BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is the top view illustrating a small-size disc loading of a conventional slot-loading disc drive.
FIG. 2 is the top view illustrating a big-size disc loading of a conventional slot-loading disc drive.
FIG. 3 is the top view illustrating the disc loading of the disc drive of the present invention.
FIG. 4 is the flow chart of the disc discriminating method of the present invention.
FIG. 5 is the flow chart of selecting discs with the disc discriminating method of the present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The technical means for the above objectives and the effectiveness will be explained in the following detailed description with the preferred embodiment and together with the attached drawings.
The disc discriminating apparatus of the present invention applies to a slot-in disc drive and an extra disc loading module etc. The disc drive with slot-in roller is taken as an example referred to FIG. 3, the disc drive 20 mainly includes a disc loading mechanism such as a roller 21, a sensor unit 22, a spindle motor 23, a disc receptor 24, and a limiting unit 25. The roller 21 is disposed transversely at the entrance 26 of the disc drive 20. The sensor unit 22 can be a sensitized sensor, a limit-switch sensor and so on, which are made up of a plurality of sensors 221, 222, 223, and 224, which are disposed in a row adjacent to the roller 21 and near the entrance 26. In the preferred embodiment, the sensor unit 22 is disposed behind the roller 21, which can start or stop the roller 21 rotating at the right moment according to the detection.
Besides, the spindle motor 23 is disposed near the center of the disc drive 20. The receptor 24 is disposed near the back of the spindle motor 23. Two symmetric center positioning posts 241 for the spindle motor 23 are disposed on the two ends of the receptor 24. A limiting pin 242 is disposed at the center of the receptor. Three strip runners 28 are disposed in parallel along the disc 27 loading direction at the back of the spindle motor 23 of the disc drive 20. Two positioning posts 241 and the limiting pin 242 are made to slide in the three strip runners 28, so that the receptor 24 can move along the loading direction of the disc 27. The limiting unit 25, which is disposed next to the runner 28, is for the limiting pin sliding to limit the moving distance of the receptor 24 selectively with the limiting block 251 based on the disc size discriminated by the sensor unit 22.
Therefore, the sensor unit 22 detects the loading of the disc 27 and the disc size, the disc drive 20 accordingly drives the roller 21 rotating to draw the disc 27, and determine the proper limiting block 251 of the limiting unit 25. The center positioning posts 241 of the receptor 24 support the back edge of the disc 27 to make it aim to the central line of the spindle motor 23 automatically. Guided by the runner 28, the receptor 24 moves backwards in a distance limited by the limiting unit 25 to make the disc 27 reach the spindle motor 23 and complete the positioning. When ejecting a disc, the disc drive rotates the roller 22 reversely to send out the disc 27 until the action number of the sensor 221, 222, 223, and 224 decreases to the predetermined number, and then stops the roller 22 rotating and leaves the disc 27 lodged at the entrance 26 to be taken away.
The disc discriminating apparatus of the present invention discriminates the disc size via a sensor unit to replace a conventional multi-linkage disc discriminating mechanism, so as to avoid the space for long linkage operation and the height for piling, the disc drive is effectively made thinner, the cost price of production is decreased, and the efficiency of assembly is promoted.
As shown in FIG. 4, the method for discriminating the disc of the present invention starts with step S1: loading the disc 27 into the disc drive 20. The sensor unit 21 performs step S2: detecting. When any of the sensors 221, 222, 223 and 224 begins to act, the roller 22 is immediately driven to draw the disc 27 into the disc drive with step S3 of rotating the roller 22. Simultaneously, count the action number of the sensors in the sensor unit 21 with the number counting step S4, and start to count the time with the time counting step S5 to record the loading time of the disc into the disc drive, which is followed by step S6 of judging the action number of sensors to determine the disc size based on the facts that discs with different sizes have different diameters and the numbers of sensors covered also differ when the discs with different diameters pass through. If more sensors are used, it will increase the types of disc sizes that can be discriminated, but the cost price of elements will be increased accordingly. In the preferred embodiment, four sensors are disposed to discriminate a disc with 8 cm diameter and a disc with 12 cm diameter. The 8 cm disc can cover three sensors, whereas the 12 cm disc can cover four sensors. Thus, the action number of sensors will increase continuously after the mechanism is driven. Once the action number of sensors is detected to decrease, the disc can be judged to be a minor disc, that is, an 8 cm disc, according to step S7. Otherwise, step S8 is started for comparing the loading time of the disc with the predetermined time. Since a disc can cover the distance of all the chord length of sensors, the loading time of a disc can be worked out on the condition that the rotating rate of the roller 22 is constant. The loading time in this embodiment is approximately 0.3 second. If all the sensors are not covered after the predetermined time passes, the disc can be judged to be a minor disc according to step S7. If the loading time is no more than the predetermined time after comparison, the next step S9 is started to judge whether all sensors act, i.e. all sensors are covered. If all sensors are covered, the disc can be judged to be a major disc, that is, a 12 cm disc, according to step S10. Otherwise, step S3 is repeated to drive the roller 22 rotating to continue drawing the disc 27.
Therefore, the disc discriminating method of the present invention has two procedures on the loading time of discs and the change of action number of sensors for discriminating the disc size. The crossed methods can be used to discriminate the disc size quickly and prevent discs from touching the discriminating mechanism by mistake, so that the disc drive can respond to the size of loaded discs quickly and properly to promote the reliability.
Besides, as shown in FIG. 5, the disc discriminating method of the present invention can also be used in a disc drive for selecting discs with proper sizes. The starting step R1, detection step R2, step R3 for rotating the roller, step R4 of number counting, step R5 of time counting, step R6 of judging the action number of sensors decreasing, and step R8 of comparing the loading time of discs with the predetermined time. They are all same as the processes and methods in step S1 to S8, which the disc discriminating method mentioned above. The difference is that when the action number of sensors decreases in step R6 or the counted time is more than the predetermined time in step R8, step R7 is started to drive the roller rotating inversely and return the disc to complete returning step R11. On the contrary, if the action number of sensors does not decrease in step R6 and the loading time of the disc is not more than the predetermined time, step R9 is started to judge whether a predetermined number of sensors act, i.e. a predetermined number of sensors are covered. The predetermined number of sensors should be determined properly according to the disc size and the density of sensors disposed. If a predetermined number of sensors are not covered, return to step R3 and continue rotating the roller to draw the disc. If a predetermined number of sensors are covered, the disc is loaded completely according to step 10.
As for a disc drive with discs in specific sizes, the disc discriminating method of the present invention can be used to eject improper discs or non-disc objects loaded by mistake quickly when the disc drive is selecting the size of discs, in case the improper disc is lodged in the disc drive to damage both the disc drive and the disc. Thus the disc drive and the disc can be protected.
The above statements are to explain the preferred embodiment of the present invention, but not to put any restriction on the invention. Therefore, any modification or variation made for the same purpose would still be in the scope of the present invention.
Patent Application
20070288946
