US 5,970,044 AGranted

Disc clamping device

AssigneeMatsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

InventorsMakoto Kambayashi, Shingo Kage, Yasunari Toyama, Nobuyuki Miroku

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

A drive mechanism for moving a clamper arm into a standby position of the clamper is simplified and the possible occurrence of the vibration of the clamper in the standby state and the falling of the disc out of the tray in the transferring stage are prevented with a relatively simple construction. Provided is a disc clamping device having a turntable and a clamper which faces the turntable, operating to rotatively support a disc on the turntable with the disc pressed by the clamper, the device being provided with a clamper arm which rotatably supports the clamper and is able to pivot approximately in the direction of its axis of rotation, moving the clamper between a disc pressing position and a standby position, and a clamper arm moving means having a clamper urging plate which pivots the clamper arm as engaged with this and urges the clamper arm toward the turntable side at least in the disc pressing position, whereby the disc is urged against the turntable by the urging force of this clamper urging plate.

Claims16

Dependent claims

A disc clamping device comprising:

a turntable for supporting a disc;
a clamper for pressing the disc supported on said turntable, said clamper being arranged opposite to said turntable and having an axis of rotation;
a clamper arm rotatably supporting said clamper, said clamper arm being pivotal approximately in a direction of the axis of rotation of said clamper,
wherein said clamper arm is operable to move said clamper between a disc pressing position, in which said clamper presses the disc on said turntable, and a standby position in which said clamper is located apart from the disc;
and
a clamper arm moving means for moving said clamper arm, said clamper arm having an arm urging means for urging said clamper arm against said turntable at least in the disc pressing position, wherein:
said arm urging means, in the disc pressing position of said clamper, exerts an urging force on the disc in order to press the disc against said turntable;
said arm urging means comprises an elastically deformable clamper urging plate, and said clamper arm moving means includes a control slider which can be controlled so as to be driven in disc loading and disc unloading stages, said control slider has an urging plate operating portion;
said clamper urging plate has a first end in engagement with said clamper arm, and a second end in engagement with said urging plate operating portion;
said clamper urging plate is pivotally supported at a specified portion in the middle of said urging plate operating portion;
and
said clamper arm is arranged so as to pivot via said clamper urging plate to move said clamper between the pressing position and the standby position in accordance with a slide operation position of said control slider.

9 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.