporting device 34 including a cassette hand over mechanism 35 for transporting desired record medium cassettes between the cassette storing devices and the recording and reproducing devices, and a controller 39. The controllers 39 of the cassette exchange units are controlled by a system controller 40 which is connected to a host computer 70 by means of SCSI cables or interface cables 61-69. The recording and reproducing devices 33 are connected in series with the host computer 70. The cassettes can be transported between the cassette exchange units by means of bridging mechanisms 25-27.

Growing community of inventors

Ibaraki, Japan

Hitoshi Nakamura