Western Digital Technologies, Inc.

Maxtor Corporation

Kenneth Allen

Andrew Saul Klassen

Albert John Wallash

Lidu Huang

David K Myers

Scott Edward Watson

William Wei Yi Yu

Perry E Hall

Lawrence H Lo

A ribbed tapered swage pin includes a head structure at a distal end which has a decreasing taper in the direction of the distal end and one or more ribs or lands positioned around the outer perimeter which, when helically driven, gradually plastically deform the swage boss of one part to form a swage joint with the hole of another part. A swaging tool with which such a swage pin may be used would, therefore, include a rotary actuator and a screw feed for driving the swage pin with a helical rotation and thrust to move through and thereby cold work the swage boss to form the swage joint.

Swage pin having ribbed taper for helical swage process

A robotic tool for assembling a portion of a disk drive includes a movable end effector that includes a first portion and a second portion that is movable relative to the first portion. The first portion may be configured to engage the actuator assembly and the second portion may be configured to engage the flex circuit connector. A controller may be provided to control the movable end effector, causing the end effector to pick up the head stack assembly in a first configuration, move the second portion of the end effector relative to the first portion thereof so as to articulate the head stack assembly into a second configuration that is different than the first configuration, and place the head stack assembly into the base.

System for assembling a disk drive using a robotic end effector

A disk drive having a translatable ramp is disclosed. The disk drive includes a head gimbal assembly having a proximate end that is attached to an actuator, and a distal end that includes a lift tab. The ramp includes a lift tab supporting surface located as close to a pivot axis of the actuator as is the lift tab. The ramp also includes a ramp guiding surface that is in contact with a mating surface of the disk drive base. A fastener selectively allows or prevents relative translation between the ramp and the disk drive base. The aforementioned contact constrains the relative translation so that the relative translation changes the distance between the lift tab supporting surface and the disk axis of rotation more than the relative translation changes the distance between the lift tab supporting surface and the actuator pivot axis.

Disk drive with translatable ramp

Methods for assembling a disk drive using robotic end effector

A method and corresponding structure for establishing an electrical interconnection is disclosed. There are at least two conductors in one embodiment. The first conductor is preferably a static dissipative material, while the second conductor may be of any conventional electrically conductive material (e.g., copper). These two conductors move relative to each other. More specifically, the first conductor is brought into contact with a device having a stored charged. After a certain amount of relative movement between the first and second conductors, and while the first conductor has remained in contact with the device to allow for dissipation of at least a portion of the charge therefrom, the second conductor is then brought into contact with the device.

Two-step electrical connector and method using high resistance path for electrostatic discharge

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Felton, CA, United States of America

Kenneth Allen