Disk cleaning apparatus, disk immersing and extracting mechanism and disk cleaning method
AssigneeHitachi High-Technologies Corporation
InventorsSHINGO IBE, NORITAKE SHIZAWA, TATSUO KANEKO
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A disk immersing and extracting mechanism is provided, which utilizes a floating-control means to control a disk, so as to prevent the disk from floating up or falling over in the rinse tank and to prevent liquid droplets from dripping from the floating-control means onto the disk to cause an undesired cleaning. In the present invention, a disk is immersed into a rinse tank by a disk holder, and then, the cleaned disk is extracted out of the rinse tank. The disk holder comprises a control bar on the upper side, and a disk support frame on the lower side that has a pair of tooth plates parallel to the control bar.
Claims16
A disk cleaning apparatus, for cleaning a disk by immersing the disk in a liquid in a rinse tank, comprising:
- a rinse tank means, storing a liquid for cleaning;
- a disk holding means, contacting to at least three positions of each outer edge of a plurality of disks, so as to hold the disks respectively in upright pose and allows the disks be arranged in a row and spaced apart with a specified interspace, wherein the disk holding means comprises a control bar means, buckled to the top portion of the outer edge of the disks to hold the disks, and a first and a second holding means, buckled to at least two positions on the side means of the outer edge of the disks to hold the disks;
- a lift means, for lifting the first and second holding means of the disk holding means to move in an up and down direction of a liquid level in the rinse tank means;
- a lift bypass means, for lifting the control bar means of the disk holding means to move in the up and down direction of the liquid level in the rinse tank means, and allowing the control bar means to be bypassed to a bypass position where liquid droplets dripping from the control bar means do not contact with the disks held by the disk holding means;
- and
- a control means, for performing a controlling operation, wherein after the disks have been cleaned, the lift bypass means is first used to elevate the control bar means to a position above the liquid level of the liquid in the rinse tank means, the control bar means is then bypassed to the bypass position, and after the control bar means begins bypassing to a bypass position, the disks held by the disk holding means are elevated from the liquid level of the liquid by the lift means.
A disk immersing and extracting apparatus, for immersing a disk into a liquid in a rinse tank, and extracting the cleaned disk out of the rinse tank, comprising:
- a disk holding means, buckled to at least three positions on each outer edge of a plurality of disks, so as to hold the disks respectively in upright pose and allow the disks be arranged in a row and spaced apart by a specified interspace, wherein the disk holding means comprises a control bar means, buckled to a top end portion of the outer edge of the disks to hold the disks, and a first and a second holding means, buckled to at least two positions on a side means of the outer edge of the disks to hold the disks;
- a lift means, for lifting the first and the second holding means of the disk holding means to move in an up direction and a down direction of a liquid level in the rinse tank;
- a lift bypass means, for lifting the control bar means of the disk holding means to move in the up direction and the down direction of the liquid level in the rinse tank, and allow the control bar means be bypassed to a bypass position where liquid droplets dripped from the control bar means do not contact with the disks held by the disk holding means;
- and
- a control means, for performing a controlling operation, wherein after the disks have been cleaned, the lift bypass means is first used to elevate the control bar means to a position above the liquid level of the liquid in the rinse tank means, the control bar means is then bypassed to a bypass position, and after the control bar means begins to bypass to the bypass position, the disks held by the disk holding means are elevated from the liquid level of the liquid by the lift means.
A disk cleaning method, in which an entire disk holding means is immersed within the liquid of the rinse tank, to clean a plurality of disks simultaneously, and the disk holding means is buckled to at least three positions of each outer edge of the plurality of disks, and the disks are held in an upright pose, arranged in a row and spaced apart by a specified interspace, wherein:
- after the disks have been cleaned, the control bar means buckled to the top portion of the outer edge of the disks to hold the disks is first elevated to a position above the liquid level of the liquid, the control bar means is then bypassed to a bypass position where the disks held by the disk holding means are obviated from being contact with liquid droplets dripped from the control bar means, and then the disks held by the disk holding means are elevated from the liquid level of the liquid after the control bar means begins to bypass to the bypass position.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.