Patent Application
20070245361
The present invention generally relates to an optical compact disc (CD) and DVD device, and more specifically to the placement of the flat cable of an optical pickup head of the device.
The rapid progress in technology has not only made many electronic devices smaller and lighter in weight, but also more trendy and design-oriented to meet the consumer demands.
The electronic devices cover a wide range of applications, including the recent audiovisual products, such as players for movies and music CDs. This type of players is designed for working with computers or in vehicles. To accommodate the working environment of smaller room, the compact disc players are getting thinner and thinner.
As the thinness required for the contemporary compact disc player, the internal mechanisms inside the compact disc player is an important design issue. To achieve the slim or the semi-slim design, the internal design of a compact disc play must be enhanced to maintain the stability and the endurance.
The design of the traverse of the conventional compact disc player imposes restrictions on the design of the slim or semi-slim compact disc players.
Disc loader 15 is placed on top of traverse mechanism 10 for loading and holding a compact disc 17, indicated by the dash lines. Optical pickup unit 14 is on bearing 16 on both sides of traverse mechanism 10 for reading from or writing to disc 17. Optical pickup unit 14 is also connected through FPC to circuit board (not shown) for transmitting data and commands. Pickup fixture end 121 of FPC 12 is engaged to optical pickup unit 14, and circuit board connection end 122 is connected to the connection end of the circuit board (not shown). Optical pickup unit 14 moves between disc loader 15 and mechanism corner 11 by the movement of bearing 16 to read or write.
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The shortcoming of design is because that optical pickup unit 14 is connected to FPC 12, which is bended and goes under optical pickup unit 14. Therefore, FPC 12 forms a bending angle (R) 23. R angle 23 interferes with mechanism corner 11 when optical pickup unit 14 is on outer track 171 of the disc. To protect R angle 23 and the FPC, the conventional design sacrifices the width of mechanism corner 11 in order to make enough space to accommodate R angle 23.
In other words, to avoid the collision between R angle 23 and mechanism corner 11, mechanism corner 11 is designed to be narrow and thin, which may lead to fragility of mechanism corner 11 and the difficulty of space usage. In addition, to avoid the friction between FPC 12 and disc 17 when optical pickup unit 14 moves, the connector on the circuit board (not shown) can only be placed near to inner track 172 of the disc. Therefore, circuit board connection end 122 can only be connected near to the inner track.
The present invention has been made to overcome the above-mentioned drawback of conventional design of the flat cable of an optical pickup head. The primary object of the present invention is to provide an enhanced traverse mechanism for a slim or semi-slim compact disc player to maintain the operational stability.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a design in which the circuit board connection end of the flat cable and the connector of the circuit board are not restricted to be connected near the inner track of the disc.
The conventional optical pickup unit only uses FPC to connect the circuit board. The present invention can use both FPC and flat cable to connect the optical pickup unit and the circuit board. The flat cable used in the present invention is less expensive; therefore, the present invention can reduce the manufacture cost.
The present invention changes the location where the flat cable and the optical pickup unit are connected to avoid the collision of the FPC and the mechanism corner of the conventional design. By changing the direction of the flat cable, the mechanism corner is enhanced to enable the design of even thinner traverse for the compact disc players.
The connection of the flat cable and the optical pickup unit is to place the flat cable directly above and in parallel with the signal connection end of the optical pickup unit and is soldered together. Therefore, the connection location of the flat cable and the circuit board can be changed as the design of the circuit board, instead of being restricted to be near the disc loader as in conventional design. The placement direction of flat cable enables the future design of traverse of compact disc players for more possibilities.
The foregoing and other objects, features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become better understood from a careful reading of a detailed description provided herein below with appropriate reference to the accompanying drawings.
The present invention can be understood in more detail by reading the subsequent detailed description in conjunction with the examples and references made to the accompanying drawings, wherein:
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Although the present invention has been described with reference to the preferred embodiments, it will be understood that the invention is not limited to the details described thereof. Various substitutions and modifications have been suggested in the foregoing description, and others will occur to those of ordinary skill in the art. Therefore, all such substitutions and modifications are intended to be embraced within the scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims.
