Alpine Electronics, Inc.

Toshiyuki Fukushima

Kazunari Kato

Ichiro Kato

A disc-positioning mechanism of a car-mounted disc player includes drive chassis having at least a turntable and a pickup; a clamper-supporting member movable so as to come close to or detach away from the drive chassis; a clamper rotatably supported on the clamper-supporting member and being able to clamp a disc between the clamper and the turntable; and at least one positioning member abutting against the outer periphery of a disc inserted from a slot of the disc player so as to position the disc with respect to the turntable. The positioning member includes an abutment abutting against the outer periphery of the disc and a regulatory portion extending farther toward the slot than the abutment and is supported on either one component of the drive chassis and the clamper-supporting member, and the regulatory portion abuts against the other component.

Disc-positioning mechanism for car-mounted disc player

A head feeding mechanism which includes a screw shaft adapted to rotate in the normal and reverse directions using a motor as a drive source, a nut member engaged with the screw shaft, and a spring member connected to a head and adapted to elastically press the nut member against the screw shaft and which causes the head to reciprocate in the thrust direction of the screw shaft through the intermediation of the nut member through rotation of the screw shaft. The nut member has a substantially cylindrical female screw engaged with a male screw of the screw shaft, and the nut member is elastically biased in both the radial direction and the thrust direction of the screw shaft by the spring member. In this construction, if the elastic biasing force in the radial direction of the spring member holding the nut member in pressing contact with the screw shaft is set small, the female screw of the nut member does not move over the male screw of the screw shaft, so that a small torque suffices for the motor rotating the screw shaft, which is effective in achieving a reduction in the size of the motor and the entire head feeding mechanism including the motor. Further, the thrust play of the nut member due to backlash is removed, making it possible to prevent a malfunction attributable to external vibration, such as a dropout.

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Iwaki, Japan

Toshiyuki Fukushima