JPH10177708A - Contact cleaning cartridge - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [PROBLEMS] To facilitate cleaning of a device side contact portion. When a cartridge main body is mounted at a predetermined position, a cleaning member for cleaning a movable contact portion which comes into contact with an exposed contact portion provided on a part of the cartridge main body is provided in an opening concave portion of the cartridge main body. Installed. The cleaning member includes a base 41 and a cleaning material 42 adhered to one surface of the base 41.
The cleaning material is attached so as to be exposed to the outside. When the cartridge is loaded into the apparatus in the same manner as the tape cartridge, the spring terminal 68 for the apparatus-side movable contact portion 67 and the cleaning material 42 slide. This contact sliding removes dust adhering to the movable contact portion and polishes the surface, so that the movable contact portion inside the device can be easily cleaned. In the tape cartridge, the exposed contact portion provided in the opening concave portion is an access terminal for an auxiliary storage device such as a memory IC built in the cartridge main body.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a contact cleaning cartridge for cleaning an exposed contact portion provided on a cartridge body containing a recording medium such as a tape recording medium or a disk recording medium. More specifically, a contact cleaning material is attached to a portion of the cartridge body where the exposed contact portion is attached, so that the movable contact portion that comes into contact with the exposed contact portion can be cleaned.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art For example, in a tape cartridge provided with a magnetic tape having a tape width of 8 mm, an 8 mm tape for recording a data signal exclusively for use in an information processing apparatus or the like.
There is provided a tape cartridge and an 8 mm video tape cartridge used for a video tape recorder to record audio signals and video signals.

In these tape cartridges, the contents of information signals recorded on the magnetic tape and the like are usually described on a label or the like attached to the cartridge body.

[0004] However, it is difficult to record a lot of information due to the limited size of the label. For a tape cartridge on which an information signal requiring confidentiality is recorded, the contents of the tape cartridge must be recorded on the label. Can not.

In the method using such a label, for example, when a large number of tape cartridges are stored in a rack device or the like, and when necessary tape cartridges are taken out of the rack device, the tape cartridges are taken out one by one from the rack device each time. An operation such as checking the label is required.

[0006] A tape cartridge in which the label has been peeled off or has no stain or content has to be loaded into a video tape recorder or the like, and the reproduction operation must be performed each time to check it, which is extremely troublesome.

As a tape cartridge which solves such a problem, for example, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Sho 56-74880 (a device for storing an instantaneous position of a magnetic tape) or the like, a cartridge main body is disclosed. There has been proposed a tape cartridge provided with an auxiliary storage device (hereinafter referred to as a memory IC) such as a storage element (memory IC) capable of recording an information signal therein.

In a tape cartridge equipped with a memory IC, various information (identification information) such as, for example, the specifications, usage status, recording position, and contents of a recorded information signal of a magnetic tape can be stored in the memory IC. Thus, the problem as described above can be solved.

When this type of tape cartridge is loaded into a recording / reproducing device such as a VTR, the identification information stored in the memory IC is read by a command from a control unit such as a microcomputer prior to the loading operation of the magnetic tape. At the same time, at the end of the recording / reproducing operation, new identification information is stored in the memory IC. Therefore, such a tape cartridge has a feature that the range of use of the tape cartridge can be expanded by utilizing various identification information.

[0010]

However, a memory IC
In the tape cartridge equipped with the, the reproduction of the identification information stored in the memory IC or the storage of the identification information in the memory IC requires an electrical connection with the control unit. For this reason, the tape cartridge is provided so that a contact portion connected to the memory IC is exposed on the cartridge main body, and a terminal portion (for example, a movable contact portion) on the control unit side is mounted in a state of being loaded in the recording / reproducing apparatus. The input / output of the identification information is performed by contacting these exposed contact portions.

The movable contact portion provided on the recording / reproducing apparatus side in these contact portions is housed in the apparatus housing but is in a bare state, so that dust or the like adheres to the movable contact portion. The contact portion may be soiled, or the gold plating applied to the surface may be corroded, resulting in poor contact with the exposed contact portion. Also, if dust or the like adheres to the exposed contacts provided on the tape cartridge,
Due to the sliding contact of the movable contact portion, a part of the dust adheres to the movable contact portion side, and may contaminate the dust.

Since the movable contact portion is housed inside the apparatus housing, it is not easy for the user to clean it. If there is a contact failure or the like, an inconvenience such that recording and reproduction of the identification information with respect to the memory IC may not be performed normally may occur.

Therefore, the present invention relates to such a memory IC.
The present invention proposes a cleaning cartridge which can easily and surely clean a contact portion provided on a recording / reproducing apparatus using a cartridge having the above.

[0014]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, in the contact cleaning cartridge according to the first aspect of the present invention, when the cartridge body is mounted at a predetermined position, the cartridge is partially attached to the cartridge body. A cleaning member for cleaning the movable contact portion that comes into contact with the provided exposed contact portion is provided on the exposed contact portion of the cartridge body.

According to the present invention, there is provided a cartridge body having the same shape as a cartridge containing a memory IC.
The cleaning member is mounted so as to be exposed to the outside at the same location where the exposed contact portion for the memory IC is mounted.

A cartridge (cleaning cartridge) to which a cleaning member is attached is mounted on a recording / reproducing apparatus (VT).
When the cartridge is loaded in R), the same loading operation as in the normal cartridge loading is performed. At this time, the movable contact portion comes into contact with the surface of the cleaning material while sliding.

Since the contact surface of the movable contact portion is polished by the sliding contact, the adhered dust is removed and the contact surface is cleaned. This can eliminate poor contact between the contact portions.

[0018]

Next, an embodiment of a contact cleaning cartridge according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

According to the present invention, the contact portion (movable contact portion in this example) of the recording / reproducing device is cleaned in a state of being loaded in the recording / reproducing device. A cartridge body having exactly the same shape as a cartridge in which a recording medium for recording / reproducing is built is used. An example in which the present invention is applied to a tape cartridge having a built-in magnetic tape as a recording medium will be described.

As shown in FIG. 1, the cleaning cartridge 1 has an upper half 3 and a lower half 4 formed in a substantially rectangular shallow dish shape with a synthetic resin material so that the opening sides of the upper half 3 and the lower half 4 abut each other. After the combination, the cartridge body 5 is joined by a plurality of setscrews to form a substantially box-shaped cartridge body 5.

In this embodiment, a tape supply reel 6 and a tape take-up reel 7 on which the magnetic tape 2 is wrapped are longitudinally arranged in the cartridge body 5 in the present embodiment. It is not necessary to store the magnetic tape 2. When the magnetic tape 2 is stored, the loading state is exactly the same as the actual loading in the cleaning mode, so that there is a merit that the cleaning process can be executed without any discomfort because the loading state is the same as the normal cartridge use mode.

A rectangular display window 8 is provided on the ceiling surface of the upper half 3 constituting the upper surface part, and the magnetic tape 2 wound around the tape supply reel 6 and the tape take-up reel 7 housed therein is provided. The state can be seen from outside.

As shown in FIG. 2, after the magnetic tape 2 is pulled out from the tape supply reel 6, the magnetic tape 2 is guided by tape guides 12A and 12B formed on the lower half 4 in a well-known manner so as to be in front of the cartridge body 5. It travels along the plate 13 and is wound on the tape winding reel 7.

As shown in FIG. 1, a lid member 16 for closing the open front portion 13 is attached to the cartridge body 5 so as to be freely recirculated. The lid member 16 has a length substantially equal to the width of the cartridge main body 5 and side walls 17A and 17B opposing each other and forming a fulcrum portion are formed on both end sides, and the overall shape thereof is substantially the same. It is formed so as to have a U-shape.

An upper lid member 21 for closing the front opening portion of the upper half 3 and a spring member (not shown) are assembled to the lid member 16. The upper lid member 21 is rotatably mounted on the inner surface of the lid member 16. The cover member 16 is shown in FIG.
In the state where the front part 13 of the cartridge main body 5 is opened by rotating as shown in FIG. 7, the upper lid member 21 is supported by the lid member 16 and moves along the upper surface part of the upper half 3 while rotating. . In this case, the details of the spring member are omitted, but the elastic force of the spring member
3 is imparted with rotation behavior in the direction of closing.

An opening recess 31 of a predetermined size is formed on the left side of the rear peripheral wall 30 of the lower half 4, as shown in FIG. 3, in this example, as shown in FIG. Are exposed to the outside.

The opening concave portion 31 is actually formed with a plurality of ribs 33 as shown in FIG. 4, and in this example, the space divided by the three ribs 33a to 33c is in contact with the contact portion on the recording / reproducing apparatus side. Area. In the case of a cartridge for recording and reproducing data and the like, these contact areas become exposed contact portions for the memory IC.

Incidentally, the memory IC 50 mounted on the side of the opening recess 31 has a structure as shown in FIG. In the figure, a rectangular parallelepiped wiring board 5 is shown.
The IC 52 is mounted on one surface, and four contacts 53 (53a) for exchanging data with the IC 52 are provided on the opposite surface opposite to the opening concave portion 31.
To 53d) are printed as access terminals. The contact printing interval is determined so that the plurality of ribs 33a to 33c described above are located between the contacts.

In the present invention, the cleaning member 40 is mounted so as to cover the opening recess 31. As shown in FIG. 6, the cleaning member 40 is configured by attaching a cleaning material 41 to one surface of a flat base 41. Base 4
1 is for example 1-2mm thick so that some elasticity can be obtained
Printed circuit board base can be used. In this example, a plate body having a length almost twice or more of the opening concave portion 31 and slightly shorter than the inner height of the upper half 3 and the lower half 4 is used as the base 41.

As the cleaning material 42, a dry cleaning material or a wet cleaning material can be used, and as the former, a nonwoven fabric, a polishing tape, a coating tape without calendering, a paper file, or the like can be used. it can. As an example of the latter, a nonwoven fabric impregnated with an alcohol such as ethanol or an equivalent thereof can be used.

Since the cleaning material 42 needs to have at least the same area as the opening concave portion 31, a narrow cleaning material as shown in FIG. 7 can be used.

The cleaning member 40 is mounted as shown in FIG. In this example, as shown in FIG. 8, a tape reel guide wall 38 is provided on the inner surface of the opening recess 31 provided in the rising peripheral wall 30 of the lower half 4 at the corner 39 on the rear side of the cartridge body 5. Is provided using one end 38a of the guide wall 38 and the peripheral wall 37a.
7 is formed. A similar engagement recess 37 ′ (see FIG. 9) is formed in the upper half 3 facing the engagement recess 37.

The cleaning member 40 is fitted into the engagement recess 37 formed between the one end 38a and the peripheral wall 37a so that the cleaning material 42 is exposed to the outside. Thus, the cleaning material 42 is located at exactly the same location as the location where the contact portion 53 of the memory IC 50 is located.

When the cleaning member 40 cannot be sufficiently fixed simply by being fitted into the engagement concave portion 37, an auxiliary member (not shown) is formed on the inner surface of the lower half 4 so that the base 41 side of the cleaning member 40 is moved. It may be supported. When a sufficient elastic force cannot be obtained by the cleaning member 40 itself, a thin plate spring (not shown) is interposed between the cleaning member 40 and the base 41 so as to elastically hold the entire cleaning member 40. Is also good.

The cleaning cartridge 1 constructed as described above is loaded into a recording / reproducing apparatus in the same manner as a normal cartridge, and at the time of this loading operation, the movable contact portion provided on the apparatus side is attached to the cleaning member 40. By the sliding contact, a cleaning process of the movable contact portion is performed.

The specific operation will be described with reference to FIG. As shown in FIG. 9, a cartridge holder 64 is provided on the recording / reproducing device 60 side. The cartridge holder 64 is movable so as to be rotatable about a fulcrum 63. When the tape cartridge 1 is not loaded, as shown in FIG. The mutual positional relationship is selected so that the upper end 4A does not meet the upper end 4A.

The memory IC 5 is provided in the cartridge holder 64.
0 so that it can correspond to the exposed contact portion 53 of the connector portion 67.
Are arranged. The connector section 67 is connected to a control section (not shown) composed of a microcomputer.

The connector section 67 is provided with a plurality of, in this example, four, spring terminals 68 that come into contact when the cartridge is loaded in the loading section 61. The spring terminal 68 is bent in a substantially rectangular shape from a predetermined position,
The bent portion 68P comes into contact with the exposed contact portion 53 while sliding.

The lower end 4A of the cartridge 1 is lowered from the point E to the point G shown in FIG. for that reason,
As the cartridge 1 descends, positioning pins 6 are inserted into positioning holes 44 formed in the side surface of the lower half 4 as shown in FIG.
5 come into relative engagement, and in this state, the bent contact portion 68P of the spring terminal 68 starts to contact the surface of the cleaning material 42 while sliding.

When the cartridge 1 is further lowered, the cartridge 1 is guided to the final loading position while being positioned by the positioning pins 65, and the state shown in FIG. 11 is obtained. During the period from FIG. 10 to FIG.
The contact 68P and the peripheral portion thereof slide while contacting the surface of the cleaning material 42, so that the spring terminal 68 is cleaned by the cleaning material 42 by this contact sliding. FIG. 12 shows the mutual positional relationship between the cleaning member 40 and the spring terminal 68 at the final loading position.

By performing the above-described cleaning operation several times, the movable contact 6 provided inside the casing of the device 60 can be used.
7, the surface of the spring terminal 68 can be easily and neatly cleaned, and the contact failure due to the contamination of the spring terminal 68 and the adhesion of dust can be prevented.

The above-described tape cartridge can be provided with a shutter for opening and closing the opening concave portion 31. In this case, a shutter opening / closing control pin (not shown) is also provided on the lower half 4 of the cartridge 1 as shown in FIG. ) Is provided. When the cartridge is not used, since the exposed contact portion 53 is covered by the shutter, dust and the like hardly adhere to the exposed contact portion 53, and the contact state with the movable contact portion 67 is improved.

The configuration of the cleaning member 40 and the material, shape, size, and the like of the cleaning material 42 are merely examples. When the device side contact portion is configured as a fixed contact portion, the cleaning process is performed when the cleaning cartridge 1 is pressed against the fixed contact portion side.

In the above-described embodiment, the case where the cartridge of the same type as the tape cartridge provided with the magnetic tape 2 having the width of 8 mm is improved as the cleaning cartridge has been described. However, the present invention relates to a tape provided with a magnetic tape of another specification. The present invention can also be applied to cleaning of a contact portion for a recording / reproducing device in which a cartridge containing a cartridge or a disk-shaped recording medium such as an optical disk or a floppy disk is used.

The storage means of the identification information constituting the auxiliary storage device 50 may be constituted by a storage element other than the memory IC, but the present invention is applicable as long as the cartridge body has an exposed contact portion. The device having the movable contact portion 67 is not limited to the above-described VTR, and can be applied to the movable contact cleaning of a recording / reproducing portion provided in a rack device that accommodates a large number of tape cartridges.

[0046]

As described above, according to the present invention, the use of the cartridge provided with the cleaning member makes it possible to easily and surely clean the device side contact portion which comes into contact with the exposed contact portion provided on the cartridge body.

As a result, there is no poor contact with the exposed device-side contact portion accommodated in the device housing, and the error rate for the auxiliary storage device built in the tape cartridge can be greatly improved.

Therefore, the present invention is extremely suitable for application to a cleaning cartridge such as a cartridge having a built-in auxiliary storage device.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing an embodiment of a contact cleaning cartridge according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view similar to FIG. 1 with a lid opened.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of FIG. 1 viewed from the back side.

FIG. 4 is a front view of an opening concave portion.

FIG. 5 is a perspective view of an auxiliary storage device.

FIG. 6 is a perspective view showing one embodiment of a cleaning member.

FIG. 7 is a perspective view showing another embodiment of the cleaning member.

FIG. 8 is a plan view of a lower half in a state where a cleaning member is mounted.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing a state of loading the recording / reproducing apparatus (part 1);
It is.

FIG. 10 is a diagram (part 2) illustrating a state of loading the recording / reproducing apparatus.

FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating a state where the recording / reproducing apparatus is loaded (part 3);

FIG. 12 is a partial front view of the lower half at the time of final loading.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Cleaning cartridge, 3 ... Upper half, 4 ... Lower half, 5 ... Cartridge main body, 3
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Opening concave part, 40 ... Cleaning member, 41
... Base, 42 ... Cleaning material, 64 ...
Cartridge holder, 67 ... movable contact portion, 68 ...
・ Spring terminal, 68P ・ ・ ・ Bent contact

Claims (4)

[Claims] A cleaning member that cleans a movable contact portion that comes into contact with an exposed contact portion provided on a part of the cartridge body when the cartridge body is mounted at a predetermined position; A contact cleaning cartridge provided in the cartridge. 2. The contact cleaning cartridge according to claim 1, wherein the exposed contact portion is an access terminal for an auxiliary storage device such as a memory IC built in the cartridge body. 3. The contact cleaning cartridge according to claim 1, wherein a dry cleaning material or a wet cleaning material is used as said cleaning member cleaning material. 4. The dry cleaning material according to claim 3, wherein a non-woven fabric, a polishing tape, a coating tape, a paper file is used, and the wet cleaning material is a wet non-woven fabric. Contact cleaning cartridge.