JPH054127Y2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] Industrial Application Field The present invention relates to a locking mechanism for a tape cassette loading/unloading device, and in particular to a locking mechanism for a tape cassette loading/unloading device, and in particular to a mechanism for reliably detecting that a holder into which a tape cassette is inserted is locked at a predetermined loading position. The present invention relates to a locking mechanism of the constructed tape cassette loading/unloading device.

BACKGROUND TECHNOLOGY Magnetic recording/reproducing devices into which a tape cassette is inserted, such as digital audio tape recorders, are generally equipped with a tape cassette loading/unloading device that transfers the tape cassette inserted into the holder to a predetermined loading position together with the holder. It is being Further, in the tape cassette loading/unloading device, in order to pull out the tape from the tape cassette at the loading position, a locking mechanism is provided to lock the holder to prevent the holder from being ejected while the tape is being pulled out.

A conventional lock mechanism includes, for example, a pin provided on a holder and a lock lever rotatably provided on a chassis or the like and biased by a spring. When the holder reaches the mounting position, the pin engages with the lock lever.
This locks the holder.

Furthermore, conventional tape cassette loading/unloading devices are equipped with a detection switch that closes when a movable contact piece contacts the bottom of the holder when the holder reaches the loading position. When the machine receives a detection signal from this detection switch, it starts a tape loading operation to pull out the tape from the tape cassette.

Problems to be Solved by the Invention However, in conventional devices, the locking mechanism and the detection switch are provided independently, so it is difficult to detect whether the holder is reliably locked by the locking mechanism. There was a risk that the detection switch would operate and start the tape loading operation even though the holder was not completely locked in the mounting position. Therefore, in such a conventional device, if an impact is applied from the outside while the device is in an incompletely locked state, the pin of the holder may come off the lock lever and the lock may be released. In this case, the magnetic tape and There is a problem in that the magnetic recording/reproducing device is damaged.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a locking mechanism for a tape cassette loading/unloading device that solves the above-mentioned problems.

Means and Effects for Solving the Problems The present invention comprises: a holder into which a tape cassette is inserted and which transports the tape cassette to a mounting position where magnetic recording and playback is possible; a hook provided integrally with the holder; A locking member that is pressed by the hook portion and displaced in the unlocking direction when the holder moves to the mounting position; and a locking member that locks the tape cassette in the unlocked position when the tape cassette is inserted into the holder. a locking member that is unlatched by displacement of the locking member in the locking release direction when the holder is moved to the mounting position and is also displaced to a position where the hook portion is locked; The detection member detects that the holder is locked at the mounting position when the holder is displaced to the lock position, and the detection member is configured to reliably lock the holder and detect that the holder is locked when the holder reaches the mounting position. This is what I did.

Embodiment FIGS. 1 and 2 show an embodiment of the locking mechanism of the tape cassette loading/unloading device according to the present invention.
In addition, in FIG. 1, the tape cassette loading/unloading device 1 (hereinafter simply referred to as loading/unloading device) is connected to the tape cassette 2.
Fig. 2 shows an enlarged view of one side of the attachment/detachment device 1 viewed from the direction of arrow A (shown in Fig. 1). .

In FIG. 1, the holder 3 into which the tape cassette 2 is inserted has a bottom plate 3a on which the tape cassette 2 is placed.
It consists of side plates 3b standing vertically on both sides of the bottom plate 3a, and a top plate 3c horizontally extending over the upper part between the both side plates 3b. 4 is a hook part constituting a locking mechanism, and the bottom plate 3a
It protrudes downward from the right side of the. The holder 3 is supported by arms 5 and 6, and the tape cassette 2 inserted into the holder 3 is moved up and down in a horizontal state by rotation of the arms 5 and 6.

The upper end of the arm 5 is supported by a shaft 3d of the holder 3, and the lower end is supported by an end 11a of a shaft 11 that extends horizontally between the brackets 7 on both sides. Also, like the arm 5, the upper end of the arm 6 is connected to the shaft 3 of the holder 3.
e, and its lower end is supported on the shaft 7b of the bracket 7.

A hook 5a is formed at the tip of the arm 5, and the arm 5 is rotated counterclockwise in FIG. 1 by the tensile force of a coil spring 8 hooked to the hook 5a. has been done. Therefore, when the holder 3 is not locked, it is moved upward to the tape cassette insertion position (the position shown in FIG. 1) by the force of the spring 8. The other end of the spring 8 is hooked into a hole 9a of an L-shaped lever 9.

This lever 9 is supported by the shaft 3f of the side plate 3b,
It is rotated clockwise by the spring force of spring 8. Further, a presser pin 9b is provided at the end of the lever 9, which protrudes into the holder 3 and comes into contact with the upper surface of the tape cassette 2.
It is pressed and held.

A sector-shaped gear 6a is formed at the lower end of the arm 6. This fan-shaped gear 6a meshes with a small gear 10a of a transmission gear 10 supported on a bracket 7. A damper 12 is fixed to the outside of the bracket 7 and has a reduction gear that meshes with the large gear 10b of the transmission gear 10. Therefore, the rotational displacement of the arm 6 is damped by the damper 12, and the holder 3 can move up and down smoothly.

As shown in FIG. 2, a locking mechanism 13 is provided inside the bracket 7 to lock the holder 3 when it reaches a predetermined mounting position. Further, a detection switch (detection member) 14 is attached to the outside of the bracket 7 to detect that the holder 3 is locked in the mounting position. This detection switch 14 is open before the tape cassette is attached, and when the contact piece 14a is pressed as described later, the contacts 14b and 14c are opened.
contacts and generates a detection signal.

As shown in FIG. 3A, the locking mechanism 13 includes a hook portion 4 of the holder 3 and a locking lever (locking member) 15 (see FIG. (indicated by a broken line in A), a slide member (lock member) 16 that is locked to the locking lever 15, and the detection switch 14 described above.

The locking lever 15 is supported by a pin 17 and has an arm portion 15a extending parallel to the bracket 7.
A locking protrusion 15b is provided at the tip of the arm 15a. Further, the locking lever 15 has a locking portion 15c to which a coil spring 18 is locked, and the locking lever 15 is urged to rotate counterclockwise by the tensile force of the spring 18. The other end of the spring 18 is hooked to a hook 7a of the bracket 7 (shown in FIG. 2).

The slide member 16 has a long hole 16 into which a pin 17 and a pin 7c protruding inward from the bracket 7 are fitted.
a and 16b, and is provided so as to be slidable in the directions of arrows X ₁ and X ₂ along the elongated holes 16 a and 16 b.
Further, an engagement roller 19 is rotatably held in a U-shaped holding portion 16c of the slide member 16. The slide member 16 has a protrusion pin 16d that protrudes inward and a detection switch 1 that protrudes outward.
It has a protruding piece 16e facing the four abutting pieces 14a. A coil spring 20 is hooked to a hook 16f of the slide member 16, and urges the slide member 16 in the direction of arrow _X2 . The other end of the coil spring 20 is hooked to 7d of the bracket 7.

When the holder 3 is moved upward to the insertion position (ejection position) as shown in FIG. 1, the lock mechanism 13 is in the state shown in FIG. 3A.
That is, the protruding portion 15b of the locking lever 15 locks the protruding pin 16d, and the slide member 16 is locked at a position displaced in the direction of arrow _X1 . Therefore, the protruding piece 16e of the slide member 16 is connected to the detection switch 1.
4, and the detection switch 14 is open.

Next, the operation of the lock mechanism 13 having the above structure will be explained together with the operation of mounting the tape cassette 2.

As shown in FIG. 1, insert the tape cassette 2 into the holder 3 as shown by the arrow, and then
Press down. Holder 3 has arms 5 on both sides,
It descends horizontally while being supported by 6.

As the holder 3 descends, the hook portion 4 gradually descends into the inside of the bracket 7, as shown in FIG. Then, the hook portion 4 passes between the engagement roller 19 and the protruding pin 16d as shown in FIG. 3A. Furthermore, when the holder 3 descends and reaches the predetermined mounting position, the lower end of the hook portion 4 comes into contact with the arm portion 15a of the locking lever 15, as shown in FIG. 3B. Therefore, the locking lever 15 is pressed by the hook portion 4 and rotates clockwise, the protruding portion 15b is separated from the protruding pin 16d, and the locking lever 15 releases the locking of the slide member 16.

As a result, the slide member 16 slides in the direction of arrow _X2 due to the spring force of the spring 20. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 3C, the arrow X ₂ of the slide member 16
Due to the displacement in the direction, the engagement roller 19 engages with the hook portion 4 and locks the holder 3 in the mounting position, and
The protruding piece 16e is the contact piece 14a of the detection switch 14.
is pressed to bring contacts 14b and 14c into contact.

That is, since the detection switch 14 closes at the same time as the holder 3 is locked, a detection signal is output when the holder 3 is locked at the mounting position. still,
When the holder 3 is incompletely locked, the slide member 16 is not sufficiently displaced to the locked position, and in this case the protruding piece 16e does not close the detection switch 14.

Therefore, the detection switch 14 detects that the tape cassette 2 is attached only when the holder 3 is securely locked. Therefore, the attachment/detachment mechanism 1
In this case, the tape loading operation is not performed while the holder 3 is in an incompletely locked state, and the tape loading operation is started when the holder 3 is securely locked.

As a result, the tape in the tape cassette 3 is not pulled out in an incompletely locked state by the locking mechanism 13, and the holder 3 does not move upward during recording/playback due to some kind of impact, so that the tape or the magnetic recording/playback device is not damaged due to an incomplete lock.

In this way, the locking mechanism 13 locks the holder 3 in the mounting position, as shown in FIG.
Further, as the holder 3 descends to the mounting position, the lever 9 of the holder 3 is urged clockwise with a larger pressing force because the spring 8 is further stretched by the clockwise rotation of the arm 5. Therefore, as the holder 3 descends, the tape cassette 2 is held with a greater pressing force, and the holder 3
When it reaches the mounting position, it is pressed and held within the holder 3 without any play.

In addition, the slide member 16 by the locking lever 15
is directly unlocked by the hook portion 4 that is integrated with the holder 3, whereby the hook portion 4 is released from the slide member 1.
6, the locking mechanism 13 has a simple structure and reliably locks the holder 3 when it reaches the mounting position.

When ejecting the tape cassette 2 installed as described above, by pressing the eject button (not shown), the eject lever (not shown) pushes the slide member 16 in the direction of arrow _X1. do. Then, when the slide portion 16 slides in the direction of arrow _X1 against the spring force of the spring 20, the protrusion pin 16d that was in contact with the upper surface of the protrusion 15b of the locking lever 15 comes off from the protrusion 15b. Therefore, the locking lever 15 biased by the spring 18 rotates counterclockwise and locks the protruding pin 16d again as before mounting. As a result, the locking mechanism 13
performs the opposite operation to that at the time of mounting the tape cassette described above, and returns to the state shown in FIG. 3A before the tape cassette is mounted.

Therefore, the arms 5 and 6 are rotated counterclockwise by the spring force of the spring 8 to move the holder 3 upward.
As a result, the tape cassette 2 is ejected.

Although the above description has been made using a video tape recorder as an example, the present invention is of course applicable not only to this but also to a mounting/detaching device such as a digital audio tape recorder. Further, in the above description, the slide member is provided to slide, but the present invention is not limited to this, and instead of the slide member, a rotating member may be provided and the hook portion 4 may be locked by the rotating action. The detection switch 14 may also be closed at the same time.

Effects of the Invention As described above, in the locking mechanism of the tape cassette loading/unloading device according to the present invention, the hook part integrated with the holder directly presses the locking member, and the locking member is displaced to the position where the hook part is locked, and the locking mechanism is detected. It is possible to reliably detect that the holder has arrived at the mounting position by contacting the member, and the locking operation and detection operation are performed simultaneously based on the movement of the hook, so that, for example, the detection signal is not generated even though the locking operation is not performed. This can be prevented from being output. Furthermore, the number of parts is small and the configuration can be simplified. Moreover, since the detection member detects the displacement of the locking member along with the above-mentioned locking operation, no detection signal is output when the locking member is in the incompletely locking state, and tape loading operation is not performed in the incompletely locking state, thereby preventing tape damage accidents. It has the advantage of being able to prevent accidents from occurring.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a side view of an embodiment of the locking mechanism of the tape cassette loading/unloading device according to the present invention, Fig. 2 is a front view of the locking mechanism as seen from the direction of arrow A in Fig. A side view for explaining the operation of the mechanism, FIG. 4 is a side view of the attachment/detachment device showing a state in which the holder is locked at the attachment position. 1... Tape cassette attachment/detaching device, 2... Tape cassette, 3... Holder, 4... Hook portion, 5, 6
... Arm, 13 ... Lock mechanism, 14 ... Detection switch, 15 ... Locking lever, 16 ... Slide member, 19 ... Roller.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claim for Utility Model Registration] A holder into which a tape cassette is inserted and which transports the tape cassette to a mounting position where magnetic recording and playback is possible, a hook portion provided integrally with the holder, and a hook portion which moves the holder to the mounting position. A locking member that is pressed by the hook portion during movement and displaced in the unlocking direction; and when the tape cassette is inserted into the holder, the locking member locks the tape cassette in the unlocked position, and the holder is locked in the unlocked position. A locking member that is released from the lock by displacement of the locking member in the locking release direction when the locking member is moved to the mounting position and is also displaced to a position where the hook portion is locked; and when the locking member is displaced to the locking position. A locking mechanism for a tape cassette loading/unloading device comprising: a detection member for detecting that a holder is locked in a mounting position;