JPS5846783B2 - Floating head support device for magnetic disk drive - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention provides a floating head support device for a magnetic disk drive.More specifically, the present invention has a function of pressing a floating head onto a recording medium with a predetermined load force and pulling it away from the recording medium. The present invention relates to a floating head support device for a magnetic disk.

Conventionally, floating heads for magnetic disk devices have been used, which are equipped with a head that performs writing and reading operations on a slider that floats above the surface of the recording medium using gas flow generated as the recording medium travels. .

In order to maintain a constant distance between the floating head and the recording medium (floating clearance) against surface runout and vibration of the recording medium, the slider is loaded with a load force (pushing force) that is balanced with the air pressure generated within the flying clearance. Applied elastically by a spring.

Therefore, in the floating head, when the recording medium is at rest, naturally no floating blade is generated and the floating head comes into contact with the surface of the medium.

Previously, in order to prevent the floating head from contacting the recording medium surface when starting or stopping the recording medium surface, the head was pulled away from the recording medium surface when starting or stopping, and after reaching steady rotation, the head was pressed against the medium surface. , an off-type mechanism was used.

However, such on/off operations complicate the mechanism and increase the amount of work required to adjust the settings, resulting in high costs. ) or the head temporarily collides with the recording medium when pulling away from the media surface (during landing off), and the recording medium is rotating at high speed at this time, causing significant damage to the flying surface of the head and the surface of the recording medium. There were drawbacks such as:

Recently, in order to eliminate these drawbacks, the so-called contact start-stop method has been developed, which reduces the pressing force of the floating head and increases the wear resistance of the head and media surface, making it possible to start and stop while they are in contact. Floating heads began to be used.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of an example of a contact start/stop type floating head mechanism.

In the figure, 1 is the floating head, 2 is the core of the floating head, and 3 is the floating head.
゜3' is a recording medium, 4 is a support spring, 5 is a load spring, 6 is a pawl on the load spring, 7 is a support arm, 8 is a lead wire, 9
10 is a groove of the support arm, 10 is a bar, and 11 is a carriage.

The floating head 1 is supported by a support spring 4 and is elastically pressed onto the recording medium 3 by a load spring 5.

The support spring 4 and the load spring 5 are fixed to the support arm 7.

The carriage 11 to which the support arm 7 is attached is a CD
The driving force is usually provided by a linear motor.

Although not shown in FIG. 1, a plurality of floating heads are normally attached to the support arm 7 and inserted into the recording media 3, 3.

Because it is elastically pressed by the spring force of the load spring, when the floating head is removed from the surface of the medium (hereinafter referred to as reset), it is necessary to remove the floating head from the surface of the medium (hereinafter referred to as reset). As shown in Figure 2a, the cores of the floating heads 1 and 1' may come into contact with the outer periphery of the recording media 3 and 3' and be damaged, or the load springs may be damaged at the moment they separate from the media surface as shown in Figure 2. The sudden relaxation of the spring force caused the adjacent upper and lower heads 1, 1' to collide and be damaged.

Further, as shown in FIG. 2, once the load spring is relaxed, the floating head cannot be assembled (hereinafter referred to as set) on the medium surface in that state.

That is, even in the contact start/stop method, it is necessary to lift the head above the medium surface when resetting the head, and also to lift the head above the medium surface when setting the head.

Conventionally, a pawl 6 on a load spring 5 and a bar 10 shown in FIG. 1 have been used as a mechanism for performing such a function.

That is, as shown in FIG. 3a, which is a cross-sectional view taken along a plane perpendicular to the medium surface and including the bar 10, in the landing-on state in which the head 1 is pressed against the medium surface, the bar 10 is inserted into the groove of the support arm. 9, the tip of the bar 10 comes into contact with the pawl 6 on the load spring 5, and the load spring 5 is lifted along the slope of the pawl as shown in FIG.
A landing-off state occurs in which the head is lifted from the medium surface.

To change from the landing-off state to the landing-on state, the operation can be reversed.

However, this method had the following drawbacks.

First, in order for the pawl 6 to intersect with the bar 10, the bar 10 had to pass through the interior of the support arm 7, as shown in FIG.

However, in use, the rear of the support arm (rightward in FIG. 1) is occupied by the carriage 11 and linear motor (hereinafter referred to as head access mechanism) for accessing the head to a predetermined track. It cannot be operated.

In other words, in order to perform the landing on and off operations of the head, the bar 10 had to be operated after separating the arm and linear motor, so the landing on and off operations were performed during use. I couldn't do that.

For this reason, under normal usage conditions, even after the rotation of the recording medium has stopped, no landing/off operation of the head is performed, and the head is left in contact with the surface of the medium.

When using a medium coated with γ-Fe2O3, there is little problem even if the head is left on the medium surface for a long time.However, since there is a limit to the recording density of coated media, it is necessary to increase the recording density even higher. To advance this process, it has become necessary to use magnetic media made of plating or oxidized magnetic films.

These are plated or oxidized magnetic! With magnetic media, if the head and media are left in contact, water droplets will condense on the contact surface and the head and media will come into close contact with each other with great force, resulting in the media not being able to rotate or being forced into contact with the media. Rotation caused damage to the head or gimbal.

For this reason, it has become necessary to repeatedly perform landing on and off operations each time the disk stops rotating.

However, as mentioned above, the conventional landing on/off mechanism has poor operability, so landing on/off operations are not possible in its current state.

Second, if you inadvertently reset the bar without inserting it, the spring force of the load spring will be suddenly relaxed the moment the slider surface separates from the medium surface, so as shown in Figure 2. Carelessness led directly to damage to the floating head.

Also, even if the floating head is not damaged, once the spring force is relaxed, the bar will not hit the pawl 6 on the load spring even if the bar is inserted, so the load spring must be lifted by another force before the bar 10 is inserted. This resulted in poor workability.

In order to solve these problems, the present invention intersects with a pawl integrally formed with a load spring, and has an inclined part formed at the intersection, and supports a horizontal pin that is movably advanced and retracted on a support arm. By moving the crank pin set on the side of the head forward and backward by rotating it, the load spring is moved up and down with respect to the surface of the recording medium along the slope of the slope of the side pin, making it easy to land the floating head on. The device is designed to perform an off operation, and will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a part of a floating head support device embodying the present invention, in which 1 is a floating head, 2 is a core of the floating head, 4 is a support spring, 5 is a load spring, 8 is a lead wire,
It is.

The support spring 4 and the load spring 5 are integrally formed and fixed to the support arm 7.

The support arm 7 has an opening 12 through which floating heads can be attached above and below.

Only the lower head is shown in the figure.

Reference numeral 13 indicates a pawl fixed to the back surface of the load spring, and 14 indicates a direction (A) that intersects with the pawl 13 on the load spring and crosses the load spring.
, B direction).

The horizontal pin 14 has an opening 15 in the center, and an inclined portion 1 at the intersection where the inner periphery of the opening 15 and the pawl 13 intersect.
6, and the portion protruding from the side surface of the support arm T has an external joint 17 and an internal joint 18.

The horizontal pin guides 19 and 20 have grooves 21 and 22, respectively, and the horizontal pin 14 is guided by these grooves 21 and 22, and its movement in the C and D directions is restricted, but it is held so that it can move forward and backward in the A and B directions. There is.

FIG. 5 is an overall perspective view of a floating head support device embodying the present invention.

The two heads mounted on the upper side of the support arm 7 are clearly visible in the figure.

The crank pin 23 moves the horizontal pin 14 forward and backward in directions A and B, and has two crank parts 24 and 25 in the center.
, and one end of the crank pin is connected to a coil spring 2.
6, the end 27 of the coil spring is fixed in the hole 28 of the support arm 7, and serves to position the support arm 7 and restrain rotation of the coil spring.

The other end of the crank pin 23 is bent and handle 29
is formed.

The crank pin guides 30 and 31 have grooves 32 and 33 that pass through them in the C and D directions, and the horizontal pin holder 19a, which holds the crank pin 23 rotatably in the E and F directions around these grooves as the center of rotation, is a coil It also serves as a rotation guide for the spring 26.

A plunger head 34 rotates the crank pin 23 in the E and F directions, and a groove 35 is formed in the portion of the crank pin that engages with the handle 29.

FIG. 6 is a sectional view of the support arm 7 taken along a plane including the horizontal pin 14, and is used to explain the operation of this mechanism.

a indicates the landing-on state. At this time, the horizontal pin is pushed in the direction B, and the pawl 13 on the load spring and the inclined part 16 of the horizontal pin are separated, and the floating head 1 is loaded with a load that balances the air film pressure obtained by the rotation of the recording medium. Since the spring force of the spring is directly applied, the floating head can fly over the recording medium up to a minute gap.

b indicates the state of landing off.

To change from the landing-on state to the landing-off state, the following operations may be performed.

That is, when the horizontal pin 14 is pulled out in the direction A, the sloped portion 16 of the horizontal pin 14 comes into contact with the pawl 13 on the load spring, and the sloped portion 1
The load spring 5 integrated with the pawl 13 is deflected inward along the slope 6.

Therefore, the spring force of the load spring 5 applied to the floating head 1 is received by the horizontal pin 14, and no pressing force is transmitted to the floating head 1.

Further, since the load spring 5 and the support spring 4 are integrated at the fixed part with the support arm 7, the support spring 4 is also deflected inward due to the inward deflection of the load spring, and the floating head 1 is moved toward the recording medium. It separates from 3 and becomes a landing off state.

In order to ensure the separation of the floating head 1 from the recording medium 3 (the east support spring 4 is bent inward in advance so that the support spring 4 presses the load spring 5, the movement of the support spring 4 is prevented). may be made to follow the movement of the load spring 5.

To change from the landing-off state to the landing-on state, the operation can be reversed.

If the set and reset operations are performed in the landing-off state, there will be no damage because the flying surface of the floating head is separate from the recording medium surface, but if the floating head is reset without the landing-off operation, As shown in C, the relaxation of the spring force of the load spring is limited by the contact of the pawl 13 of the load spring 5 with the inclined portion 16 of the horizontal pin 14, thereby preventing collisions between adjacent upper and lower floating heads. can do.

Next, the operation of the crank pin 23 will be explained with reference to FIG.

Since a preload using the torsion spring force of the coil spring 26 acts on the crank pin 23 in the E direction (Fig. 5), the crank parts 24 and 25 are attached to the support arm 7.
is pushing the side of the

Therefore, the horizontal pin 14 engaged with the crank parts 24 and 25 is pushed in the direction B by the internal connector 18, and the coil
Movement in the A direction is restricted within the range of the torsional spring force of the spring.

Therefore, the condition of FIG. 5 corresponds to the landing-on condition of FIG. 6a.

To change from the landing-on state to the landing-off state, the following operation can be performed.

Move the plunger head 34 in direction B, and align the groove 35 of the plunger head 34 with the handle 3 of the crank pin 23.
3 and further push in direction B, the handle 33
rotates in the F direction against the torsional spring force of the coil spring.

If the number of turns of the coil spring is increased so that the torsional rigidity of the coil spring 26 is sufficiently small compared to the torsional rigidity of the handle 33 and the crank parts 24, 250, the rotational movement of the handle 330 will be converted into a rotational movement of the crank parts 24, 25. It is transmitted by

The rotational movement of the crank part 24,25 is transmitted to the external abutment 17 of the transverse pin 14 engaged therewith.

Therefore, the length of the crank part 24, 250 arm is a,
If the rotation angle of the crank parts 24 and 250 is θ, then the horizontal pin 1
4 is pulled out in the A direction by a sin θ.

If the plunger head 34 is pushed in so that a rotation angle of 90° is obtained in the crank parts 24, 25, the horizontal pin 14 is pulled out in the direction A by the arm length a of the crank parts 24, 250, as shown in Figure 6. A landing-off state will occur corresponding to the state.

To change from the landing off state to the landing on state, the plunger head 34 is pulled out in the direction A.

Since a torsional spring force in the E direction is applied to the crank pin 23 by the coil spring 26, the crank pin 2 is moved simultaneously in the direction of the plunger head 340A.
The handle 33 of No. 3 rotates in the E direction, and in conjunction with this, the crank parts 24 and 25 also rotate in the E direction.

The rotational movement of the crank pin acts on the internal connector 18 of the transverse pin engaged with the crank pin, pushing the transverse pin 14 in direction B, resulting in the landing-on condition of FIG. 6a.

When a large number of support arms are used in a stacked manner, the plunger heads may be stacked in correspondence to the number of support arms.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of another embodiment.

The support springs and load springs for the floating head are the same as in the previous embodiment, so they are omitted.

The shapes of the horizontal pin and crank pin are different from the previous embodiment.

In this embodiment, the horizontal pins 36 do not need to be formed from a wire rod, but can be formed with high precision and productivity by forming a plate material by etching, pressing, etc.

36 is a horizontal pin formed from a plate material, and has an opening 37 in the center, an inclined part 38 at the position where this opening intersects with the pawl 5 of the load spring, and an external connector 39 and an internal connector at the position where this opening intersects with the crank pin. It has 40.

The horizontal pin formed in this manner also functions in the same manner as the horizontal pin of the previous embodiment.

The crank and the coil spring do not need to be made of the same material; they may be made of separate materials and then integrated.

Reference numeral 41 denotes a crank pin 23 formed of a member other than the coil spring, and has crank portions 42, 43, and a bundle 44.

The coil spring 45 applies torsional spring force to the crank pin, one end 46 of the coil is fixed to the support arm 7, the other end 4γ is fixed to the crank pin 23, and the coil is wound around the outer circumference of the crank pin 23. It is set as follows.

48 and 49 are crank bin guides, and a coil spring 45 is built into the crank bin guide 48.

The crank pin thus formed functions in the same manner as the crank pin of the previous embodiment.

Since the floating head support device according to the present invention has the mechanism described above, it has the following advantages.

(1) Landing on and off operations of the floating head can be performed by the forward and backward movement of a horizontal pin that intersects with the load spring, and the forward and backward movement of the horizontal pin is performed by rotating a crank pin set on the side of the support arm. Since the operation can be performed from the side of the support arm, the operation is not restricted by the head access mechanism to which the support arm is attached, as in the past, and the landing
The plunger head that performs on and off operations is also not restricted by the operating area of the head access mechanism and can be relatively freely incorporated.

In the conventional method, it was necessary to separate the support arm and head access mechanism in order to perform landing on and off, but with this mechanism, there is no need to separate the support arm and head access mechanism. Since the landing on and off operations can be easily performed from the side of the support arm, it is possible to easily perform the landing on and off operations without modifying the device.

In other words, if a landing-off operation is performed in response to a signal to stop the use of the medium, and a landing-on operation is performed immediately before the medium is rotated, the head is caused by the head being left in contact with the medium. It is possible to eliminate the problem of condensation of water droplets between the media and the media, causing the two to come into close contact with each other.

Therefore, it is possible to use a plating type or oxidized magnetic film type magnetic medium that is susceptible to dew condensation, and a high recording density of the magnetic disk device can be achieved.

(2) Even if the horizontal pin is reset without landing or off, the horizontal pin will come into contact with the claw of the load spring and act as a stopper to prevent the spring force of the load spring from relaxing. Even when the head is reset without performing an off operation, it is possible to prevent adjacent floating heads from colliding with each other with a large force and being damaged.

(3) As described in (2), since the horizontal pin serves as a stopper against relaxation of the load spring, the amount of deflection of the tip of the load spring is limited.

Therefore, it is possible to connect the lead wire for recording and reproducing directly from the core to the terminal on the support arm without passing through the load spring.

Place the IC on the support arm and connect the lead wire from the core directly to the
If connected to C, the length of the lead wire can be shortened to a few minutes compared to the conventional method using a load spring, making it possible to reduce the inductance of the lead wire and improving recording and playback performance. Frequency characteristics can be improved.

(4) Since the horizontal pin is perpendicular to the access direction of the head access mechanism, it is easy to restrain the access operation, and since it is separated from the load spring at the time of landing, the horizontal pin vibrates due to high-speed access operation. However, the recording and reproducing operations of the floating head will not be adversely affected.

(5) Since the mechanism is simple and assembly is easy, it can contribute to lower cost and improved reliability of the floating head support device.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of an example of a conventional floating head support device, Fig. 2 is a perspective view of the conventional floating head support mechanism for explaining the reset operation, and Fig. 3 is a landing of the conventional floating head support mechanism.・Cross-sectional diagram to explain on/off operation,
FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a portion of a floating head support device embodying the present invention, FIG. 5 is a perspective view of a floating head support device embodying the present invention, and FIG. Cross-sectional view for explaining on/off operation, No. 7
The figure is a perspective view schematically showing another embodiment of the floating head support device of the present invention. 1.1'...Floating head, 3,3',3"...
...Recording medium, 4...Support spring, 5...
... Load spring, 7. River... Support arm, 13...
... Load spring 5 pawl, 14°36... Horizontal pin, 15, 37... Opening of horizontal pin 14°36,
16, 38... Horizontal pin 14, 360 inclined part, 2
3,36...Crank pin, 24°25.4
2,43...Crank part, 26,45...
...Coil sufflink.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A floating head is placed on each recording medium surface between recording media arranged parallel to each other, and a predetermined track is selected by supporting the floating head vertically and moving it in the radial direction. In a floating head support device for a magnetic disk device that performs recording and reproduction by floating the head with a small gap from the surface, a support spring elastically supports the floating head, and a support spring engages with the floating head to apply a load force to it. a load spring that applies the load; a pawl integrally formed with the load spring; a support arm having an opening in the center to which the load spring and the support spring are fixed; a horizontal pin intersecting the pawl on the spring and movable in a direction across the load spring perpendicular to the direction of movement of the floating head; and an end of the horizontal pin protruding from the side surface of the support arm. a crank pin that engages with the joint of the support arm and is rotatably installed on a side surface of the support arm, and the horizontal pin has an opening in the center and is connected to the load spring at the inner periphery of the opening. The crank pin has an inclined portion at a location where it intersects with the pawl, and the crank pin is loaded with a rotational spring force and has a crank portion that engages the joint portion of the horizontal pin, and the crank pin When pressed against the side surface of the support arm by the spring force, the horizontal pin is pushed into the support arm, and the inclined portion formed on the horizontal pin separates from the pawl at the intersection with the pawl, and the load spring The horizontal pin engages with the floating head and presses it to float above the recording medium, and when the crank part is separated from the side surface of the support arm against the rotational spring force, the horizontal pin is moved away from the support arm. When the floating head is pulled out, the inclined portion is configured to contact the pawl and stop transmitting the pressing force of the load spring, thereby separating the floating head from the recording medium surface, and in a state where no landing-off operation is performed. 3. A floating head support device for a magnetic disk drive, wherein when the load spring is reset, the pawl of the load spring comes into contact with the inclined portion to prevent relaxation of the spring force of the load spring.