JP2009054226A - Magnetic head tester and unloading method of the same - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a magnetic head tester for quickly unloading a head assembly from a recording medium, and to provide an unloading method of the same. <P>SOLUTION: The magnetic head tester includes a head assembly with a lift tab formed at its tip; a load bar for unloading the head assembly from the recording medium by pressing the lift tab; and an air cylinder for moving a rod downward by air. The tester is configured so that the air cylinder is operated while the load bar is inserted between the recording medium and the lift tab of the head assembly disposed under the recording medium, the rod of the air cylinder is moved by a predetermined distance from an initial position as a result, the rod is brought into contact with the load bar at the position after the move by the predetermined distance, and the rod is further moved along with the load bar in contact therewith to unload the head assembly from the recording medium. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a magnetic head tester, and more particularly to a magnetic head tester for unloading a head assembly from a recording medium at a high speed and an unloading method thereof.

  The magnetic head tester is used for inspection for confirming electrical and mechanical characteristics in a state of a head assembly on which a magnetic head is mounted in a manufacturing stage. The structure of the head assembly and the unloading method will be described below.

  FIG. 4 shows a structural example of the head assembly. The head assembly 100 includes a base plate 110, a leaf spring 120, a load beam 130, a lift tab 140, a flexure 150, a slider 160, and an FPC (Flexible Printed Circuits). The base plate 110 is a plate to be attached to an actuator that determines the position of the track in the data seek range of the recording medium. The leaf spring 120 pressurizes the load beam 130 and controls the pressure generated by the air flow between the slider 160 and the recording medium. A certain amount of flying height. The flexure 150 supports the slider 160 and abuts on a pivot (not shown) formed on the load beam 130. The flexure 150 receives the rolling and pitching motions of the slider 160 with the pivot as a fulcrum and acts to move flexibly. is there. The slider 160 has a magnetic head (not shown) for reading and writing information at the end thereof. The slider 160 is lifted by generating lift by an air flow generated as the recording medium rotates.

  Next, the lift tab 140 will be described. The lift tab 140 did not exist when the CSS (Contact Start Stop) method was mainstream as the loading method of the magnetic disk device, but the flying height was required to be reduced to improve the recording density. It has become necessary to become a method. FIG. 5 shows the configuration of the ramp load type magnetic disk apparatus 10 and shows a state in which the recording medium 200, the head assembly 100, and the ramp 300 are arranged. When the head assembly 100 reads / writes data from / to the recording medium 200, it is on the recording medium 200 (floating), but is unloaded from the recording medium 200 when the read / write processing is completed. (FIG. 5 shows a state where the head assembly 100 is stored in the lamp 300). In unloading in the ramp loading method, based on the unloading instruction, the control unit of the magnetic disk device 10 rotates the actuator so that the head assembly 100 on the recording medium 200 is out of the data seek range. When the end of the head assembly 100 reaches the inclined surface of the lamp 300, a lift tab 140 formed at the tip of the head assembly 100 contacts the inclined surface of the lamp 300 as shown in FIG. The assembly 100 moves. The head assembly 100 eventually moves to the retracted position of the lamp 300 and stays there. Without the lift tab 140, the slider 160 directly hits the inclined surface. Therefore, the lift tab 140 serves as a guard for preventing the slider 160 from being damaged, and serves as a guide for guiding the slider 160 to the storage location. On the other hand, when loading, the inclined surface of the ramp is placed on the rotating recording medium 200 as the lift tab 140 slides down. As described above, the lift tab 140 is formed by using the ramp load method.

  However, unlike the magnetic disk device, the magnetic head tester does not use the ramp load method but uses the load bar method. In the magnetic disk device, the head assembly is fixed to the actuator and the track is sought, and the mechanism is used to store it in the ramp shown above. In the magnetic head tester, however, the read / write condition is severe. To replace the head assembly in a short time because the seek mechanism is not required to perform the inspection at a predetermined position, and the head assembly must be removed and the next head assembly needs to be attached after the inspection is completed. The load bar method is used. The head assembly is desorbed by vacuum suction.

  Next, a conventional example of unloading in the load bar system in the magnetic head tester will be described. The load bar method is a method in which a load bar is inserted into a gap between a lift tab and a recording medium, and the slider is moved away from the recording medium surface by moving the load bar in the vertical direction. This will be described in more detail with reference to FIG.

  FIG. 7A shows a state where the head assembly 100 is placed immediately before unloading. The head assembly 100 is disposed on the lower surface of the recording medium 200. When the head assembly 100 is disposed on the upper surface of the recording medium 200, as shown above, the suction surface of the head assembly 100 is supported against the base that supports the suction. This is because it is attached from the bottom and workability is poor. That is, the head assembly 100 is arranged on the lower surface of the recording medium, so that the head assembly 100 for testing can be easily attached and detached. The above-described lift tab 140 is formed at the tip of the load beam 130, and the load bar 430 is inserted into approximately 0.5 mm of the gap between the lift tab 140 and the recording medium 200. The slider 160 is pressed in the direction of the surface of the recording medium 200 via the flexure 150 fixed to the load beam 130, and maintains a floating posture in balance with the air pressure flowing in the gap between the recording medium 200 and the slider 160. The air cylinder 400 includes a rod 410 that moves downward when air is filled in the cylinder, and a contact plate 420 is fixed to the tip of the rod 410. The load bar 430 is fixed by the contact plate 420 and screws 440.

  FIG. 7B shows an unloaded state. The air cylinder 400 operates based on the unload command, and the rod 410 moves downward as indicated by the arrow. As a result, the load bar 430 contacts the lift tab 140 of the head assembly 100 and moves further downward. As a result, the slider 160 moves away from the recording medium 200 and is unloaded. The mechanism of unloading using the load bar method has been described above.

A loading method using a load bar in the magnetic head tester described above has been proposed. This method implements loading and unloading by pressing a loading pin (corresponding to the load bar described above) in contact with the load beam by a rotating mechanism and moving the load beam in the vertical direction. By using such a mechanism, the effect of facilitating the attachment / detachment of the head assembly at the time of inspection can be obtained (Patent Document 1).
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 06-325523

  As described above, in the magnetic disk device, as the flying height is lowered, the ramp load method of loading / unloading the magnetic head to the recording medium rotating from the CSS method so far is generally adopted. It has become to. For this reason, a lift tab for moving the slider along the ramp inclined surface during loading / unloading is formed at the tip of the load beam.

  On the other hand, in a magnetic head tester, since a head assembly to be inspected is frequently attached and detached during inspection, a load bar method is used instead of the ramp load method. In this load bar type unloading, if the speed at which the slider is moved away from the recording medium surface is slow, the slider sometimes flutters. This is considered to occur because the balance of the pressure generated in the air flow between the pressure applied to the slider and the surface of the recording medium is broken. The “flapping” causes the slider and the recording medium to come into contact with each other, resulting in damage. It is empirically known that in order to suppress this “flapping”, it is sufficient to increase the speed at which the slider is separated from the recording medium surface. In general, the speed at which the slider moves away from the recording surface in the ramp load system is 100 mm / sec. Therefore, if the speed is higher than this value, it is considered that “fluttering” can be suppressed even in the load bar system.

  It is an object of the present invention to provide a magnetic head tester and an unloading method for the magnetic head tester that prevents the slider or the recording medium from being damaged by suppressing “flapping” of the slider when the magnetic head tester is unloaded.

The magnetic head tester and the magnetic head tester unloading method of the present invention are configured as follows.
(1) 1st invention The magnetic head tester of 1st invention is the head assembly which formed the lift tab at the front-end | tip, the load bar which presses a lift tab and unloads a head assembly from a recording medium, and a rod is below by air The air cylinder is operated with the load bar inserted between the lift tab of the head assembly arranged on the lower surface of the recording medium and the recording medium, and the rod of the air cylinder is operated by the operation. Moves a predetermined distance from the initial position, the rod and the load bar come into contact with each other at the position moved the predetermined distance, and the rod further moves along with the load bar in the contacted state to unload the head assembly from the recording medium. It is characterized by.

The head assembly is equipped with a slider, and unloading the head assembly from the recording medium and unloading the slider from the recording medium have the same meaning.
(2) Second invention A method for unloading a magnetic head tester according to a second aspect of the present invention is the head assembly disposed on the lower surface of the recording medium, wherein a load bar is provided between the lift tab formed at the tip of the head assembly and the recording medium. When the air cylinder is operated with the rod inserted, the rod of the air cylinder moves downward by a predetermined distance from the initial position, and the rod and the load bar are in contact with each other after moving the predetermined distance. The rod further moves with the load bar to unload the head assembly from the recording medium.

  As described above, according to the present invention, the following effects can be obtained.

  According to the first invention, the rod of the air cylinder abuts against the load bar in a state where the speed of the rod is sufficiently increased, so that the slider moves in a direction away from the recording medium rapidly by the load bar, thereby suppressing “flapping”. A magnetic head tester can be provided. As a result, the slider or the recording medium can be prevented from being damaged during unloading.

  According to the second invention, it is possible to provide an unloading method of a magnetic disk device that can obtain the same effect as the first.

  An embodiment of a magnetic head tester according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.

  FIG. 1 illustrates a load bar type unloading method according to the present invention. FIG. 1 (a) shows a state immediately before unloading. The state of the recording medium 200 and the head assembly 100 is in the state described with reference to FIG. The difference from FIG. 7 is that the contact plate 420 of the air cylinder 400 and the load bar 430 are separated. The height position of the contact plate 420 is higher than that shown in FIG. The load bar 430 is located between the lift tab 140 and the recording medium 200 as in FIG. 7A, the upper surface of the load bar 430 abuts against an abutting member (not shown), and the lower surface is pushed upward by a spring (not shown). Thus, the height position of FIG. 1A is maintained.

  FIG. 1B shows the movement from FIG. 1A. The air cylinder 400 is operated based on the unload command, the rod 410 moves downward as indicated by the arrow, and the contact plate 420 is moved at this position. The state which contact | abutted with the load bar 430 to wait is shown. The shape shown by the dotted line in the figure shows the rod 410 and the contact plate 420 of FIG. 1A, and shows how they move from the position shown by the dotted line to the position shown by the solid line.

  FIG.1 (c) is a figure which showed a mode that the rod 410 moved below from FIG.1 (b) further. That is, the load bar 430 hits the lift tab 140 and the lift tab 140 is pushed downward.

  Here, the point of the present invention is that the contact plate 420 idles during the period shown in FIG. 1 (a) to FIG. 1 (b). Due to this idling, the contact plate 420 changes from a speed of 0 to a certain speed at the time of starting, and hits the load beam 140 at the time of reaching that speed, so that the speed of the slider 160 away from the recording medium 200 is the conventional speed (FIG. 7). It is much faster than

  FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining this in more detail, and shows the relationship of time displacement of the height position of the contact plate 420 (that is, the tip of the load 410), and the curve (a) is shown in FIG. The conventional curve (b) is according to the invention shown in FIG. H1, H2, and H3 respectively indicate the height position of the lift tab 140, the standby height position of the load bar 430, and the height position of the air cylinder contact plate 420 in the present invention.

  Curve (a) is according to the conventional method, and H2 is the height position of the contact plate 420 and also the height position of the load bar 430 (in the past, this contact plate 420 and the load bar 430 Were fixed by screws 440). From this height position, the load bar 430 moves downward along the curve shown in the figure, abuts against the lift tab 140 at the height of H1, and pushes the lift tab 140 downward from here. That is, starting from the initial speed 0 at the height of H2, the lift tab 140 is pushed down when a certain speed is reached.

  On the other hand, the curve (b) starts from the H3 at the initial speed of 0, and the contact plate 420 comes into contact with the load bar 430 when the speed is applied, and further pushes down the lift tab 140 as it is. Therefore, the slider 160 is separated from the recording medium 200 at a higher speed than in the prior art.

  The angle of the tangent line at the intersection of the height position of the lift tab 140 and the curves (a) and (b) is larger for the curve (b) than for the curve (a) as shown in FIG. It can be seen that the speed of moving away from the surface can be increased.

  FIG. 3 schematically shows an example in which the shape of the load bar 430 contacts the lift tab 140.

1 is a method of unloading a magnetic head tester according to the present invention. It is the displacement and speed of the height position of the backing plate. It is an example of the shape of a load bar. It is a structural example of a head assembly. It is an arrangement example of a head assembly, a recording medium, and a lamp in a magnetic disk device. This is the role of the lift tab in the ramp load system. This is a conventional unloading method for a magnetic head tester.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Magnetic disk apparatus 100 Head assembly 110 Base plate 120 Leaf spring 130 Load beam 140 Lift tab 150 Flexure 160 Slider 170 FPC
200 Recording Medium 300 Lamp 400 Air Cylinder 410 Rod 420 Contact Plate 430 Load Bar

Claims (2)

A head assembly with a lift tab formed at the tip;
A load bar for pressing the lift tab to unload the head assembly from the recording medium;
An air cylinder that moves the rod downward by air; and
The air cylinder is operated in a state where the load bar is inserted between a lift tab of the head assembly arranged on the lower surface of the recording medium and the recording medium, and the rod of the air cylinder is moved a predetermined distance from the initial position by the operation. The rod and the load bar come into contact with each other at a position moved by the predetermined distance, and the rod further moves with the load bar in the contacted state to unload the head assembly from the recording medium. A magnetic head tester characterized by In the head assembly disposed on the lower surface of the recording medium, the air cylinder is operated with a load bar inserted between the lift tab formed at the tip of the head assembly and the recording medium, and the rod of the air cylinder is moved by the operation. The rod is moved a predetermined distance downward from the initial position, the rod and the load bar are in contact with each other at the position moved the predetermined distance, and the rod is further moved along with the load bar in the contact state, and the head A method of unloading a magnetic head tester, comprising unloading an assembly from the recording medium.

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