GB2238646A

GB2238646A - Telephone answering machine

Info

Publication number: GB2238646A
Application number: GB8927189A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Lin Ming
Original assignee: TEKMASTER Co Ltd
Current assignee: TEKMASTER Co Ltd
Priority date: 1989-12-01
Filing date: 1989-12-01
Publication date: 1991-06-05
Also published as: GB8927189D0

Abstract

A telephone answering machine is disclosed which is inexpensive to manufacture and minimises space consumption. The machine includes a planet idler gear 10 engagable with a trigger arm assembly 19 to 23 to swivel during rotation against the stud gear 4 of a pulley. By means of the surface structure 20, 21 of the trigger arm assembly, which serves as a cam, a drive arm assembly is controlled to cause a push rod 26 to engage a slidable plate enabling a magnetic head to slide toward or away from a cassette tape. <IMAGE>

Description

Title - Telephone Answering Machine The present invention relates to a telephone answering machine.

The invention relates especially to a slidable plate driving mechanism for a microprocessor controlled telephone answering machine, which is compact in size, inexpensive to manufacture and practical in use.

In prior telephone answering machines, the magnetic head driving mechanism is normally controlled by an electro-magnet. Although the use of an electro-magnet can efficiently drive the magnetic head carrying plate to move back, it is space consuming.

It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a compact head plate driving mechanism for a microprocessor controlled answering machine without using an electro-magnet or changing the internal structure of the machine.

According to the present invention there is provided a telephone answering machine comprising a base plate having mounted thereon a tape take-up reel base and a tape supply reel base, a pulley driven by a motor through a drive belt, comprising a gear wheel mounted on the base plate by means of a spindle seat, a planet idler gear mounted on a rotatable plate by means of a spindle and a spring to engage with the gear wheel , said rotatable plate being set to swivel on the axis of the shaft of said pulley, the planet idler gear being movable within a range confined by a stop plate mounted on the base plate to alternatively engage with the tape take-up reel base and the tape supply reel base when turned to the left or right, a semi-circular internal gear mounted on the base at a position co-axial to the gear wheel to engage with said planet idler gear; a slidable plate having a magnetic head mounted, and being biassed by a spring for sliding on the base plate;a trigger arm assembly pivoted to the base plate at the outer side by the semi-circular internal gear, and comprising a swinging arm and two notches serving as a cam and two limit arms at both lateral sides; and a drive arm assembly pivoted to the base plate at the outer side by the semi-circular internal gear, and comprising a positioning pin to alternatively lie in the notches of the trigger arm assembly, and a push rod to cause the head plate to move; characterised in that through the engagement of the planet idler gear with the gear wheel and the semicircular internal gear, the planet spindle is driven to move the swinging arm of the trigger arm assembly to drive the trigger arm assembly to swivel, during rotation, to further drive the positioning pin to change its position so as to drive the push rod to push the head plate to slide forward or backward, the two limit arms of the trigger arm assembly being pressed against the base plate to let the swinging arm be maintained in a path through which the planet spindle is rotating, after the planet spindle having moved away from the swinging arm.

The invention will now be described further by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings in which : Figure 1 is a perspective fragmentary view of a head plate for a telephone answering machine in accordance with the invention; Figure 2 is an assembled plan view of the head plate shown in Figure 1; Figures are schematic drawings illustrating the operation of 3A, 3B the present invention under REC (PLAY) mode; and 3C Figures are schematic drawings illustrating the operation 4A, 4B under FF mode.

4C and 4D DESCRIPTION OF THE DESIGNATED NUMERALS; (1) Base plate (2) Spindle seat (3) Pulley (4) Gear wheel (5) Spindle (6) Rotatable plate (7) (8) Edge (9) Planet spindle (10) Planet idler gear (11) Semi-circular internal gear (12) Rubber drive belt (13) Stop plate (14) Slidable plate (15) Compression spring (16) Tape take-up reel base (17) Tape supply reel base (18) Swinging axle (19) Trigger arm assembly (20) (21) Notch (22) Limit arm (23) Swinging arm (24) Drive arm assembly (25) Positioning pin (26) Rod (27) Swinging axle (28) ~ Pressure spring (29) Projecting portion Referring to Figures 1 and 2 a spindle seat 2 is mounted on the upper surface of the base plate 1 into which the spindle 5 of a pulley 3 is inserted. The pulley 3 includes a gear wheel 4 which is motor driven through a rubber drive belt 12.A rotatable plate 6 is mounted on the spindle seat 2, the plate having a curved front portion with two side edges 7 and 8. A planet spindle 9 is mounted on the front portion of the swivel plate 6 to locate a planet idler gear 10. A pressure spring 28 is arranged between the rotatable plate 6 and the planet idler gear 10. By means of the engagement of the planet idler gear 10 with the gear wheel 4, the rotatable plate 6 rotates on the axis of the spindle seat.

A semi-circular internal gear 11 is arranged around the rotatable plate 6. When the planet idler gear 10 follows the swivel plate 6 by rotation in the spindle seat 2, it engages with the internal gear 11. When the gear wheel 4, the plane idler gear 10 and the internal gear 11 are respectively engaged with each other, the planet idler gear 10 experiences resistance to rotation. A stop plate 13 fixed on the base plate 1 in the path through which the rotatable plate 6 passes, is arranged such that when the rotatable plate 6 is stopped by its edges 7 or 8 engaging the stop plate 13, the planet idler gear 10 will engage the gear of the tape supply reel base 17 or the tape take-up reel base 16 to cause driven rotation of tape of the telephone answering machine.

A trigger arm assembly 19 is mounted on the base plate 1 at the outer side by the semi-circular internal gear 11 by means of a swinging axle 18, which comprises two notches 20 and 21 with a projecting portion 29 formed between them which serves as a cam wheel. The assembly 19 includes also a swinging arm 23 and has two limit arms 22 one at each side. The limit arms 22 are in contact with the side wall of the base plate 1 to let the rear end of the swinging arm 23 be kept constantly in the path through which the planet axle 9 of the planet idler gear 10 passes. A drive arm assembly 24 is disposed between the trigger arm assembly 19 and the base plate 1 and pivotally connects to the base plate 1 by means of a swinging axle 27, which consists of a positioning pin 25 and a rod 26.

When the trigger arm assembly 19 rotatably drives the drive arm assembly 24, the positioning pin 25 will be driven to engage in the notch 20 or 21 of the trigger arm assembly 19.

Because the distance from the end of the projecting portion 29 to the swinging axle 18 is longer than the distance from the bottom of the notches 20 and 21 to the swinging axle 18, as soon as the positioning pin 25 is alternately caught in the notch 20 or 21 it will not slide to break away. When the drive arm assembly 24 is driven the rod 26 will be moved to engage the head plate 14 which is arranged opposite at the other side of the base plate 1. By means of a compression spring 15, which has one end connected to the head plate 14 and the other end connected to the base plate 1, a resultant force is obtained to move the positioning pin 25 towards the notch 20 or 21.

Operation of the telephone answering machine is outlined hereinafter, with reference to the drawings.

The answering machine includes four control buttons, i.e. "REC (PLAY)", "FF", "REW" and "STOP". When any one of the control buttons is pressed, the operational procedure will be controlled by the designated program of a central processing unit (CPU).

Before operation, the planet idler gear 10 is controlled by the CPU to move closer to the tape supply reel base 17 at one lateral side to allow for loading of a cassette tape. When the button "REC (PLAY)" is pressed on or triggered by any call from outside during ringing of a telephone set (not shown) the flywheel 3 will be motor driven through the rubber drive belt 12 to revolve counter-clockwise, as shown in Figure 3A, to further carry the swivel plate 6 to rotate counter-clockwise by means of the engagement of the stud gear 4 with the planet idler gear 10.As soon as the planet axle 9 is driven to touch the swinging arm 23 (see Figure 3B), the trigger arm assembly 19 is immediately driven to swing on the axis of the swinging axle 18, and the positioning pin 25 is simultaneously driven to shift from the notch 21 to the notch 20 to further carry the drive arm assembly 24 to swing clockwise on the axis of the swinging axle 27. In consequence, the rod 26 of the drive arm assembly 24 is immediately driven to push the head plate 14 to carry the magnetic head (not shown) to contact the tape (not shown).

Thereafter, the planet idler gear 10 breaks away from the swinging arm 23 to continuously move counter-clockwise. As soon as the edge 7 of the swivel plate 6 is stopped against the stop plate 13, the planet idler gear 10 immediately becomes disengaged from the semi-circular internal gear 11 to engage with the tape take-up reel base 16 (see Figure 3C to perform the recording or playing process.

When the "FF" button is pressed on to turn into FF mode, the pulley 3 is immediately driven by the motor to revolve counterclockwise, and the planet axle 9 is driven to move in same way as above described (same as in REC (PLAY) mode). The push rod 26 is therefore driven to push the head plate 14 to move toward the cassette tape. Through control of the CPU, as soon as the planet idler gear 10 contacts the tape take-up reel base 16 (as illustrated in Figure 4A), the motor is immediately reverse switched to rotate in a clockwise direction to drive the planet idler gear 10 to move backward. In consequence, the planet spindle 9 pushes the swinging arm 23 of the trigger arm assembly 19 to further drive the positioning pin 25 of the drive arm assembly 24 to move the notch 21 of the trigger arm assembly 19 (as shown in Figure 4B).Therefore the head plate 14 is released from the rod 26 and pulled back by the compression spring 15 to carry the magnetic head away from the cassette tape.

When the head plate 14 is pulled back, the trigger arm assembly 19 and the drive arm assembly 24 are retained together with the positioning pin 25 set in the notch 21. When the magnetic head leaves the cassette tape while the planet spindle 9 is still not completely passed through the swinging arm 23 (as shown in Figure 4C), the motor is immediately reverse switched by the CPU to rotate in a counter-clockwise direction at a high velocity to further let the planet idler gear 10 be engaged with the gear of the tape take-up reel base 16. Therefore, the magnetic head is driven away from the cassette tape and the cassette tape is carried to turn forward fast (see Figure 4D).

When the "REW" button is pressed on to engage Rewinding Mode, the motor is driven to revolve clockwise at high velocity. Because the planet idler gear 10 is engaged with the tape supply reel base 17 (as illustrated in Figure 2), the rewinding of tape is thus performed.

When the "STOP" button is pressed on to engage Stop mode, all the above said modes are stopped and the motor will be controlled by the CPU to stop as soon as the planet idler gear 10 is carried to the position in which it engages the tape supply reel base 17. No matter whether the head plate 14 is carrying the magnetic head to move toward the cassette tape, the head plate 14 is immediately moved away from the cassette tape to return to its original position for the next operation.

As described above, the present invention provides a very practical design which helps to reduce manufacturing cost and to minimise space as well as electric power consumption.

Claims

1 A telephone answering machine comprising a base plate having mounted thereon a tape take-up reel base and a tape supply reel base, a pulley driven by a motor through a drive belt, comprising a gear wheel mounted on the base plate by means of a spindle seat, a planet idler gear mounted on a rotatable plate by means of a spindle and a spring to engage with the gear wheel , said rotatable plate being set to swivel on the axis of the shaft of said pulley, the planet idler gear being movable within a range confined by a stop plate mounted on the base plate to alternatively engage with the tape take-up reel base and the tape supply reel base when turned to the left or right, a semi-circular internal gear mounted on the base at a position co-axial to the gear wheel to engage with said planet idler gear; a slidable plate having a magnetic head mounted, and being biassed by a spring for sliding on the base plate;a trigger arm assembly pivoted to the base plate at the outer side by the semi-circular internal gear, and comprising a swinging arm and two notches serving as a cam and two limit arms at both lateral sides; and a drive arm assembly pivoted to the base plate at the outer side by the semi-circular internal gear, and comprising a positioning pin to alternatively lie in the notches of the trigger arm assembly, and a push rod to cause the head plate to move; characterised in that through the engagement of the planet idler gear with the gear wheel and the semi-circular internal gear, the planet spindle is driven to move the swinging arm of the trigger arm assembly to drive the trigger arm assembly to swivel, during rotation, to further drive the positioning pin to change its position so as to drive the push rod to push the head plate to slide forward or backward, the two limit arms of the trigger arm assembly being pressed against the base plate to let the swinging arm be maintained in a path through which the planet spindle is rotating, after the planet spindle having moved away from the swinging arm.

2 A telephone answering machine substantially as herein described with reference to and as illustrated in the accompanying drawings.