JPH05138580A - Power supplying and piping device used in mechanical rotary part - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a power supplying and piping device which is disposed in a mechanical rotary part of an industrial working machine for wiring of power and electrical signals and for piping of fluid, which can minimize the use of wiring cables and piping hoses and which can simultaneously lay the wiring and the piping. CONSTITUTION:There is provided a power supplying and piping device 10 composed of passages which pierce through to relatively rotary elements, that is, an internal cylindrical core 12 and an external ring 14 from fluid inlets 38a through 38d to fluid outlets 26a through 26d, and power paths having slipping rings 52a through 52b and brushes 56a through 56c, thereby wirings and pipings may be stationarily held, relative to each other even though the mechanical rotary part is operated.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a power feeding / piping device used in a mechanical rotating part, and particularly to a conductive wire and cooling water or pressure in a joint part of an industrial robot, particularly a wrist joint part having a plurality of degrees of freedom of movement. At the same time with piping for working fluid such as air,
Moreover, the present invention relates to a power supply / piping device that can be used while eliminating the use of wiring cables, piping hoses, etc.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In various industrial machines, it is often necessary to simultaneously supply and discharge water, pressure fluid, pressure air, etc. for cooling and cleaning applications, and to transmit and transmit electric power and electric signals. Supplying these from a supply source, power supply, or transmission source to a moving part such as a mechanical rotating part of an industrial machine,
Emissions may have to be transmitted and transmitted.
For example, for a spot welding gun attached to the tip of a wrist as an end effector of an industrial robot, primary power source for spot welding, cooling water, and pressure air used as a working fluid for opening and closing the tip of the spot gun are used. Must be supplied at the same time. In this case, conventionally,
Almost all power supply devices, pressure air sources, and water supply sources use electrical cables and piping hoses to directly supply power to the spot welding gun attached to the tip of the robot body. In this case, inevitably, the wiring cable or piping hose should be routed so that it crawls over the outer surface of the robot body, and then connected to the spot welding gun at the tip or the wiring cable or piping should be placed at an appropriate position outside the robot body. Hold the hose once with a holding tool, and then wire and pipe it to the wrist of the robot body to fix it, and further connect wiring from the wrist to the spot welding gun at the tip and connect the piping. In many cases However, since the wrist of the robot body has a structure having a degree of freedom of movement around a plurality of rotation axes (usually about three axes such as α axis, β axis, γ axis), it is provided at the tip of the wrist. The attachment end of the spot welding gun performs a complicated operation in the three-dimensional space with respect to the connecting portion between the wrist and the robot arm. For this reason, the wiring cable and piping hose connected to the spot welding gun via the wrist should be provided with a sufficient margin length so that it can follow whatever the wrist moves within the freedom of movement. Wiring and piping are processed. As a result, the wiring cables and piping hoses drastically hang down in front of the wrist, or a support pillar member is attached to the robot arm, etc. in front of the wrist to minimize sagging of cables and hoses. Has been taken.

[0003]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional method, the wiring cable and the piping hose hang down, which interferes with peripheral devices, and the provision of the supporting pillar member causes the entire robot body to be However, there is a problem in that the workpiece to be welded and the robot body may be interfered with each other when the robot wrist moves. Moreover, when the robot wrist operates with multiple degrees of freedom, some wiring cables and piping hoses are subject to bending and twisting actions, and as a result, the wiring cables stretch and become disconnected. It contains problems such as. Therefore, conventionally, measures for improving the treatment of wiring cables and piping hoses in a portion having a mechanical rotating portion of this type of industrial machine have been studied, and improvement measures have been proposed. Is not enough. Therefore, a main object of the present invention is to provide a power supply and piping device that can be applied to a mechanical rotating part of an industrial machine and can solve the above-mentioned conventional problems. Another object of the present invention is to simultaneously perform wiring processing of electric power and electric signals and piping processing of fluid in a mechanical rotating part of an industrial machine while suppressing the use of wiring cables and piping hoses as much as possible and at the same time. It is intended to provide a stable power supply and piping device. Still another object of the present invention is to provide a power supply device, a water supply source, an operating pressure outside the robot body to a joint part of an industrial robot, particularly to an end effector attached to a tip of a wrist having a large number of movement degrees of freedom. An object of the present invention is to provide a power supply / piping device capable of simultaneously performing power supply, water supply, air supply, etc. from a fluid source or the like.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention supplies power to mechanical rotating parts of various industrial machines such as industrial robots, or via the mechanical rotating parts to a working part of the latter stage of the machine. In order to be able to simultaneously perform liquid and gas piping, both a fluid flow path that passes through the two relative rotating elements from the fluid inlet to the fluid outlet and a power supply path that has a slip ring and a brush are provided. With this, the wiring and piping can be kept relatively stationary regardless of the operation of the mechanical rotating part, so that wiring cables and piping hoses with sufficient length can be used. It is possible to achieve both wiring processing and piping processing at the same time. That is, according to the present invention, an inner shaft body having a circumferential outer surface and both end surfaces, and having at least one first internal flow path extending from the circumferential outer surface to at least one end surface, Formed as an annular member rotatably provided to the inner shaft via a rotary bearing, and extending from an externally exposed portion to a circumferential inner surface opposite to the circumferential outer surface of the inner shaft. The outer annular body having at least one second internal flow path, and the first and second outer annular bodies provided at the boundary between the outer circumferential surface of the inner shaft body and the inner circumferential surface of the outer annular body. And a slip ring device that is integrally provided with the outer annular body, and is attachable to a mechanical rotating part. Provided is a power supply / piping device for use in a mechanical rotating unit.

[0005]

According to the above construction, when the inner shaft body is attached to the mechanical rotating portion, the outer annular body is relatively stationary even during the rotating operation of the mechanical rotating portion. On the other hand, when power is supplied, water is supplied, or air is supplied to other mechanical parts that rotate in synchronization with the mechanical rotating part, a power supply path is formed via the slip ring device, and the above-described first and second internal parts are provided. Minimum length of water such as cooling water and working fluid such as pressure air introduced from the supply source through the flow path and the third communication flow path to other machine parts that have no relative displacement with respect to the same mechanical rotating part The pipe line can be formed via a connecting hose or pipe line. Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in more detail based on preferred embodiments shown in the accompanying drawings.

[0006]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 is a sectional view showing an embodiment of a power supply / piping device used in a mechanical rotating part according to the present invention, FIG. 2 and FIG.
1 is a left and right side view of FIG. 1, FIG. 4 is a schematic piping diagram showing the system of the pipeline in the power feeding / piping device shown in FIG. 1 for easy understanding, and FIG. 5 is a power feeding / piping device according to the embodiment. It is a front view including a sectional view showing an example applied to a wrist of an industrial robot.

Referring to FIGS. 1 to 3, a power supply / piping device 10 according to an embodiment of the present invention has a cylindrical body structure as a whole, and has a cylindrical shaft body 12 at the center thereof. 12
The outer annular body 14 which is relatively rotatable and slidable in the circumferential direction with respect to the outer peripheral surface 12a of the cylinder via rotary bearings 18a and 18b.
And a structural element such as a slip ring device 16 provided on the outer peripheral portion of the outer annular body 14.
Here, the structure of these individual elements is as follows. First, the cylindrical shaft body 12 is arranged on a circle equidistant from the rotation center line thereof, as is apparent with reference to FIG. 1 and FIG. A plurality of elongated holes 20a to 20d formed in the circumferential direction at predetermined intervals, in the present embodiment, four axial holes 20a to 20d are formed from one end surface side of the cylindrical shaft body 12, and these elongated holes 20a to 20d are formed. Is provided as a fluid flow path. These long holes 20a
˜20d pass through the axial and radial continuous flow passages 24a to 24d formed in the adapter 22 attached to the end surface of the cylindrical shaft body 12 by a fixing method such as screwing, and then the adapter 22
It is adapted to communicate with the pipe joints 26a to 26d screwed to the peripheral surface of and to be connected to an external pipe line. Further, the above-mentioned long holes 20a to 20d in the axial direction are respectively connected to the long holes 28a to 28d provided as flow passages formed in the radial direction with respect to the central axis of the cylindrical shaft body 12, respectively. The four annular grooves 30a to 30d provided as the circumferential flow passages on the cylindrical outer peripheral surface 12a are also connected via the four elongated holes 28a to 28d forming the radial flow passages.

On the other hand, inside the outer annular body 14,
Elongated holes 32a to 32d are formed as flow paths parallel to the axial direction at predetermined intervals in the circumferential direction on the circumference equidistant from the rotation center line. Each of these long holes 32a is connected to one end of a corresponding radial hole 34a to 34d provided as a flow path radially formed inside thereof, and each of these radial holes 34a to 34d is connected to the other. The end is the cylindrical shaft body 12 described above.
Annular grooves 30a to 30d formed on the outer peripheral surface 12a of the cylinder
Corresponding to is connected. The radial holes 34a-3
Since 4d is pierced from the outer peripheral surface of the outer annular body 14 in processing, the hole opening facing the outer peripheral surface of the pierced hole is sealed with an appropriate tight plug 35 as shown in the drawing. In addition, the elongated holes 32a to 32d forming the above-mentioned axial flow path are provided with the outer annular body 14 via the radial holes 36a to 36d, which are provided as flow paths radially formed on the outside thereof. 38a to 3 which are connected to the outer peripheral surface of and are screwed to the outer peripheral surface.
It is configured to be connected to an external conduit via 8d. In addition, for example, a sealing ring 40 is provided on the outer peripheral surface 12a of the inner cylindrical shaft body 12 on the rotary sliding surface between the inner cylindrical body 12 and the outer annular body 14 in which the annular grooves 30a to 30d are provided.
Is provided, and when the coaxial body 12 and the annular body 14 are relatively rotated,
The fluid passing through the annular grooves 30a to 30d is prevented from leaking to the outside.

According to the above arrangement, the rotary bearings 18a, 1
Four fluid flow paths formed in both the inner cylindrical shaft body 12 and the outer annular body 14 which are relatively rotatable via 8b,
Annular groove 3 formed in the outer peripheral surface 12a of the inner cylindrical shaft body 12
0a to 30d are connected to each other. For example, the pipe joints 38a to 38d of the outer annular body 14 are used as fluid inlets, and the pipe joints 26a to 26 of the adapter 22 attached to and integrated with the inner cylindrical shaft body 12 are fluid outlets. Thus, four independent flow channel systems are formed. FIG. 4 is a circuit diagram illustrating these four fluid flow passage systems, and shows a state in which the annular grooves 30a to 30b are used as connection flow passages. Since these four fluid systems are independent of each other, the fluid flowing through them may be only liquid or only gas, and both liquid and gas may flow. May be.
In the configuration of the above-described embodiment, the annular grooves 30a to 30d are formed on the outer peripheral surface 12a of the inner cylindrical shaft body 12 for ease of processing, but are formed on the inner peripheral surface of the outer annular body 14. Is functionally equivalent to. In addition, since the embodiment shown in FIGS. 1 to 3 is formed so as to be attached to and used on the turning shaft portion of the wrist of the industrial robot as will be described later, the adapter 22 of the internal cylindrical shaft body 12 is A receiving hole 12b for coupling with a mating member is formed on the end surface opposite to the attached end surface, and an annular cover plate 42 for covering both rotary bearings 18a, 18b is provided on the outer annular body 14. It is attached with screws at both ends.

The power supply / piping device 10 according to the present invention,
In particular, in the embodiment shown in FIGS.
The slip ring device 16 is provided as a structure integrally attached to the outer peripheral portion of the slip ring device 16. This slip ring device 16
Includes a plurality of slip rings 52a to 52c for supplying three-phase power from a three-phase AC power supply, and is fixed to the outer circumference of the outer annular body 14 by the slip ring holder 53. There is. The slip ring device 16 further includes terminal members 54a to 54c electrically and mechanically connected to the slip rings 52a to 52c, respectively.
A brush 56a that slidably contacts the 54c and slip rings 52a to 52c in the circumferential direction to form a conductive path.
.About.56c. Therefore, for example, the terminal member 54
The three-phase electric power conducted from the a to 54c to the slip rings 52a to 52c can be taken out from the brushes 56a to 56c. In this embodiment, the three brushes 56a-5
6c is integrally held by a brush holder 60 connected by a shaft 58 via an arm 59.
It is configured to conduct electricity to the terminals 62a to 62c provided on the. According to such a configuration, for example, when the brush holder 60 including the brushes 56a to 56c of the slip ring device 16 is appropriately rotatably coupled to the internal cylindrical shaft body 12, the slip rings 52a to 52c are held. Since the slip ring holder 53 is integrally attached to the outer annular body 14, it is possible to form a conductive circuit between the non-rotating body side and the rotating body side in the machine rotating portion. 2 and 3 show conductive lead wires drawn from the terminals 62a to 62c. Further, although the illustrated example is an example of the slip ring device 16 that is integrally attached to the outer annular body 14 and that feeds three-phase power, not only power feeding but also a slip ring device of a signal circuit may be used. The number of slip rings may be increased to achieve power supply and electric signal transmission at the same time.

Now, referring to FIG. 5, the power supply / piping device 10 according to the above-described embodiment is provided with three operating axes (α) of an industrial robot.
Axes, β-axes, γ-axes) are attached to the wrist, and power is supplied from the wrist base side to the wrist tip side, and water such as cooling water and pressure air as pressure working fluid are simultaneously supplied. An example is shown. In FIG. 5, the arm 69 of the industrial robot
The wrist 70 attached to the tip of the arm is capable of rotating around the γ axis together with the arm 69, and at the same time, is formed as a mechanical rotating element capable of pivoting about the α axis and the β axis as shown in the drawing. An end effector such as the spot welding gun 100 is attached to the tip 72 of the wrist 70. Therefore, the two power supply / piping devices 10 according to the present invention are
When the α-axis rotating part and the β-axis rotating part of the wrist 70 are attached respectively, spot welding power, cooling water, and pressure air for opening / closing the gun are simultaneously supplied to the spot welding gun 100 from the robot arm 69 side. You can do it.

The rotating element 74 attached to the β-axis rotating portion of the wrist 70 by an appropriate attaching means such as a screw is attached to the inside of one of the first power feeding / piping devices 10 of the two power feeding / piping devices 10. The cylindrical shaft body 12 is fixed by a mounting screw 75 that is inserted into a screw insertion hole that is formed by penetrating the inside of the coaxial body 12 in the axial direction. Further, the outer annular body 14 of the power feeding / piping device 10 has a γ-axis rotating portion on the wrist proximal end side, that is, a wrist 70, to which the β-axis rotating portion is connected by a crank arm-shaped support arm member 76. It is fixed to the non-β-axis rotating element side. The support arm member 76 itself is
One end is screwed and fixed to the outer annular body 14, and the other end is screwed and fixed to the non-β-axis rotating element side. On the other hand, in the α-axis rotating element at the tip 72 of the wrist 70, the inner cylindrical shaft body 12 of the other second power feeding / piping device 10 is similarly formed so as to penetrate the inside of the coaxial body 12 in the axial direction. It is fixed by a mounting screw 75 inserted through the screw insertion hole. Further, the outer annular body 14 rotatable relative to the inner cylindrical shaft body 12 is provided on the side of the first power supply and piping device 10 attached to the β-axis rotating portion by the crank arm-shaped support arm member 78. It is connected to the inner cylindrical shaft body 12. That is,
The second power supply / piping device 10 is rotatably provided coaxially with the β-axis rotating element of the wrist 70.

As described above, the first and second power feeding / piping devices 10 are attached to the wrist 70, and the first power feeding / piping device 10 is connected from the arm 69 side of the industrial robot via the power feeding cable 80. The three-phase electric power is supplied to the slip ring device 16. Therefore, the same three-phase power is transmitted from the slip rings 52a to 52c of the first power feeding / piping device 10 to the brush 56a.
To 56c, and further to the slip ring device 16 of the second power supply and piping device 10 connected to the brushes 56a to 56c via the connection conductive cable 82. Slip ring device 1 of second power supply and piping device 10
6, the brushes 56a to 56c, which slide and contact the slip rings 52a to 52c through the slip rings 52a to 52c, and are relatively stationary with respect to the α-axis rotation, are spotted from the stationary brushes 56a to 56c. Three-phase power is supplied to the welding gun 100. Where the wrist 7
At 0, with respect to the rotational movement around the α axis and the β axis,
Since the distance from the brush of the slip ring device 16 of the first power feeding / piping device 10 to the slip ring of the slip ring device 16 of the second power feeding / piping device 10 is always unchanged and maintained at a constant distance, a conductive cable for connection is used. For 82, it suffices to externally wire a fixed-length wiring cable. 2 to the spot welding gun 100 that is attached to the tip of the wrist
Since electric power can be supplied through the one power supply / piping device 10, and the conductive cable 82 for connection is not twisted or pulled by the operation such as the α-axis rotation or β-axis rotation of the wrist. , There is no problem of damage to the conductive cable.
Moreover, since it is not necessary to previously provide the cable margin length, the fear that the wiring cable may be entangled with peripheral devices and interfere with each other can be eliminated.

The power supply cable 80 for supplying power to the first power supply / piping device 10 from the outside is twisted by the conductive cable 80 on the proximal end side of the robot arm 69 when the wrist 70 moves around the γ axis. Means for appropriately absorbing the occurrence of twisting may be provided. In addition, the brush holder 60 of the first power supply / piping device 10 is fixed to the support arm member 78 by screws or the like, so that the connection power supply cable 82 is indirectly and stably held by the support arm member 78. You can Further, in the first and second power feeding / piping devices 10, the cooling water and the pressure air for opening / closing the gun are supplied to the spot welding gun 100 by the four fluid inlets 38a included in the first power feeding / piping device 10. First, the power is supplied to the first power supply / piping device 10 by the four external piping hoses 84a to 84d. Then, from the fluid outlets 26a to 26d of the first power feeding / piping device 10 to the fluid inlets 38a to 38d of the second power feeding / piping device 10 by the four connection piping hoses 86a to 86d, and the second Fluid outlets 26a-2 through the internal piping system of the power supply / piping device 10 of FIG.
6b, and from there, it is supplied to the spot welding gun 100 attached to the wrist 70 using piping hoses 88a to 88d. Also in this case, the four connection piping hoses 86a
.. to 86d are not influenced by the .alpha.-axis rotating operation or the .beta.-axis rotating operation of the wrist 70, so that these connecting piping hose 8
As in the case of the above-described power supply cable, the damage problem due to twisting or pulling does not occur in 8a to 88d.

The four piping hoses 84a to 84 are provided respectively.
For d, 86a to 86d, 88a to 88d, etc., the required number may be used according to the number of kinds of liquid or gas to be supplied or the number of target positions to be supplied with liquid or gas. When supplying cooling water and air for opening and closing the gun to the welding gun 100, if there is only one cooling spot and the spot welding gun is a single gun, one cooling water supply system and one air If there is a supply system,
Two pipe lines are used. In the above description of the embodiments, when the spot welding gun is attached to the tip of the wrist of the industrial robot, the case where the power supply and the cooling water and the working pressure air are simultaneously supplied has been described. In the case where the power supply / piping device 10 according to the present invention is used in the case of having a similar mechanical rotating part, a wiring cable or a piping hose is provided with an extra length to allow the wiring and piping to be performed. It goes without saying that not only can problems such as damage and shortening of service life be solved, but also problems in which peripheral devices interfere with cables and hoses due to the operation of the machine can be solved. Further, in the above-described embodiment, the embodiment in which the two power feeding / piping devices 10 are attached to the two rotating parts has been described, but it is also possible to use only one power feeding / piping device 10.

[0016]

As described above, according to the present invention, the action of a mechanical robot in various industrial machines such as an industrial robot, or to the mechanical rotary section, and the subsequent stage of the machine. A flow passage that passes through the two relative rotary elements from the fluid inlet to the fluid outlet, and a power feeding passage that has a slip ring and a brush so that power feeding and liquid or gas piping to the portion can be performed simultaneously. By providing both of them, the wiring and piping can be kept relatively stationary regardless of the operation of the mechanical rotating part, so that a wiring cable or piping hose with a margin length can be used. Without doing
Since wiring and piping can be achieved, not only is it possible to eliminate the aesthetic defects of wiring cables and piping hoses hanging down, but also due to the high cost of equipment due to the need to provide extra length for these. It eliminates the disadvantages and eliminates problems such as damage to wiring cables and piping hoses, short life, and the end effectors such as industrial robots and spot welding guns that are used by being attached to them or other The effect that the operational reliability of industrial equipment can also be improved is obtained.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a sectional view showing an embodiment of a power supply / piping device used for a mechanical rotating unit according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a left side view of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a right side view of FIG.

FIG. 4 is a schematic piping diagram showing a system of piping lines in the power feeding / piping device shown in FIG. 1 for easy understanding.

FIG. 5 is a front view including a cross-sectional view showing an embodiment in which the power feeding / piping device according to the embodiment is applied to a wrist of an industrial robot.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 ... Electric power feeding and piping apparatus 12 ... Internal cylindrical shaft body 14 ... External annular body 16 ... Slip ring device 18a ... Rotation bearing 18b ... Rotation bearing 22 ... Adapter 26a-26 ... Pipe joint which forms a fluid outlet 38a-38d ... Fluid inlet Pipe joints 30a to 30c ... Annular grooves 52a to 52c ... Slip rings 56a to 56c ... Brush 70 ... Wrist 100 ... Spot welding gun

Front page continuation (72) Inventor Kazuhisa Otsuka 3580, Kobaba, Oshinomura, Minamitsuru-gun, Yamanashi Pref., Product Development Laboratory, Fuanatsu Co., Ltd. (72) Hideki Sugiyama 3580, Kobaba, Oshinomura, Minamitsuru-gun, Yamanashi Prefecture Local Product Development Laboratory, Juanatsk Co., Ltd.

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. An internal shaft body comprising a circumferential outer surface and both end surfaces, and at least one first internal flow path extending from the circumferential outer surface to at least one end surface, and the interior. It is formed as an annular member rotatably provided to the shaft body via a rotary bearing, and extends at least from the externally exposed portion to the inner circumferential surface of the inner shaft opposite to the outer circumferential surface of the inner shaft. An outer annular body having one second inner flow path, and a first inner stream and a second inner stream provided at a boundary between the outer circumferential surface of the inner shaft and the inner circumferential surface of the outer annular body. A mechanical structure characterized by comprising a third connecting flow path for connecting the roads at all times and a slip ring device integrally provided with the outer annular body, and being attachable to a mechanical rotating part. Power supply and piping equipment used for rotating parts. 2. A first internal flow path provided in the internal shaft body, and a second internal flow path provided in the external annular body,
The power supply / piping device used for the mechanical rotating unit according to claim 1, wherein the third communication flow path includes the same plurality of flow paths and the same plurality of communication flow paths.