Actuator resonance tester for a disk drive

摘要

An actuator resonance tester is provided for testing the resonance of an actuator arm in a hard disk drive device. The tester includes an actuator arm, a pivot, one or more weights, a voice coil, a voice coil motor, an accelerometer, and a processor. The one or more weights are formed on the actuator arm to simulate the mass of at least one read/write head. The base and the test housing are affixed to either end of the pivot to provide it with proper boundary conditions to simulate the boundary conditions of a fully-assembled hard disk drive device. The voice coil and the voice coil motor move the actuator arm rotationally around the pivot. The accelerometer is placed on the actuator arm to measure the horizontal acceleration of the actuator arm. The processor determines the resonance of the actuator arm based on the arm's measured horizontal acceleration. In this way, the resonance of the actuator arm can be tested without the need to construct the entire hard disk drive device.