Sony Corporation

Mitsumi Electric Company Ltd.

Sony Kabushiki Kaisha

Kazuhito Kurita

Mikinori Matsuda

Takahiro Yamada

Tadami Nakamura

Tokio Kanada

Toshihiro Kusunoki

Toru Morikawa

Yasuhiro Habara

Takashi Fukushima

Yuji Shida

Emiko Yamazaki

Makoto Saito

Minoru Tobita

Masakazu Kanatani

Shinichi Nakao

Kunio Shimizu

Akihiro Noda

Takashi Ishizawa

Tatsuto Suetomi

Naoto Inoue

Yoshiro Arikawa

Hideyuki Ikeda

Norimasa Matsuo

Kiyoshi Toda

Tomohiro Yamada

Takashi Takamatsu

Masanori Ogata

Takashi Ohgi

Kenichi Tamura

Kazutaka Noborimoto

Shinji Hamakawa

Masaki Shinotsuka

Ryosuke Anno

Yudai Kato

Satoru Minowa

There is provided a reproducing device in which a recording medium cartridge is directly inserted into a mechanical deck and placed on a chassis of the mechanical deck for reproduction. The mechanical deck includes an erroneous insertion-preventing portion which conforms to the curved shape of a front surface of the recording medium cartridge in the insertion direction thereof at the time of the insertion in a normal posture.

Reproducing device

A spindle motor includes a rotor made of metal including a substantially circular top surface section and a tubular skirt section arranged at a predetermined space from an outer periphery of the top surface section and a disk table of synthetic resin outsert-molded in the rotor and including a table main body section located on an outer surface side of the rotor and a rotor-inner-surface superimposing section located on an inner surface side of the rotor. First resin lead-in holes are provided in the tubular skirt section and an inner surface of the table main body section located on the outer surface side of the rotor is connected to the rotor-inner-surface superimposing section located on the inner surface side of the rotor through the first resin lead-in holes.

Player and spindle motor with skirt section having resin lead-in features

The present invention provides a disc cartridge protecting member capable of closing a write and/or read aperture larger relative to the size of the disc cartridge and protecting a disc housed in the disc cartridge, such as optical disc used as an information recording medium. The disc cartridge protecting member includes an aperture closing plate which is to be fitted in, and to close, an aperture formed at one side of a disc cartridge having a disc housed rotatably therein and through which part of the disc is exposed to outside in a range between inner and outer radii thereof, an entry limiting portion supported on supports provided in the aperture formed in the disc cartridge to prevent the aperture closing plate from entering the disc cartridge, a cover plate extending on the other side of the disc cartridge opposite to the one side at which the aperture is formed, and a connecting plate to connect the base end of the aperture closing plate and that of the cover plate to each other. The protecting member is installed removably with the disc cartridge being held between the aperture closing plate and cover plate.

Disc cartridge protecting member, and disc cartridge

A disc cartridge is provided. The disc cartridge in which is housed an optical disc includes a main cartridge body unit, rotatably housing an optical disc, and having an aperture for a head part for exposing a part of the optical disc to outside across the inner and outer rims of the optical disc, and a shutter unit mounted for movement to this main cartridge body unit for opening/closing the aperture for the head part. A recess into which is introduced a portion of a head part of the recording and/or reproducing apparatus is formed in continuation to the aperture for the head part in a surface of the main cartridge body unit on which slides a shutter unit in an area opposite to the area of movement of the shutter unit with the aperture for the head part in-between.

Disc cartridge

A disc cartridge having rotatably housed an optical disc () is disclosed. The disc cartridge includes a main cartridge body unit () having an aperture for the head part () for exposing a portion of the optical disc to outside across the inner and outer rims of the disc. In one surface of the main cartridge body unit is formed a center opening () into which is intruded a turntable () for rotationally driving the optical disc. An inner peripheral surface () of the center opening operates as a mounting reference plane along the planar direction when mounting the disc cartridge to a recording and/or reproducing apparatus. The rim of the opening of the one surface of the main cartridge body unit operates as a mounting reference surface () along the height-wise direction. The main cartridge body unit has an inserting end side into the recording and/or reproducing apparatus formed as a substantially semicircular arcuate section () having, as center, the center of the optical disc housed in the main cartridge body unit.

Disk cartridge, and disk recording and/or reproducing device

Disk cartridge

Disclosed herein is a disk cartridge including a disk; a cartridge body in which the disk is rotatably accommodated, the cartridge body having a recording and/or reproducing window for exposing a part of the disk; a shutter mounted on the cartridge body so as to be movable between a closed position where the window is closed by the shutter and an open position where the window is opened by sliding the shutter; a shutter locking member adapted to engage a locking portion of the cartridge body when the shutter is in the closed position, thereby limiting the movement of the shutter in the direction of opening the window; a biasing member provided on the shutter for biasing the shutter locking member in the direction of engaging the shutter locking member with the locking portion of the cartridge body; and a deformation preventing member provided in the cartridge body at a position inside of the biasing member for preventing the deformation of the biasing member inward of the cartridge body.

Disk cartridge with shutter locking member

A recording and/or reproduction apparatus includes a chassis, a recording and/or reproduction device provided on the chassis so as to perform recording and/or reproduction on a disk cartridge, a cartridge holder for holding the disk cartridge, the cartridge holder being supported to be movable between a disk cartridge insertion/draw-out position and a recording/reproduction position relative to the chassis, an eject lever provided to be movable in the direction for insertion and draw-out of the disk cartridge relative to the chassis, a biasing device for biasing the eject lever in a disk cartridge discharging direction, a shutter unlocking member mounted to one side surface of the cartridge holder, and a shutter unlocking member movement restriction portion provided on the chassis and operable to restrict the shutter lock unlocking member from moving in the direction of spacing away from the one side surface when the cartridge holder is located in the recording/reproduction position.

Disk recording and/or reproduction apparatus

A disk cartridge is provided which includes an optical disk (), a cartridge body () having formed therein a head opening () through which a part of the optical disk () is exposed to outside in a range between the inner and outer radii thereof, a shutter member () supported movably on the cartridge body () to uncover and cover the head opening (), and a two-way forcing mechanism () to force the shutter member () toward any selected one of positions to cover and uncover the head opening (). The two-way forcing mechanism () forces the shutter member () toward any selected one of the positions to cover and uncover the head opening () correspondingly to a position of the shutter member () relative to the head opening ().

Disclosed is a disc cartridge including a main cartridge body unit () in which is rotatably housed an optical disc (). The disc cartridge includes a recording and/or reproducing aperture () for exposing a portion of the optical disc to outside across the inner and outer rims of the disc, a shutter unit () mounted for movement to the main cartridge body unit for opening/closing the recording and/or reproducing aperture and a lock unit () for locking the shutter unit () in a position of closing the recording and/or reproducing aperture. The lock unit includes a lock member (), rotatably mounted to the shutter unit, and an engaging part (), provided to the main cartridge body unit, so as to be engaged by the lock member ().

Shutter member for disc cartridge, disc cartridge and disc recording/reproducing apparatus

The present invention provides lock release means that allows spring constant of the lock release means to be set to any desired value without regard to a material used for a cartridge holder. A disk recording and/or reproducing apparatus includes: recording and/or reproducing means disposed in a chassis; a cartridge holder supported on the chassis movably between an insertion and withdrawal position, at which a disk cartridge is inserted or removed, and a recording and reproducing position, at which the disk cartridge is recorded or reproduced by the recording and/or reproducing means; an eject lever disposed on an upper surface of the chassis so as to be movable in a disk cartridge insertion and withdrawal direction; eject lever lock means disposed on the upper surface of the chassis; and lock release means mounted on the cartridge holder such that a leading end side of the lock release means advances into the cartridge holder from an upper surface of the cartridge holder.

Chassis and cartridge holder with ejection mechanism for ejecting a cartridge from a disk apparatus

A cartridge device has a recording and reproducing unit for recording an information signal on and/or reproducing an information signal from a recording medium of a recording medium cartridge, the case having a positioning hole. A chassis of the device has a base and a projection projecting from the base toward a holder for being inserted in the positioning hole. An ejection slider is slidably supported on the chassis for sliding movement selectively in a first sliding direction to move the holder from the first to second position and a second sliding direction, which is opposite to the first sliding direction, to move the holder from the second to first position. The projection has a recess defined therein. The ejection slider has a portion insertable into the recess when the election slider is moved in the first sliding direction.

Cartridge device with an ejection slider having a projection insertable into a positioning recess

To prevent erroneous insertion of a recording medium cartridge into a holder in a recording medium drive device simply and without causing a sharp rise of price of the recording medium drive device. A shutter opening piece () for sliding a shutter () supported upon a case () of a recording medium cartridge () to open a light transparent hole () is provided in a holder () in a recording medium drive device (), when the recording medium cartridge () is normally inserted into the holder (), the shutter () is slid by the shutter opening piece () to open the light transparent hole (), and when the recording medium cartridge () is inserted into the holder () in an erroneous direction, the opening edge of a function expansion groove () of the case () contacts the shutter opening piece () to prevent erroneous insertion of the recording medium cartridge () into the holder ().

Recording medium drive device, electronic equipment having the recording medium drive device, and recording medium cartridge

A disc cartridge can be loaded stably in the disc recorder/player, whether it is provided with a shutter member or not. The present invention provides a disc recording and/or playback apparatus including a cartridge holder in which there is to be held a first disc cartridge including a body and a shutter member, or a second disc cartridge including a body, a shutter member supporting mechanism to support, by pressing, the shutter member of the first disc cartridge to limit the movement of the shutter member, a pressing mechanism to press the second disc cartridge, and a pressing controlling mechanism which is moved due to displacement of the shutter member supporting mechanism by the first disc cartridge to displace the pressing mechanism for removing the pressure applied to the first disc cartridge and has the pressing mechanism press the second disc cartridge inserted in the cartridge holder.

Disc recording and/or playback apparatus

A disk recording/reproducing apparatus includes a chassis rotatably supporting a holder for storing a disk cartridge; an eject lever movably disposed in the chassis in an insertion/removal direction of the disk cartridge and movably in a direction toward or away from the chassis. The eject lever is rotated by being pushed by the disk cartridgeinserted into the holder. A cartridge drop preventive mechanism prevents the disk cartridge ejected by the eject lever from dropping from the cartridge holder. The cartridge drop preventive mechanism is formed from a flat spring disposed on one side surface of the holder and makes a sliding contact with one side surface of the disk cartridge during unloading of the cartridge so as to give the disk cartridge a braking force. This arrangement can prevent the disk cartridge from jumping out and dropping off from the cartridge holder during ejection.

Growing community of inventors

Kanagawa, Japan

Kazuhito Kurita