Sony Corporation

Takashi Sasao

Etsuro Saito

Mitsugu Yoshihiro

Shigeru Masuda

Takashi Shimodaira

A tape guide device includes a guide member of a cylindrical configuration for guiding a tape, a ultrasonic vibrator secured to the guide member for vibrating the guide member in standing-waves configuration and a supporting member for supporting the guide member. A rotation preventing member for preventing a rotation of the guide member is formed on one of a pair of tape position restricting members in the width direction of the tape, whereby the number of the assembly parts of the tape guide device is reduced and a mechanism thereof is simplified. Therefore, the tape guide device can be miniaturized. Also, the structure and the shape of the ultrasonic vibrator are selected so that, even when the tape guide device is miniaturized, a coefficient of friction between the tape and the guide member becomes an optimum value.

Ultrasonic tape guide apparatus

A tape guide device has a guide member, a support shaft, flanges, a main shaft, a coil spring, a height adjustment nut, and a vibrating device, wherein the support shaft is disposed inside the guide member, the support shaft has teeth facing to a position of a node when the guide member is vibrated by the vibrating device, the teeth and the guide member are fixedly bonded to each other by an adhesive that presents a feature of a resilient member after the adhesive was cured, the main shaft is engaged with the support shaft so as to become freely slidable, the flange is attached to the support shaft with a clearance kept between it and an end face of the guide member and the guide member and the flanges can be adjusted in height under or against the bias of the coil spring by turning the height adjustment nut. The support shaft and the guide member are fixedly bonded to each other by the adhesive that becomes a resilient member after having been cured. Therefore, the ultrasonic vibration tape guide device that can prevent the vibration of the guide member from being attenuated due to the contact with the flanges and that can make the guide member inexpensive has a function to adjust the guide member and the flanges in height with high accuracy.

Ultrasonic tape guide device

In a magnetic tape cassette recording and/or reproducing device having a tape loading apparatus for withdrawing tape from an operatively positioned cassette and wrapping the withdrawn tape about a guide drum having a rotary head for recording or reproducing signals on the tape; supply and take-up reel motors apply torques to resist unwinding of the tape from supply and take-up reels in the operatively positioned cassette, a servo-control maintains the supply reel in a stopped condition during a loading operation, the ratio of currents supplied to the supply and take-up reel motors, respectively, for achieving the stopped condition of the supply reel and for applying a constant torque to the take-up reel is determined and the radius of the tape wound on one of the reels is calculated from such ratio, whereupon, a value of the torque that has to be applied to that one reel for maintaining a predetermined tension in the tape during the loading operation is calculated in accordance with the calculated radius of the tape wound on that one reel.

Growing community of inventors

Kanagawa, Japan

Takashi Sasao