US 6,298,533 B1Granted

Assembling device for disc cartridge

AssigneeSony Corporation

InventorsKimitaka Nishimura, Kenichi Kano, Takahiko Fukushima

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Abstract

A disc cartridge assembling apparatus in which a protuberance formed on the inner surface of one of cartridge halves of a thermoplastic resin making up a main cartridge body unit is passed through a through-hole formed in the other cartridge half in register with the protuberance, and in which the distal end of the protuberance is thermally deformed to interconnect the cartridge halves. The upper and lower cartridge halves are stacked together, with a protuberance formed on the upper cartridge half being passed through the through-hole formed in the upper cartridge half, and are held by a holding mechanism. In this state, the distal end of the protuberance is thermally deformed by a caulking head, heated by a heater, and which is provided with a recess in its surface adapted to compress against the protuberance. Then, as the caulking head is moved away from the thermally deformed protuberance, the caulking head and the protuberance are cooled by a cooling mechanism. This effectively shortens the caulking process since the thermal deformation of the protuberance until the solidification.

Claims6

Dependent claims

a holding mechanism for holding said cartridge halves so that, with the cartridge half formed with said protuberance being placed below the other cartridge half, said other cartridge half being mounted on said cartridge half formed with said protuberance by passing said protuberance through said through-hole and for holding said upper and lower cartridge halves together;
a caulking head having a recess on a surface thereof abutted against said protuberance, said caulking head enclosing a heating mechanism, said caulking head being adapted to compress against the distal end of said protuberance of said cartridge half exposed through said through-hole of said other cartridge half;
a movement mechanism for thrusting said caulking head, heated to a temperature capable of thermally deforming said thermoplastic resin, against the distal end of said protuberance to deform said protuberance and for moving said caulking head away from said protuberance;
and
a cooling mechanism for cooling said caulking head.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.