Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Tadashi Kuroda

Teruyuki Takizawa

Hideki Nakata

Hideki Aikoh

Hironori Tomita

Masahiro Inata

Kozo Ezawa

Yoshito Saji

Takeo Santo

Takashi Torii

Yukio Morioka

Toru Tanaka

Masuo Maruyama

Goro Naoki

Makoto Takashima

A disk drive includes a plurality of optical heads corresponding to a plurality kind of disks, and a disk distinction device for distinguishing whether a set disk is a first disk or a second disk when a disk is set on a disk tray, a first disk tray conveying mechanism for the first disk and/or the second disk tray conveying mechanism for the second disk conveys the disk tray to a first tray position in which recording and/or reproducing is performed on the first tray or the second tray position in which recording and/or reproducing is performed on the second tray, according to a result distinguished by the disk distinction device, thereby, an optical head corresponding to a disk set to the disk tray is selected correctly and a recording or reproducing operation is performed on the disk.

Disk drive

An optical head including a light source for emitting luminous energy recordable on a recording medium, a heat radiating section, in contact with the light source, for radiating heat which accompanies the light emission thereof, and a resin-made bench for mounting and fixing the aforementioned elements, or an optical head having a light source for generating luminous energy required for recording on a disk-shaped information recording medium or reproducing information recorded on the disk-shaped information recording medium; a radiator plate, in contact with the light source either directly or indirectly, for guiding heat which accompanies the emission of light by the light source; an objective lens for focusing light on the disk-shaped information recording medium; an objective lens drive unit for driving the objective lens in the focal and radial direction of the medium; a light receiving element for receiving light reflected from the medium; a sheet-shaped flexible circuit for feeding power to the light source and the light receiving element and communicating signals from the light receiving element; and an optical bench holding at least the light source, the objective lens drive unit, the radiator plate and the light receiving element, in which the radiator plate is brought into contact with a heat transfer section provided in the flexible circuit and, by causing the flexible circuit to guide heat from the radiator plate, heat generated by the light source is radiated through the flexible circuit and the radiator plate.

Optical head and optical head feeder

A cassette loading apparatus for a cassette tape recorder includes a solenoid unit for controlling various operating conditions of the cassette tape recorder. The solenoid unit is connected with an eject rod through a connecting member and is engageable with a cassette holder and a slide plate carried by the cassette holder. The position of the eject rod is controlled according to the position of the cassette holder between an open position (a cassette eject position) and a closed position (a tape play position) so that when the cassette holder is in the open position, an attracting operation of the solenoid unit is inhibited, but when the cassette holder is in the closed position the attracting operation of the solenoid is enabled.

Cassette loading apparatus

Growing community of inventors

Kobe, Japan

Tadashi Kuroda