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US 9,177,579 B2Granted
Single-piece yoke damper for voice coil actuator
AssigneeHGST Netherlands B.V.
InventorManoj B. Keshavan
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Approaches to improving actuator settle time by damping vibrations resulting from coil modes, such as with a voice coil actuator in a hard disk drive, include a single-piece damper plate coupled to the voice coil actuator yoke. The damper plate may be a single U-shaped piece of metal that covers the area of the yoke that experiences the maximum strain energy during operation, between the voice coil and the pivot bearing housing.
Claims16
A voice coil actuator comprising:
- a wire coil configured to carry electrical current;
- a yoke supporting said coil;
- and
- a single-piece damper plate coupled to said yoke, said damper plate comprises an inner leg, an outer leg, and a middle leg spanning between said inner and outer legs in a continuous and substantially U-shape;
- wherein said damper plate is a continuous piece of metal that covers only said yoke in a region that experiences maximum strain energy associated with the bending and torsion modes of said coil during operation of said voice coil actuator.
2 more elements
A hard disk drive (HDD), comprising:
- a head slider comprising a magnetic write head;
- an arm, to which said head slider is coupled;
- a magnetic-recording disk rotatably mounted on a spindle;
- a voice coil motor (VCM) configured to move the arm and head slider to access portions of the magnetic-recording disk, said VCM comprising:
- a wire coil configured to carry electrical current;
- a yoke supporting said coil;
- and
- a single-piece damper plate coupled to said yoke, said damper plate comprises an inner leg, an outer leg, and a middle leg spanning between said inner and outer legs in a continuous and substantially U-shape;
- wherein said damper plate is a continuous piece of metal that covers only said yoke in a region that experiences maximum strain energy associated with the bending and torsion modes of said coil during operation of said voice coil motor.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.