Western Digital Corporation

Beckman Instruments, Inc.

Western Digital Technologies, Inc.

Seagate Technology Incorporated

Digital Corporation

Lapine Technology

John Robert Edwards

Nils E Larson

David K Myers

Lidu Huang

Scott Edward Watson

Charles D Flanigan

Jon M Garbarino

Shawn E Casey

Anil Sareen

Thomas E Conn

Gregory G Foisy

Walter Wayne Butler

Darryl L Hyde

Qing Zhang

George D Popov

Francis D Richards

Ajit Fathailal Sancheti

Roger Bruce Anderson

John B Philbrick

Sudha Narayan

Charles R Patton

A novel disk drive includes a disk drive base that includes a plurality of mounting recessions. Each of a plurality of mounting inserts at least partially protrudes into a respective one of the plurality of mounting recessions, and contacts the disk drive base. Each of the plurality of mounting inserts includes a body portion that is adapted to be attached to a host computer system. Each of the plurality of mounting inserts also includes at least one cantilevered beam having a root end that is attached to the body portion and having a distal end that is in contact with the disk drive base in a respective one of the plurality of mounting recessions. The root end is not in contact with the disk drive base when the mounting insert is in an undeformed state.

Disk drive having mounting inserts with cantilevered beams

A disk drive includes a ramp having a fixed portion that is fixed to the disk drive base, and a guide portion that is not. The guide portion includes a guide surface having a parking region that is in contact with an HGA lift-tab with the disk drive in a non-operational state. The guide surface also has a load/unload region that extends over a disk outer periphery. The guide surface defines a guide surface length that is measured from the parking region to the load/unload region. The ramp also includes a torsionally-compliant member connecting the fixed portion to the guide portion. A distance between the torsionally-compliant member and the parking region, measured approximately parallel to the guide surface length, is less than half the guide surface length. The guide portion is not connected to the fixed portion over at least two-thirds of the guide surface length.

Disk drive having a head loading/unloading ramp that includes a torsionally-compliant member

A novel actuator latch includes a catch portion interfering with actuator rotation with the latch in a closed position. The latch includes a first stop portion that is in contact with a fixed member with the latch in the closed position. The latch includes a pusher portion that is in contact with the actuator with the latch in the closed position and with the actuator in an extreme rotational position. The pusher portion has a torsional stiffness about the latch pivot location in the range 5 J/rad&#xb7;secto 30 J/rad&#xb7;sec, where Jis the rotational inertia of the actuator about the actuator pivot location expressed in units of kg&#xb7;m. The first stop portion has a torsional stiffness about the latch pivot location that is at least 5 times that of the pusher portion.

Disk drive including an actuator latch with a torsionally compliant pusher portion

The present invention is a dampening device for a flex circuit of a disk drive. The dampening device engages the flex circuit to alter is vibrational effect generated by the moment of the flex circuit that adversely affects post seek oscillations performance of the drive. The dampening device lowers the first resonant frequency of the flex circuit and reduces the magnitude of the post seek off track oscillations.

Flex circuit dampener for reduction of seek induced vibrations in a disk drive

A head stack assembly for mounting to a pivot bearing cartridge in a disk drive includes a coil having opposite electrical ends and a unitary molded plastic E-block fabricated from a first thermoplastic material containing electrically conductive filler material such that the E-block is electrically conductive. The E-block defines a generally cylindrically shaped body portion and a plurality of elongated arms, the body portion having a pivot bore for receiving the pivot bearing cartridge, a plurality of spaced-apart arm-support regions, and a surface defining a mounting site. Each arm is cantilevered from a respective one of the arm-support regions to project radially away from the pivot bore. The head stack assembly further includes an overmolded coil frame securing the coil to the body portion such that the coil is cantilevered to project radially away from the pivot bore. The overmolded coil frame is fabricated from a second thermoplastic material and is electrically non-conductive. The head stack assembly further includes a flex circuit cable having a portion secured at the mounting site, the flex circuit cable including a plurality of conductors, an electrical path from a first one of the conductors to provide ground potential to the E-block, and a pair of electrical paths from a second and a third of the conductors to the opposite electrical ends of the coil.

Head stack assembly for a disk drive having a unitary molded plastic

A disk drive has a base, a cover, a spindle motor mounted to the base, and a disk coupled to the spindle motor. A rotary actuator comprising a head stack assembly is coupled to the base by a pivot bearing assembly. The pivot bearing assembly provides a stationary member, a bearing, and a sleeve member for rotatably supporting the actuator. The pivot bearing assembly further provides an elastomeric interface between the stationary member and the actuator such that vibratory motion imparted to the head stack assembly is dampened by the elastomeric interface.

Disk drive having elastomeric interface in pivot bearing assembly

An intelligent hard disk drive, which includes a head disk assembly (HDA) and a printed circuit board assembly (PCBA), has a thin configuration. The HDA includes a spindle motor and the PCBA includes spindle motor driver circuitry. Spring loaded contacts and exposed electrical contacts provide automatic electrical connection between the spindle motor and the spindle motor driver circuitry.

Intelligent disk drive having spring contacts on a board assembly for

A pivot bearing assembly for mounting to an enclosure of a head disk assembly to support a head stack assembly of a disk drive is disclosed. The pivot bearing assembly comprises a shaft for being affixed to the enclosure and defining a longitudinal axis, a first and second set of bearings, the second set of bearings longitudinally spaced from the first set of bearings, and each set of bearings surrounding a respective portion of the shaft. The pivot bearing assembly also comprises an inner sleeve member and an outer sleeve member, both sleeve members surrounding the shaft. A pair of channels is located between the outer and inner sleeve members. Alternatively, the pair of channels is located between the shaft and the sets of bearings. The channels contain a cured cast-in-place material, preferably, an ultra violet cured polyurethane compound having a hardness between approximately 24 Shore A to 79 Shore A. The material provides damping of any vibratory wave propagating between an outer surface of the outer sleeve member and the shaft. Furthermore, a portion of the cured cast-in-place material defines an exterior surface of the pivot bearing assembly.

Pivot bearing assembly providing damping for unit-to-unit consistency

A disk drive for operating in an environment in which the drive is subject to physical shock includes a circuit which senses movement of a transducer head support arm which result from a shock's rotational component. The rotational shock is detected as a residual BEMF signal in the drive's VCM coil winding. The residual signal is extracted from much larger position control signals that are applied to the VCM winding during normal system operation by providing circuits that simulate the VCM winding voltage caused by the position control signal and subtracting the outputs of the simulation circuits from the actual VCM coil winding voltage. This eliminates the normal operating components and leaves a residual signal that represents only the small portion of the VCM BEMF signal that results from the rotational shock. A threshold circuit compares the shock BEMF signal to a predetermined threshold. If the BEMF signal exceeds the threshold, disk drive write operations are aborted. An active calibration system is also employed that regularly updates both the simulated resistance and simulated inductance to null out the effects of temperature, design and aging tolerances.

Hard disk drive which uses the back EMF of the actuator to detect shocks

A disk drive head disk assembly having a compact configuration includes an actuator assembly mounted to a base plate through a three point mounting system. The actuator includes a voice coil which engages a magnet assembly having an integrated latch/magnet spacer including a fixed magnetic latch and cantilevered beam crash stop. A magnetic latch pin assembly mounted to the voice coil engages a permanent magnet employed in the fixed magnetic latch. The latch pin assembly includes a movable latch pin which has a degree of lateral movement which allows the latch pin to release from the permanent magnet with a consistent force.

Disk drive employing compact magnetic actuator latch mechanism

A disk drive head disk assembly having a compact configuration includes an actuator assembly mounted to a base plate through a three point mounting system. The actuator includes a voice coil which engages a magnet assembly having an integrated latch/magnet spacer including a fixed magnetic latch and cantilevered beam crash stop. A single piece tape seal having a thick adhesive formed on a tape substrate encompasses the junction between the base and cover of the head disk assembly providing a substantially airtight seal to thereby maintain a desired clean environment within the disk drive.

Compact disk drive head disk assembly with conformable tape seal

A load mechanism for loading and unloading magnetic heads relative to a magnetic disk includes a rotatable comb-like structure having lift pins for coacting with the head supporting flexures to maintain the heads securely spaced from the surfaces of the disks during the unload mode and to allow the heads to assume the transducing position during the load mode.

Apparatus for loading and retracting magnetic head in a disk drive

A test tube holder for insertion into a cylindrical test tube cavity in a centrifuge rotor to support a plurality of relatively small test tubes within the rotor cavity. The holder includes a body whose shape is substantially that of a cylinder or a longitudinal section thereof. The body has a plurality of small cavities for holding test tubes, the smaller cavities being spaced apart in a direction along the longitudinal dimension of the body. Each of the smaller cavities is arranged at an angle relative to the longitudinal dimension of the body, and each has a mouth opening onto an exterior surface of the body. The test tube holder further includes means for orienting the holder in the centrifuge rotor test tube cavity so that the mouths of the smaller cavities face the rotational axis of the centrifuge rotor when the test tube holder is inserted into said centrifuge rotor test tube cavity.

Tube holder for centrifuge rotor

A rotor apparatus utilizing a lid having an enlarged rim portion which under centrifugally induced forces will move into close sealing contact with the lower portion of the rotor. The lid portion of the rotor is a generally flat circular disc with the thicker rim portion of greater mass located around the periphery of the circular disc. The slight deflection of the lid during centrifugation provides an automatic increase in the seal between the lid and the lower portion of the rotor as the rotational speed increases. The automatic tightening feature enables the user to merely hand tighten the lid onto the lower portion of the rotor without having to use some type of mechanical advantage tool. The lid has a relatively large diameter and contains no holes in order to reduce possible material stress in the lid during centrifugation. The lid is threadably connected to the lower portion of the rotor by a depending stud projecting from the bottom surface of the lid.

Growing community of inventors

Mountain View, CA, United States of America

John Robert Edwards