Patent GB-407399-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or relating to arrangements for automatically controlling the playing of gramophone records
IPC: G11B17/02
Filed: 1932-06-04
Abstract: 407,399. Magazine gramophones. GENERAL ELECTRIC CO., Ltd., Magnet House, Kingsway, London, and JACOBY, H. C. E., c/o General Electric Co., Witton, Birmingham. June 4, 1932, No. 16226/33. Divided on 408,294. [Class 40 (ii).] Relates to gramophones of the kind in which a number of records to be played are supported in a bank by an offset 36a, Fig. 2, on a central spindle 36 carried by a hinged member 6, the lowermost record being shifted sideways to release it from the offset 36<a> and allow it to drop on the turntable, the spindle of which is in line with the offset 36<a>, and means being provided to return the tone arm to the starting position after the playing of each record. According to the invention, a member 15 urged by a spring or like automatically acting force is adapted to engage the edge of the bank of records as a result of which the record feeding means and the tonearm resetting device are set for the particular size of records in the bank. As shown, the arm 6 is hinged at 5 to a pillar 2, and the member 15 is slidably mounted on the arm 6 and, when the arm 6 is turned up, is retracted away from the centre spindle 36 by a claw 40 on the pillar, to enable the records to be placed in position on the spindle. When the arm is swung down, the member 15 slides inwards until stopped by the edge of the bank of records, a ledge 16 on the member 15 then helping to support the records. When the records are 12" records, the tongue 20 of a lever connected to the slide 15 abuts against a stop on the pillar when the arm 6 is swung down, and this rocks the lever slightly and relieves pressure between the member 15 and the edge of the records. Also, near the end of the downward movement of the arm 6, a part of the member 15 encounters and lifts a pin 48, Fig. 13, and with it a lever 46 pivoted at 47, a rod 49, and another lever 52, Fig. 12, which brings a block 61 in the path of a set screw 62 on a lever 64 underneath the turntable. If now the motor driving the gramophone is started, a surface 72 of a cam 71 rocks a lever 85 on a spindle 41, which, by means of a spring pawl 44 engages a pin 29 on a slide 34 mounted on the slide 15, and adapted when thus operated to push the lowermost record off the spindle 36 on to the turntable. A cam face 70 then rocks the lever 64, which is connected by a spring 84 to the tone-arm spindle and moves the tonearm inwards over the starting groove of the record as determined by the engagement of the set-screw 62 with the block 61, whereupon a cam face 73 allows a lever 78 to rock to lower the tone-arm on the record, after which a clutch driving the cam is disengaged. At the end of the record, an automatic device puts the clutch in action again, and the cam lifts and returns the tone-arm outwards, and the playing operations are repeated. If the records in the bank are 10" records, then when the arm 6 is swung down, the member 15 cannot reach the pin 48 and the block 61 remains out of the path of the set-screw 62 so that the tone-arm can be moved further inwards over the starting groove of the 10" records. Also the slide 34 is further away from the pillar 2 and, to make up for this, is provided with a second pin 28, by which it is then operated by the pawl 44 to feed the records one at a time to the turntable.