A data medium is driven by a brushless direct current motor and possesses control signals on a track which can be picked up by a sensing device and supplied to a switch arrangement for activation of the motor winding. The control signals on the track characterize at least those angular positions of the rotor with respect to the stator in which commutation is to be initiated.
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For the sake of a simple illustration of inventive principles there is shown an external-rotor d.c. motor having an annular air gap; self-evidently, however, one can use any other motor type that would be suitable, in the sense of reduced axial length, a disk-rotor motor having a planar air gap being also preferred.
Rigidly connected to shaft 8 of motor 1 is a hub 9 on which a data carrier 10 is arranged. The data carrier 10 is constituted by a rigid or flexible computer data-storage platter carrying data signals on concentric tracks. A write/read head 11 is arranged to be movable in radial direction over the data carrier 10; by means of head 11 data signals on the concentric tracks of data carrier 10 can be written, read, or erased. In known manner via a connection here shown as line 12, these signals are transmitted from a non-illustrated processing unit to the write/read head 11 or, as the case may be, are transmitted from the head to the processing unit. As shown in
Depending on the type of data carrier 10 or, as the case may be, depending upon the employed data storage method, the read/write head 11 may comprise a magnetic head, an optical device, a laser head or a device for some other read/write principle. The orientation of the read/write head 11 relative to the concentric data signal tracks can be such that, instead of a radial shifting occurring, even a tilting motion takes place.
In order to produce a magnetic field that effects rotary movement of the rotor, the coils 3 to 6 of the stator winding must be energized by current in a certain succession, for example one after the other in the sequence of their arrangement. Here, note should be taken that the expression "winding coils" is also to be understood to apply to the special case of a stator having only one coil which is energized by current pulses in dependence upon rotor position, being energized either by current pulses all of which have the same direction of flow, or else being energized by current pulses each successive one of which has a direction of flow opposite to that of the preceding current pulse; however, an arbitrary number of separately energizable coils, all belonging to the stator winding, likewise falls under this expression. The switching-on and switching-off of the energizing current flowing to the winding, or as the case may be the switchovers in the feeding of energizing current to the winding coils 3-6 (commutation), is controlled by a circuit unit 13, which in the exemplary embodiment of
Control signals for the switchover of the winding's energizing current are recorded on a radially outward concentric storage track 15 of data carrier 10, the latter being read by a read head 16 that corresponds to the write/read head 11 for the data signals. Control signals read by read head 16 are transmitted via a connection shown as conductor 17 to the circuit unit 13, whose switching arrangement 14 for fed current switches the operating current over from the energized one of the winding coils 3-6 to the winding coil that is to follow next in the energization sequence. In the simplest case, for each angular position at which a switchover is to occur, there is recorded on the storage track 15 a single control signal; after sensing such signal the circuit unit 13, i.e., its switching unit 14 for fed current, switches off the supply of current for the energized coil and switches on the supply of current for the next-following coil. In order to avoid a damaging overlap of electrical or magnetic effects, it is frequently advantageous to enforce a pause between the switching-off and renewed switching-on of the fed current; for this reason, for each angular position at which a commutation is to occur, advantageously two control signals can be arranged on the storage track 15 with definite spacing relative to each other. The reading of the first control signal that pertains to an angular position at which a commutation is to occur then causes the switching unit 14 for fed current to interrupt the supply of current to the presently energized winding coils of the motor winding along a connection here shown as line 19, whereas the reading of the second control signal effects establishment of current feed to the winding coils 3-6 that are next in the energization sequence. The spacing of the con control signals that are provided on the data carrier for each angular position at which a commutation is to occur accordingly determines the length of the energizing-current pause.
As an alternative to the above described embodiment the circuit unit 20 shown in
As can be seen from the simplified flowchart of
In the case of the exemplary embodiments described up to this point, regulating circuits such as known and used in the prior art can of course be connected in the current-supply circuit of the motor, the regulating circuit implementing a constant rpm by adjusting, for example, the amplitude of the energizing current pulses.
The circuit unit 23 of
The exemplary embodiment of
As already described above in connection with
Establishment of a desired value (for example taken from a tabulation of desired values, or else computable) makes possible open-loop or closed-loop control of the rpm of the motor and data carrier in accordance with desired speed profiles, e.g. to implement a desired acceleration behavior or braking behavior. Furthermore, depending upon the stringency of the requirements of a particular situation, a more or less complicated configuration of the delay unit 31 can be used to establish a dimensionally coarse or very fine correction of speed deviation, implemented on the basis of a short angular distance and performed immediately. Instead of varying the pulse pause in the energization of the winding, it is of course also possible to have the amplitude of the energizing pulses be varied in corrective fashion or, in the event of successions of energizing pulses produced by some keying method, to have the number of individual pulses per cycle of energization of the winding be varied in corrective fashion.
The described exemplary embodiments indicate only a small selection of the possibilities opened up by the concepts of the invention, which the person of routine skill can vary within wide limits and adapt to special requirements or desires. For example, it is thinkable that the signal-storing track for the control signals be provided with further motor-control data, such as perhaps a direction-of-rotation indication. For a more complex motor control system, even a second data storage track, or yet further tracks, could be utilized. Finally, for the motor-control action, the storage track, or the control signals thereon, can even be encoded with incremental values.
Also, it is not absolutely necessary to provide two separate write and/or read heads for the control signals and the data signals or to provide the control signals on a concentric data track. On the contrary, for the person of routine skill, it is self-evident that one single read/write head can, in each instance at the correct moment in time, seek out the actual data track; or that, when writing data in accordance with any particular data-formatting scheme, the motor-operation control signals, too, and in correspondence therewith, are written at another location and arranged in some other manner.
Also, the following should additionally be mentioned: It may be that the data storage device has its flow of data controlled and/or evaluated by means of a microcomputer. In that event, the functions of the circuitry required for implementation of the concepts of the invention are advantageously performed by the microcomputer of the data storage device, so that a further cost reduction results.
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