Patent ID: 7610590

Claim:
An optical disc apparatus comprising: a main chassis; a disc tray that slides in a reciprocating fashion with respect to the main chassis to admit and eject an optical disc; a traverse chassis that is supported on the main chassis so as to be movable up and down; an optical head that is arranged on the traverse chassis so as to be slidable and that records data to or plays back data from the optical disc by irradiating the optical disc with laser light; and a drive motor that is fixed to the main chassis and that generates a drive force, wherein the optical head slides in a reciprocating fashion between an inner edge and an outer edge of the optical disc, and has a slide rack that receives the drive force of the drive motor, the slide rack having a rack boss that protrudes from a top surface of the slide rack and a projection portion that protrudes from a surface perpendicular to the top surface, wherein the traverse chassis has a slide boss that protrudes from a front surface thereof, wherein the main chassis has a tray gear that transmits the drive force, a cam slider having a cam slider rack that meshes with the tray gear, a cam groove that has a step that engages with the slide boss of the traverse chassis, and a trigger guide that engages with the rack boss of the slide rack, the cam slider sliding in a direction perpendicular to a slide direction of the disc tray, a stopper member having a rotary shaft that is supported to be rotatable and a lever portion and a lock portion that are arranged away from each other in an axial direction of the rotary shaft and that extend in different directions, and a latch portion that protrudes from a bottom part of the main chassis, wherein, as the cam slider slides, the slide boss slides along inside the cam groove of the cam slider, so that the traverse chassis moves up and down between a clamping position where the traverse chassis clamps the optical disc admitted by the disc tray and a stand-by position where the traverse chassis does not interfere with sliding movement of the disc tray, and when the traverse chassis moves down to the stand-by position, the projection portion of the optical head engages with the latch portion of the main chassis, and wherein the stopper member is resiliently biased in such a direction that the lock portion makes contact with the cam slider and, as the optical head slides toward an inner edge side of the optical disc, the lever portion rotates by being pushed by the projection portion, the stopper member moving between a locking position where the lock portion makes contact with a side surface of the cam slider to restrict sliding movement of the cam slider and an unlocking position where the lock portion leaves the cam slider free to slide.