Head gimbal assembly high performance shock limiter
AssigneeSeagate Technology LLC
InventorsJames Roger Mahoney, Sandeepan Bhattacharya
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A head gimbal assembly has a gimbal with a limiter formed from a sheet prior to attachment to the load beam structure. The limiter has a pair of flange extensions, each flange extension having an arm extension. The flange extensions and the arm extension are bent around a tip of the load beam to interleave the limiter around the load beam. The arm extensions have a narrower width than a width of the flange extensions, providing room for adjustment to the pitch and roll attitude of the system after assembly.
Claims27
A head gimbal assembly for connecting a read/write head to a load beam for use with a rotatable disc, the assembly comprising:
- a load beam having an actuator engagement end and an gimbal engagement end opposite the actuator engagement end;
- and
- a shock limiter formed from a gimbal, the shock limiter having a pair of flange extensions arranged symmetrically relative to a longitudinal axis of the shock limiter, the flange extensions interleaved around a tip of the gimbal engagement end to limit movement of the gimbal relative to the load beam during a shock event.
A method of fabricating a shock limiter comprising:
- etching a gimbal with a limiter from a flat substrate, the limiter having a pair of flange extensions, each flange extension having an arm extension;
- bending the flange extensions to an angle approaching normal relative to the flat substrate of the gimbal;
- bending the arm extensions toward one another;
- and
- attaching the gimbal with the limiter to a load arm of a disc drive, the load arm having a gimbal engagement end with edges extending longitudinally along a length of the load arm, such that the flange extensions and the arm extensions are bent around the edges.
A shock limiter for use with in disc drive systems having actuator arms, load beams, a gimbal, and a slider, the shock limiter being integrally formed with the gimbal, the shock limiter comprising:
- a pair of flange extensions extending from a body of the gimbal at an angle approaching normal relative to a planar surface of the gimbal on opposing sides of the body in a symmetric arrangement about a tip of a load beam;
- and
- a pair of arm extensions, each arm extension extending from each flange extension at an angle approaching normal relative to a planar surface of the flange extension such that the pair of arm extensions point toward one another to interleave the arm extensions around the tip of the load beam.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.