Automatic changer for digital discs
US5291465A · kind A · utility
Inventor
Key dates
| Filing date | May 9, 1990 |
| Grant date | Mar 1, 1994 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | May 9, 2010 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC Y)Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
- CPC primaryY10T29/53296
- WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
An automatic changer for playing digital discs containing music or other digitally encoded information has a loading station, a play station and a discard station. A robot arm individually engages the top disc of a stack of discs stacked at the loading station through the center hole in the disc and lifts and transports the disc to the play station where it lowers the disc over a reading head for play. After play, the robot arm raises the disc from the play station and transports the disc to the discard station and releases it there. In an alternative embodiment, a carousel containing a plurality of discs rotates sequentially to position the discs over the reading head. When changing discs the carousel is lifted to raise a played disc from the reading head, rotated to position the next disc to be played over the reading head and lowered to lower the disc to be played into playing position.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.