Patent ID: 6941563

Claim:
A disk player comprising: a housing; a disk tray movable between an opening position in which the disk tray appears out of the housing and a closing position in which the disk tray enters the housing, the disk tray having a tray rack and an “L”-shaped tray guide slot, of which a longitudinal guide slot section extends parallel to the tray rack and a lateral guide slot section extends parallel to a front side of the disk tray; a first train of gears for moving the disk tray back and forth between the opening and closing position, one of the first train of gears meshing with the tray rack in the form of a rack-and-pinion; a movable optical pickup; a second train of gears for moving the optical pickup radially across a disk; a cam rod movable between a gear train-connecting position in which the first and second trains of gears are coupled and the gear train-disconnecting position in which the first and second trains of gears are disconnected, the cam rod being operatively connected to the “L”-shaped tray guide slot; a switching drive gear assembly operatively connected to the cam rod for swinging between the gear train-connecting position and the gear train-disconnecting position; a drive motor connected to the first train of gears; and a cam position detecting switch operatively connected to the cam rod for detecting arrival of the cam rod at either terminal of its travel, the cam rod being so formed that when the first train of gears moves the disk tray toward the opening or closing position with the rack-and-pinion, the cam rod remains in the gear train-disconnecting position, and that in the closing position the rack-and-pinion is disconnected to permit the separate pinion to move the cam rod to the gear train-connecting position, making the switching drive gear assembly swing about its pivot until the first and second trains of gears are connected to allow the drive motor to drive the second train of gears for moving the optical pickup while the first train of gears rotates without moving the disk tray.