Braun Aktiengesellschaft

Jeffrey Johnson

Dietwald Schotte

Harry Gaus

Udo Milutziki

Udo Milutzki

A control mechanism for automatically raising, swinging and lowering the pickup arm of a record player in response to the positioning of a finger of a user. The user's finger will selectively bridge pairs of contacts to establish an electrical circuit and generate an input signal to logic circuitry. The logic circuitry provides control signals which, through suitable transducers, control the motion of the arm.

Pickup arm control mechanism and electrical circuitry therefore

When the user presses a touch-activated switch a first time, a first digital storage device becomes set and furnishes a platter-motor-start signal to the control electronics of the platter drive motor. If the touch-activated switch is pressed a second time, the first digital storage device becomes reset, and the signal commanding that the platter drive motor operate terminates. A second digital storage device likewise assumes its set and reset states in response to the first and second pressing of the touch-activated switch. Sensors ascertain various operating conditions during the course of turntable operation, such as the swinging of the tone arm to the position corresponding to the lead-in groove of a phonograph record. The states of the digital storage devices are additionally dependent upon the conditions sensed by the sensors. Logic circuitry interprets the combinations of states of the digital storage devices and causes the requisite turntable operations to be performed, e.g., lifting and lowering of the tone arm, inward and outward swinging of the tone arm, initiation and termination of rotation of the platter, audio muting, and the like.

Growing community of inventors

Wiesbaden-Hessloch, Germany

Jeffrey Johnson