The present invention relates to a tray structure of an optical disc drive, more particularly to a breakproof tray structure including a resilient member having one side connected to an end of a tray of the optical disc drive and an opposite side connected to a loading/ejecting mechanism of the optical disc drive, so as to utilize the resilient member to absorb an external force and support the tray. Effectively prevent the tray from being damaged by the external force.
As personal computers (PCs) become increasingly popular, more and more people have PCs at home or in the office. In order for the computer to access a storage medium such as an optical disc (e.g., CD and DVD), an optical disc drive is typically installed in the chassis of the computer, or an external optical disc drive is connected to a connection port of the computer. Generally, an optical disc drive is operated in the following manner. First, a load/eject button on the front panel of the optical disc drive is pressed to drive a loading/ejecting mechanism of the optical disc drive such that a tray connected to the loading/ejecting mechanism is pushed out of an opening of the optical disc drive. Then, an optical disc is placed on the tray, and the load/eject button is pressed again, thus driving the loading/ejecting mechanism to pull the tray back into the optical disc drive and allowing the optical disc drive to read/write data from/into the optical disc according to a reading/writing instruction of the computer.
In addition, after the tray is pushed out by pressing the load/eject button, it is a common design for the optical disc drive to automatically withdraw the tray if the tray has stayed outside the opening of the optical disc drive for a predetermined time without the load/eject button being pressed again. However, some optical disc drives which do not have such mechanisms for automatically withdrawing the pushed-out trays.
Conventional trays are usually made of a low resilience material and have a thickness (at the thinnest portion) that ranges from about 0.8 mm to 1.2 mm, the overall mechanical strength of such trays is not strong enough to withstand a large bending force. Therefore, if a tray which has been pushed out from the optical disc drive is inadvertently bumped by the user, or if a heavy object is dropped on the pushed-out tray, the chances are the tray will deform or even break due to the excessive transient stress. Should it happen, the optical disc drive is no longer good for use and has to be replaced. In addition, the sharp edges of the broken tray may cut or injure the user, thus raising safety issues. Moreover, if an important optical disc is supported on the tray while the tray breaks, the edges of the broken tray may damage the optical disc such that the valuable data stored therein is lost beyond recovery.
Hence, the issue to be addressed by the present invention is to improve the conventional optical disc drive trays so that they are prevented from breaking when impacted and that the optical discs supported on the trays are thus protected from damage.
In view of the aforementioned drawbacks of the conventional optical disc drive trays, the inventor of the present invention conducted extensive research and experiment and finally succeeded in developing a breakproof tray structure of an optical disc drive as disclosed herein. It is hoped that, with the present invention, tray damage attributable to human errors can be avoided, and users are prevented from injury which may otherwise result from the sharp edges of broken trays.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a breakproof tray structure of an optical disc drive, wherein the tray structure includes a tray and a resilient member. The resilient member has one side connected to an end of the tray and an opposite side connected to a loading/ejecting mechanism of the optical disc drive. The resilient member is made of a flexible material such as rubber. If the tray, in a state in which it has been pushed out from an opening of the optical disc drive by the loading/ejecting mechanism, is subjected to an external force, the resilient member will deform elastically while absorbing the force. In consequence, the external force is converted into elastic energy of the resilient member to effectively prevent the tray from breaking under an otherwise excessive stress, and once the external force applied to the tray is removed, the resilient member returns to its original shape. Thus, the tray will not break even if it is accidentally bent by the user in the pushed-out state. In other words, tray damage due to human errors is effectively prevented. It follows that the costs otherwise required for buying a replacement of the optical disc drive is saved.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a breakproof tray structure of an optical disc drive, wherein the tray structure includes a tray, a hinge, and a torsion spring. The hinge has one side connected to an end of the tray and an opposite side connected a loading/ejecting mechanism of the optical disc drive. The torsion spring is mounted around a pivot of the hinge and has two ends pressing against the two sides of the hinge respectively. If the tray, in a state in which it has been pushed out from an opening of the optical disc drive by the loading/ejecting mechanism, is pushed downward by an external force, the tray will be rotated downward about the pivot of the hinge to not only prevent the optical disc supported on the tray from damage which may otherwise result from breaking of the tray, but also protect the user from injury which may occur from broken edges of the tray. As a result, the safety of use of the optical disc drive is substantially increased.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a breakproof tray structure of an optical disc drive, wherein the tray structure includes a tray. The tray has one end connected to a loading/ejecting mechanism of the optical disc drive and is made of a flexible material such as rubber. If the tray, in a state in which it has been pushed out from an opening of the optical disc drive by the loading/ejecting mechanism, is subjected to an external force, the tray will absorb the external force by virtue of its own flexibility and deforms elastically. Thus, the tray is prevented from breaking under an otherwise excessive stress.
The invention as well as a preferred mode of use, further objects, and advantages thereof will be best understood by referring to the following detailed description of some preferred embodiments in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
During the years dedicated to the research and development of computer-related devices, the inventor of the present invention has noticed that the potential breakage problem of the trays of optical disc drives has yet to be properly solved and that, in consequence, trays featuring breakproof properties are not available on the market. Therefore, under the premise of preserving the existing tray structure as much as possible and causing no substantial increase in production costs, the inventor applies the principle of elastic buffer to realize the breakproof property of the tray of an optical disc drive.
The present invention relates to a breakproof tray structure of an optical disc drive. Referring to
As shown in
Apart from the resilient plate described above, the present invention may use other buffer elements to absorb the external force (impact force) applied to the tray. In a second preferred embodiment of the present invention as shown in
In addition to using the aforesaid buffer elements (i.e., the resilient member 11 and the hinge 210 mounted with the torsion spring 211) to absorb the impact force, it is also feasible in the present invention that the entire tray is made of a flexible material such as rubber so as to prevent the tray from breaking. Therefore, in a third preferred embodiment of the present invention as shown in
To sum up, the first and second preferred embodiments use buffer elements (i.e., the resilient member 11 and the hinge 210 mounted with the torsion spring 211) to absorb impact forces; on the other hand, the tray in the third preferred embodiment is made entirely of rubber for absorbing external forces by virtue of the elasticity of rubber and thus preventing the tray from damage or breakage attributable to an external force exceeding the allowable limits of the tray. The technical features of the aforesaid embodiments not only prevent the tray of an optical disc drive from damage or breakage associated with improper external impact, but also protect important optical discs from damage, and the user from injury, which may otherwise result from the sharp edges of a broken tray. Consequently, the service life and safety of use of the tray of an optical disc drive is effectively increased.
While the invention herein disclosed has been described by means of specific embodiments, numerous modifications and variations could be made thereto by those skilled in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention set forth in the claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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201010222697.9 | Jun 2010 | CN | national |