Sony Corporation

Makoto Kodama

Kazuyuki Takizawa

Toshio Sato

Shiro Yasuda

Takao Izumi

Record playing apparatus includes a housing having an opening at its front end; a record carrier assembly having a turntable for supporting a record disc and a tone arm assembly for reproducing signals from the disc; guide rollers which support the record carrier assembly for horizontal movement through the opening between a first position within the housing and a second position withdrawn from the housing; a dust cover; a pair of elongated arms pivotally mounted at one end thereof to opposing sides of the record carrier assembly and having the dust cover connected to the free ends thereof; springs for biasing the arms to move the dust cover to a first cover position in blocking relation to the opening when the record carrier assembly is moved to its first position; and cam bars for biasing the arms against the force of the springs when the record carrier assembly is moved to its second position so as to move the dust cover out of the aforementioned blocking relation and into a slot formed in a mounting frame secured to the front end of the record carrier assembly.

Record playing apparatus

A record player with a turntable mounted for rotation in a substantially fixed horizontal plane on a chassis and a tone arm for reproducing signals recorded on the surface of a record disc which faces upwardly when the disc is rotatably supported on the turntable, is provided with a record turn-over mechanism comprised of a support structure, for example, in the form of lever assemblies, mounted on the chassis for swinging between raised and lowered positions about an axis which extends parallel to a diameter of the turntable and is disposed to one side of the latter, a pair of spaced apart gripping devices directed inwardly towards each other from end portions, respectively, of the support structure and being axially movable between gripping positions at which the gripping devices are engageable with diametrically opposed locations on the periphery of a record disc and released positions, the gripping devices also being turnable relative to the support structure about a common axis parallel with the axis of swinging movement of the support structure, and cams for effecting the swinging movements of the support structure and the axial and turnable movements of the gripping devices through an operating cycle in which the gripping devices are made to engage a record disc on the turntable with the support structure in its lowered position and then the support structure is moved to its raised position for lifting the engaged disc from the turntable, whereupon the gripping devices are turned through 180.degree. for inverting the lifted record disc and the support structure is then returned to its lowered position and the gripping devices are released for freeing the inverted record disc on the turntable.

Growing community of inventors

Yokohama, Japan

Makoto Kodama