Belt drive mechanism for a tape drive
AssigneeSeagate Technology LLC
InventorsRobert H. Peirce, Hans Graafmans
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A tape drive has a belt drive mechanism to rotate a cartridge roller. The belt drive mechanism includes a motor rotating a wheel mounted on a separate shaft using a belt. The movement of the belt is directly transferred to the cartridge roller due to the friction between the belt and the cartridge roller. A cushion of an elastomeric material is wrapped around the periphery of the wheel to cushion the belt and allows the belt to wrap slightly around the cartridge roller to increase the contact area of the belt on the cartridge roller and increase the life of the belt. Alternatively, the wheel may be of a rigid material and the belt of an elastomeric material.
Claims17
A drive mechanism for driving a tape comprising:
- a driver assembly comprising:
- a driving pulley;
- an idler pulley in substantially fixed, spaced apart spacial relationship to said driving pulley;
- and
- a driving belt around said driving pulley and said idler pulley in driven contact with said driving pulley and in driving contact with said idler pulley;
- a cartridge assembly, separate from said driver assembly, comprising:
- a cartridge roller;
- winding means adapted to carry recording tape wound thereon;
- and
- recording tape wound on said winding means and in effective rolling contact with said cartridge roller;
- and
- means to engage said driver assembly with said cartridge assembly, whereby juxtaposing said cartridge roller, said driving belt, and said idler pulley in mutual contact;
- wherein, when engaged, said driving belt drives said cartridge roller and said idler pulley;
- wherein, when engaged, said cartridge roller is substantially coplanar with said driving belt;
- and
- wherein said recording tape is driven in juxtaposition to said cartridge roller.
A method of moving a recording tape which comprises:
- winding a recording tape about a winding means and a cartridge roller in a cartridge assembly;
- disposing a driving pulley, a driving belt and an idler pulley in a driving assembly, wherein said driving belt is adapted to be disposed in at least partial driving contact with said idler pulley and said driving pulley;
- disposing said idler pulley in substantially fixed spacial relationship to said driving pulley and said driving belt;
- bringing said cartridge assembly into juxtaposition with said driving assembly whereby positioning said driving belt between, and in effective contact with, both of said cartridge roller and said idler pulley;
- disposing the plane of said cartridge roller in a plane that is substantially parallel to the plane of said driving belt;
- driving said driving belt, whereby turning said idler pulley and said cartridge roller;
- and
- thereby moving said recording tape about said cartridge roller and said winding means.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.