Patent Application
20060114604
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic device comprising a recording and reproducing unit. More particularly, the present invention relates to an electronic device capable of supporting and fixing a circuit board and a recording and reproducing unit on a chassis in common.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in a process for mounting an electronic device which comprises a recording and reproducing unit such as a disk unit, there has been generally provided an assembling structure of carrying out mounting and fixing by using screw parts when a plurality of circuit boards or disk units are assembled to be fixed to a chassis or a case and the like. Therefore, in manufacturing a conventional electronic device or the like, tightening parts including mounting and fixing screws, nuts, washers or the like has been essential, and generally complicated work processes such as screw hole processing and screw tightening are required. Thus, further improvement of work efficiency has not been achieved, and further reduction of a manufacturing cost has not been successfully achieved.
In order to overcome the above described problems, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 8-116184, there is disclosed a structure of providing a plurality of columns which correspond to a plurality of screw holes in an upper case and a lower case opposed to each other, of an electronic device or the like, and further, sandwiching a circuit board having provided thereon screw holes which correspond to positions of the plurality of columns between both of the cases. There is also disclosed a structure of screw tightening the upper case and the lower case in a form which penetrates the circuit board, thereby fixing the circuit board sandwiched therebetween. With the structure of Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 8-116184, it becomes possible to mount a circuit board at the same time when casing is assembled. In addition, a work direction at the time of assembling and disassembling associated with screw removal can be unified to only a vertical direction, making it possible to reduce the assembling steps and the number of assembling parts such as screws.
Further, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 5-275869, there is disclosed a structure of engaging interposed parts such as a circuit board sandwiched between an upper case and a lower case opposed to each other, of an electronic device or the like via engagement means provided in the upper case, the lower case and front and rear face covers, and then, screw tightening the upper case and the lower case in a form which penetrates interposed parts such as the circuit board sandwiched between the cases, thereby fixing the interposed parts. With the structure of Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 5-275869, as in the structure of Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 8-116184, it becomes possible to mount the interposed parts such as a circuit board at the same time when casing is assembled. In addition, a work direction at the time of assembling and disassembling associated with screw removal can be unified to only a vertical direction, making it possible to reduce the assembling steps and the number of assembling parts such as screws.
Furthermore, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 7-176874, in an electronic device or the like which consists of a first housing and a second housing, the first housing having two side walls which form an L shape, and the second housing having four side walls which form a hexahedron-shaped housing in combination with the first housing, there is disclosed a structure of a housing main body in which circuit boards are housed in the step of assembling the housing main body of the electronic device, by combining and assembling the first housing with the second housing, wherein a first circuit board is mounted on the first housing, and a second circuit board is inserted and engagingly locked on the second housing by a holding protrusion and a holding receptacle groove, the holding protrusion and the holding receptacle groove provided on two opposed side wall in-planes of the second housing for inserting and engagingly locking the second circuit board, and female and male hooking means further provided at predetermined positions which correspond to each other in the second housing. With the structure of Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 7-176874, it becomes possible to reduce the assembling steps, and at the same time, to eliminate use of screw parts or the like for fixing a circuit board.
With the above described structure, reduction of the assembling steps and reduction of the number of parts such as screws required to fix a circuit board has been achieved. However, in the structures of Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Nos. 8-116184 and 5-275869, except a case in which a single circuit board is sandwiched between the upper case and the lower case, assuming that a plurality of circuit boards are assembled to be sandwiched between the upper case and the lower case, unless vertical and horizontal dimensions are set to be substantially equal to each other with respect to all of the plurality of circuit boards sandwiched between the cases, the constructions of the columns in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 8-116184 and the engagement means in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 5-275869 become complicated, thus forcing an undesired burden in the course of a circuit board design and a housing design. As a result, it is considered that there occurs an inconvenience that the number of assembling parts such as screws is forced to be increased. Similarly, in the structure of Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 7-176874 as well, in the case where a plurality of circuit boards are housed in a housing of an electronic device main body, unless vertical and horizontal dimensions are set to be substantially equal to each other with respect to all of the plurality of circuit boards, there is an inconvenience that assembling becomes difficult.
Further, in the case where one specific board is removed from the electronic device main body due to repair and maintenance of the electronic device, in the structures of Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 8-116184 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 5-275869, all of the plurality of circuit boards sandwiched between the upper case and the lower case are removed at the same time, including a circuit board which may not be removed. Thus, while repair or maintenance is carried out, it is necessary to maintain in another place a circuit board which does not require repair and which has not been essentially required to be removed. Further, it is unavoidable to do a work of combining a repaired circuit board with a circuit board which does not require repair and has been separately maintained after removed in advance at the time of terminating repair or maintenance, and then, retightening all the circuit boards. Therefore, there is a problem that work efficiency becomes worse.
Furthermore, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 8-116184, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 5-275869, and Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 7-176874, only a circuit board is explicitly shown as specific interposed parts to be tightened with a housing such as an electronic device, and nothing is mentioned as to tightening of a recording and reproducing unit such as a disk reproducing unit. Therefore, it is unclear as to whether or not a recording and reproducing unit which is much heavier than a circuit board can be supported with the structures of Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 8-116184, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 5-275869 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 7-176874. However, even if supporting is possible, as described above, there exists a problem that all dimensions must be set to be substantially equal to each other with respect to a plurality of interposed parts. Similarly, there exists an inefficiency problem that, at the time of repair or maintenance of an electronic device or the like, all of the plurality of interposed parts are temporarily removed, including a circuit board which does not require repair and which has not been essentially required to be removed, and further, at the time of terminating repair or maintenance, a repaired circuit board must be retightened in combination with all of the interposed parts together with other circuit boards or the like which does not require repair.
In order to solve the above-described problems, the present invention provides an electronic device comprising a recording and reproducing unit comprising: a chassis serving as a bottom face of the device; a recording and reproducing unit mounted upwardly of the chassis; and a board for controlling the device, wherein there is provided receiving and supporting means for supporting one end of the board at a side end of the chassis, and wherein there is provided supporting and fixing means capable of supporting the other end of the board at an opposite side end of the chassis and fixing the recording and reproducing unit and the board to the chassis. Further, in the above-described electronic device comprising a recording and reproducing unit, the present invention provides an electronic device comprising a recording and reproducing unit, wherein a rise face erected upwardly of the side end of the chassis is formed, and wherein a guide protrusion cut and formed at an inside of the rise face is used as receiving and supporting means of the board. Further, the present invention provides an electronic device comprising a recording and reproducing unit, wherein a protrusion portion protruded upwardly of a bottom face of the chassis is formed; a stepped portion for guiding the other end of the board and a tightening hole for tightening the recording and reproducing unit and/or the board are provided at the protrusion portion; and the protrusion portion, the stepped portion, and the tightening hole are used as supporting and fixing means. Further, in the above-described electronic device comprising a recording and reproducing unit, the present invention provides an electronic device comprising a recording and reproducing unit, wherein a cutout for releasing the receiving and supporting means and/or the supporting and fixing means is formed at an end of the board; and wherein a predetermined gap is provided between a position of the receiving and supporting means and/or the supporting and fixing means and a position of the cutout in a state in which the board has been mounted upwardly of the chassis. Further, in the above-described electronic device comprising a recording and reproducing unit, the present invention provides an electronic device comprising a recording and reproducing unit, wherein, upwardly of the chassis, the board is disposed at both sides of the recording and reproducing unit.
According to the present invention, in an electronic device comprising a circuit board and a recording and reproducing unit, one side end of the circuit board and one side end of the recording and reproducing unit are supported and fixed in common, thereby achieving reduction of the number of tightening parts such as screws and reduction of the number of assembling work steps according to the tightening work. In addition, at the time of repair or maintenance, it becomes possible to remove only a circuit board which is required to be repaired. As a result, reduction of a manufacturing cost and a repair and maintenance cost can be achieved through reduction of the number of parts and reduction of the number of work steps.
Hereinafter, specific embodiments according to the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.
Now, with reference to
Now, with reference to
Now, a description will be given with respect to the circuit board 20 which is one of the constituent elements of the electronic device according to the first embodiment of the present invention. In the two circuit boards 20A and 20B shown in
Further, a description will be given with respect to the disk reproducing unit 30 which is one of the constituent elements of the electronic device according to the first embodiment of the present invention. In the present embodiment, as shown in
Based on the construction described above, first, a step of mounting two circuit boards 20A and 20B on a chassis 10 will be described with respect to an operation of the first embodiment according to the present invention. As shown in
In addition, as shown in
Now, a step of mounting a disk reproducing unit 30 on the chassis 10 will be described below.
When the disk reproducing unit 30 is installed on the two circuit boards 20A and 20B mounted on the chassis 10, mount screw holes (not shown), formed at the predetermined positions of a leg part of the disk reproducing unit 30, the screw holes corresponding to screws 40A, 40B, 40C, and 40D for tightening the disk reproducing unit 30 on the chassis bottom part 11, are positioned in a state which corresponds to the screw through holes 21A and 21B formed on the first circuit board 20A and the screw through holes 21C and 21D formed on the second circuit board 20B.
In this manner, the mount screw holes (not shown) formed at the leg part of the disk reproducing unit 30; the screw through holes 21A, 21B, 21C, and 21D formed on the two circuit boards 20A and 20B; and the screw tightening holes 17A, 17B, 17C, and 17D formed on the protrusion portions 13A, 13B, 13C, and 13D of the chassis bottom part 11 are disposed at their corresponding positions. Thus, the screws 40A, 40B, 40C, and 40D can be helically fitted to the screw tightening holes 17A, 17B, 17C, and 17d formed on the protrusion portions 13A, 13B, 13C, and 13D of the chassis bottom part 11 through the mount screw holes (not shown) of the disk reproducing unit 30 and the screw through holes 21A, 21B, 21C, and 21D of the two circuit boards 20A and 20B.
A description of operation has been now completed in the case where two circuit boards and one disk reproducing unit are mounted on a chassis. Now, an additional description of operation will be given in the case of removing one circuit board from among two circuit boards and one disk reproducing unit mounted on a chassis for the purpose of repair or maintenance.
An electronic device requiring repair or maintenance is brought in, in a state in which the two circuit boards 20A and 20B and one disk reproducing unit 30 are tightened and fixed by means of the screws 40A, 40B, 40C, and 40D altogether. Now, an embodiment will be described assuming that the second circuit board 20B is replaced with its replacement board due to some failure. As shown in
Now, a second embodiment according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. 13 to 17. Constituent elements according to the second embodiment are featured in that a cutout is formed on each of two circuit boards 20A and 20B.
Three cutouts 19A, 19B, and 19E are formed on the first circuit board 20A, and three cutouts 19C, 19D, and 19F are formed on the second circuit board 20B, respectively. With cross-reference to
In a state in which a predetermined positional relationship is maintained to be equal to a relative positional relationship between each of the protrusion portions 13A and 13B and the guide protrusion 14B, the cutouts 19A, 19B, and 19E are formed at the predetermined positions of the first circuit board 20A. Similarly, in a state in which a predetermined positional relationship is maintained to be equal to a relative positional relationship between each of the protrusion portions 13C and 13D and the guide protrusion 14E, the cutouts 19C, 19D, and 19F are formed at the predetermined positions of the second circuit board 20B. The above predetermined positions for forming the above cutouts 19A, 19B, 19E, 19C, 19D, and 19F are defined so as not to overlap with sites at which the circuit boards 20A and 20B are mounted by means of common screw tightening together with the protrusion portions 13A, 13B, 13C, and 13D of the chassis bottom part 11 and a leg part of the disk reproducing unit 30.
Based on the above described construction, a description will now be given with respect to an operation in the second embodiment according to the present invention. An operation in the case where the two circuit boards 20A and 20B and one disk reproducing unit 30 are mounted on the chassis 10 is completely identical to that according to the first embodiment described previously. A duplicate description is omitted here. Here, an additional description will be given with respect to an operation in the case where the second circuit board 20B is removed from among the two circuit boards 20A and 20B and one disk reproducing unit 30 mounted on the chassis 10 for the purpose of repair or maintenance.
As is the case with the removal described in the first embodiment, first, as shown in
In the present embodiment, as shown in
According to the present embodiment, when a circuit board is removed at the time of repair or maintenance, a slide movement quantity of the circuit board in a depth direction is reduced, and instead, upward movement is carried out, thereby making it possible to reduce a movement quantity for removing the circuit board at a position proximal to a chassis or a disk reproducing unit and the like and to reduce a danger of contact with another member or the like at the time of a work of removing the circuit board.
In both of the above first embodiment and second embodiment as well, as shown in
While both of the above first embodiment and second embodiment have described that a guide protrusion is integrally formed on a rise face of a chassis and a protrusion portion is integrally formed on a chassis bottom part, it is possible to properly mount either of the guide protrusion and the protrusion portion as an additional member on a chassis without being integrally formed on the chassis.
While both of the above first embodiment and second embodiment have described that a recording and reproducing unit and a board are supported and fixed on a protrusion portion formed on a chassis in accordance with a screw tightening method, the supporting and fixing method is not limited thereto.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2004-347550 | Nov 2004 | JP | national |
