1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to disk drive suspensions, and, more particularly, to a disk drive suspension comprising a distal portion, a base portion and a spring portion between the distal portion and the base portion, and a stiffener attached to the suspension to lend a desired stiffness to the suspension. The suspension spring portion typically exerts a predetermined gram load on the distal portion to maintain a slider carried by the distal portion into a desired operating proximity to a rotating disk. The invention specifically relates to the addition of a second spring complementary in function to the suspension spring. The second spring traverses the suspension spring portion and may connect separated sections of the stiffener. The second spring adds a highly controllable spring force to the suspension to better control of the suspension spring rate, e.g. when the suspension material thinness limits spring rate obtainable from just the suspension, to reduce gram losses with use, and for other purposes to be described.
2. Description of the Related Art
Suspensions typically comprise a metal member that can be a load beam having a base portion, a spring portion and a rigid distal portion over which a conductor is passed to connect a slider carried by a separate flexure on the load beam distal portion to the device electronics, or the metal member can be the metal layer in a laminate of the metal layer, an insulative layer, and trace conductors as seen in so-called wireless suspensions. Wireless suspension metal layers are very thin and are frequently provided with supplemental stiffening. Stiffeners are added to the base portion and/or to the distal portion of the metal layer.