Double-Capstan Tape Driving Device

This invention relates to a tape driving device, and more specifically to a double-capstan tape driving device having two capstans.

In double-capstan tape driving devices, the speed of revolution of a tape supply capstan is set lower than that of a tape take-up capstan in order to obtain a suitable tape tension. In a prior art double-capstan tape driving device, however, the revolution ratio between the two capstans is fixed, so that the tape tension cannot be adjusted according to the type or secular changes of tape. In other words, it is impossible to drive a tape always at a proper tension.

Accordingly, the object of this invention is to provide a double-capstan tape driving device capable of tape tension adjustment.

According to this invention, there is provided a double-capstan tape driving device which comprises first and second servo loops for rotating first and second capstans at respective speeds, and means for supplying an offset voltage to at least one of the servo loops to change the revolution speed of one of the first and second capstans.

The accompanying drawing is a circuit diagram of a double-capstan tape driving device according to an embodiment of this invention.

Referring to the accompanying drawing, a magnetic tape 5 is held between a first capstan 1 and a first pinch roller 2 and between a second capstan 3 and a second pinch roller 4 so as to be able to run. The first capstan 1 is connected directly with the shaft of a first motor 6, and the second capstan 3 is connected directly with the shaft of a second motor 7. Encoding members 8 and 9 are mounted on the shafts of the first and second motors 6 and 7, respectively. These encoding members 8 and 9 are each provided with e.g. slits at regular intervals. Sensors 10 and 11 are disposed in close vicinity to the encoding members 8 and 9, respectively. The output terminals of the sensors 10 and 11 are connected respectively to frequency discriminators 12 and 13. The output terminal of the frequency discriminator 12 is connected to a motor driving amplifier 14 and one input terminal of a mixer 15, while the output terminal of the frequency discriminator 13 is connected to one input terminal of a difference detector 16. The other input terminal of the difference detector 16 is connected with the output terminal of the mixer 15, and the output terminal of the detector difference 16 is connected to a motor driving amplifier 17. The other input terminal of the mixer 15 is connected with a potentiometer 18 for tape tension adjustment. The motor driving amplifiers 14 and 17 are connected respectively to the motors 6 and 7.

In the above-mentioned construction, the motor 6, encoding member 8, sensor 10, frequency discriminator 12, and moving driving amplifier 14 constitute a first servo loop which causes the first capstan 1 to rotate at a fixed speed. The motor 7, encoding member 9, sensor 11, frequency discriminator 13, difference detector 16, and motor driving amplifier 17 constitute a second servo loop which causes the second capstan 3 to rotate at a fixed speed. The revolution speeds of the first and second capstans 1 and 3, i.e. the speeds of the motors 6 and 7, may be made equal by equalizing the output voltages of the frequency discriminators 12 and 13. The difference detector 16 is intended to detect the difference between the output voltages of these two frequency discriminators 12 and 13. When the motors 6 and 7 are rotating at equal speeds, signals corresponding to the speeds are produced from the encoding members 8 and 9 and the sensors 10 and 11, and are applied to the inputs of their corresponding frequency discriminators 12 and 13, respectively. If the tension adjustment potentiometer 18 is set at zero at this time, the output voltage of the frequency discriminator 12 is supplied through the mixer 15 to the difference detector 16, where the difference between the respective output voltages of the frequency discriminators 12 and 13 is calculated. In this case, the difference is zero because these two output voltages are equal, and the motor driving amplifier 17 drives the motor 7 without changing the motor speed. Namely, the motors 6 and 7 rotate at the same speed. Accordingly, the tape supply capstan or the first capstan 1 and the tape take-up capstan or the second capstan 3 rotate at the same speed with zero tape tension. When the tension adjustment potentiometer 18 is adjusted to supply an offset voltage to the mixer 15, the offset voltage is added to the output voltage of the frequency discriminator 12. When the summation voltage at the output of mixer 15 is supplied to the difference detector 16, the difference between the summation voltage and the output voltage of the frequency discriminator 13 is detected and supplied to the motor driving amplifier 17. Thus, the speed or number of revolutions of the motor 7 is increased by such difference. As a result, the second capstan 3 rotates faster than the first capstan 1, and a tension corresponding to the speed difference is created in the tape. Namely, the tape tension can be adjusted at will by suitably setting the tension adjustment potentiometer 18. Thus, after the tape tension is set at the desired level, the tape is driven stably with the set tape tension maintained by the first and second servo loops.

According to this invention, as described above, the tape driving operation can be performed with a proper tape tension according to the type or secular changes of tape or head since the tape tension can be adjusted optionally.

Although in the above-mentioned embodiment the tape tension is to be adjusted by increasing the speed of the tape take-up capstan with the speed of the tape supply capstan kept constant, such adjustment may alternatively be achieved by reducing the speed of the tape supply capstan while keeping the tape take-up capstan at a fixed speed.