Loading apparatus for a disc

Claim 1

In a disk player including a housing having an elongated opening extending laterally across a front wall thereof, and a rotary turntable laterally centered within said housing and spaced rearwardly from said front wall at a level below that of said elongated opening: a disk loading device for loading onto said turntable a record disk inserted into said opening, said device comprising a slide base mounted within said housing for sliding movement between a forward position and a rearward position; first and second disk guiding means mounted on said slide base so as to be disposed adjacent opposite sides, respectively, of said opening in said forward position of the slide base, each of said first and second disk guiding means including forward and rearward guide elements spaced apart in the direction of said sliding movement of the slide base, means mounting said guide elements at said level of the elongated opening for individual movements in directions generally transverse to said direction of the sliding movement, and means biasing said forward guide elements substantially transversely toward each other and said rearward guide elements substantially transversely toward each other to initial positions in which transverse distances between said forward guide elements and between said rearward guide elements, respectively, are smaller than the record disk diameter, whereby, with said slide base in said forward position, insertion of a record disk through said opening to a stabilized position in respect to said slide base causes the edge of said record disk to spread apart said forward guide elements and said rearward guide elements, respectively, until said forward and rearward guide elements of said first disk guiding means and of said second disk guiding means, respectively, are engaged with said edge of the record disk at locations spaced forwardly and rearwardly in respect to a transversely extending diameter of the disk for stabilizing the position of said record disk relative to said slide base; drive means operative when the inserted record disk has attained said stabilized position relative to the slide base for driving the latter to said rearward position in which the record disk in said stabilized position relative to the slide base is centered relative to said turntable; disk support means mounted on said slide base and being movable relative thereto between a raised position engageable from below with the undersurface of the record disk inserted through said elongated opening and a lowered position below said level of the turntable; and means normally maintaining said disk support means in said raised position and displacing said disk support means to said lowered position during a final increment of movement of said slide base to said rearward position.