Seagate Technology Incorporated

William J Kostecka

John W Elsing

William C Bright

David Douglas Koester

Mehdi S Haidari

A bistable latch assembly is disclosed which includes a latch lever supported on a pivot pin adjacent the rotating discs and the actuator arm, and rotatable between two stable positions defined at the opposite end of the lever from the pivot pin by a pair of stop pins. The latch lever includes a magnet movable between these two stop pins, the attraction of the magnet to the pins defining the two stable positions for the lever. An edge of the lever facing the disc includes a notch which captures a pin extending from the actuator arm. When the latch lever engages the actuator arm pin in the notch, then the magnet of the latch lever is held by magnetic attraction against one of the stop pins. When the actuator arm is to be put to use in the disc drive, the voice coil motor is actuated, and has sufficient power to cause the stop pin on the actuator arm to disengage from the notch. As the pin slides along an edge of the latch lever, it moves the magnet from one stable position to the other stable position causing the latch lever to rest against the other stop pin.

Voice coil actuated bi-stable latch assembly

A disc drive includes a sealed head/disc assembly that has airtight electrical connections. The head/disc assembly has a first flexible circuit having one end that has electrical contacts which provide power to a spindle motor and another end which is terminated at a first connecter that is mounted to the base of a casing. A second flexible circuit routes electrical signals to a pivotally mounted actuator. The actuator carries read/write transducer heads and an actuator coil. One end of the second flexible circuit is coupled to the actuator and another end of the second flexible circuit is coupled to a second connector that is mounted to the base of the casing. A circuit board is mounted exterior to and along the base of the HDA casing. The circuit board includes third and fourth connectors which couple directly to the first and second connectors, respectively, when the board is mounted to the HDA.

Disc drive with head/disc assembly having sealed connectors

A disk drive assembly includes a disk pack with an axially retractable spindle assembly, along with a rotary actuator, mounted within a unitary deck and precision aligned by bores through spaced apart upper and lower support walls of the deck. Bushings, mounted to opposite ends of a spindle shaft through bearings, are aligned with the bores by inserting the retracted spindle assembly into the deck, with a spring biasing the spindle assembly into the retracted position. Fasteners through the opposed support walls draw the bushing sleeves axially outward against the spring force to preload the bearings as the shaft is aligned and secured, without employing a jig or any other alignment tooling. Upwardly converging flutes in the hub, in combination with openings through annular spacers that separate adjacent disks in the disk pack, provide a purging and cooling air flow, while interacting pairs of annular flanges and annular grooves, in the hub and bushings, control radial passage of air from the center of the spindle assembly into the region of the disks.

Disk drive including unitary deck for aligning and supporting axially

In a magnetic disc drive, an apparatus for eliminating electrical charge. The apparatus includes a preloaded coil compression spring and a contact button nested in a bored hole in the spindle shaft. The contact button is forced against a fixed arm by the coiled compression spring. The compression spring, contact button and fixed arm provide a low noise electrical pathway for discharge of electrical charge from the spindle. Alternatively, the coil spring and contact button are carried by the fixed arm, and the contact button is urges against the center of the end of the spindle shaft.

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Jordan, MN, United States of America

William J Kostecka