Disc loading and ejecting structure for slot-in optical disc drives

#The present invention relates to a disc loading and ejecting structure for slot-in optical disc drives and particularly to a disc loading and ejecting structure with a moving roller for a slot-in optical disc drive.

#Slot-in optical disc drives can load and eject discs easily, thus have increasingly replaced the tray-type optical disc drives in recent years and are widely adopted on notebook computers, all-in-one computers, vehicle players or game machines. Refer to FIG. 1 for a conventional slot-in optical disc drive 1 which has an opening 2 to receive and position a compact disc 3 at a selected location. The optical disc drive 1 contains an optical pickup head to access data stored in the compact disc 3. Compared with the tray-type optical disc drive, the slot-in optical disc drive has a smaller disc loading and ejecting apparatus to guide and position the compact disc in the optical disc drive, and requires less space without installing a tray mechanism, thus can shrink the volume of the optical disc drive. In addition, the disc loading and ejecting system is more appealing in use in terms of human/machine interaction.

#Refer to FIG. 2 for the disc loading and ejecting apparatus of the conventional slot-in optical disc drive 1. It includes a base board 4 with a vertical wheel 5 and a guide portion 6 located thereon. The axis of the vertical wheel 5 is perpendicular to the base board 4 and the positioning surface of a compact disc 3. When the compact disc 3 is inserted into the slot-in optical disc drive 1, two end edges of the compact disc 3 respectively abuts the guide portion 6 and the vertical wheel 5. The guide portion 6 provides a friction force to the compact disc 3 and forms a contact point with the compact disc 3 to serve as a fulcrum. The vertical wheel 5 is rotated to drive and swivel the compact disc 3 into the slot-in optical disc drive 1.

#FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a conventional slot-in optical disc drive;

#FIG. 2 is a schematic view of a disc loading and ejecting structure of the conventional slot-in optical disc drive;

#FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the disc loading and ejecting structure for slot-in optical disc drives of the invention;

#Embodiments

#Please refer to FIG. 3 for an embodiment of the disc loading and ejecting structure for slot-in optical disc drives of the invention. The structure aims to drive a compact disc 3 into or out of a slot-in optical disc drive 10. The disc loading and ejecting structure comprises a driving portion 11 and a guiding portion 12 that are located at two opposite sides of the slot-in optical disc drive 10 as shown in FIG. 3. The driving portion 11 includes a roller 110 whose rotation axis is substantially in parallel with a positioning surface of the compact disc 3. It is to be noted that the “positioning surface” mentioned above means a rotating plane after the compact disc 3 has been loaded and held in the slot-in optical disc drive 10, namely same as the XY plane shown in FIG. 3.

#The compact disc 3 has a first end edge and a second end edge in contact with the guiding portion 12 and the driving portion 11, respectively. When the compact disc 3 is inserted into the slot-in optical disc drive 10 through an opening thereof, the first end edge of the compact disc 3 is abutted and held by the guiding portion 12 which provides friction resistance to form a relative static end. The second end edge of the compact disc 3 is leaned on the roller 110 which provides an action force by rotation of the roller 110. The compact disc 3 is swung into the slot-in optical disc drive 10 around the first end edge which serves as the fulcrum.