DE102018127030A1 - Method of making brushes and brush making machine - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention relates to a method for brush production by means of a brush production machine which has a guide (26) along which several carriages (12) can be moved successively to several drilling stations (16A, 16B) and then to a tamping station (18), the drilling stations (16A, 16B) are operated simultaneously with the tamping station (18) and the number of drilling cycles that each drilling station (16A, 16B) makes per unit time is equal to the number of tamping cycles of the tamping station (18) in the same time unit divided by the number of drilling stations (16A, 16B). The invention also relates to a brush production machine with a guide (26), a plurality of slides (12) which can accommodate one or more brush base bodies (32) and are adjustably received on the guide (26), a plurality of drilling stations (16A, 16B) and a tamping station (18), the guide (26) extending along the plurality of drilling stations (16A, 16B) and then along the tamping station (18), and with a controller (48) having a cycle divider module (49) that has a cycle speed of Tamping station (18) into a cycle speed of each drilling station (16A, 16B) which is an nth of the cycle speed of the drilling station (18), where n is the number of drilling stations (16A, 16B) in relation to the number of tamping stations (18) is.

Description

The invention relates to a method for manufacturing brushes and a brush manufacturing machine.

In the production of brushes, for example toothbrushes, household brushes or even brushes, it is common for a brush base body to be guided successively to different processing stations, at each of which a specific processing step is carried out. For example, several holes can be drilled in the brush body at one processing station, and bristle bundles are stuffed into the holes at a subsequent work station. To adjust the basic brush bodies, slides are usually used, which run along a predetermined path in such a way that the basic bristle bodies arranged on them are successively offered to the various stations for processing. In a simple example, the brush manufacturing machine has a loading station, a drilling station, a tamping station and a removal station. Then four slides can be used, which are adjusted one station for each cycle of the brush manufacturing machine. The slides are usually attached to a drive element such as a common carrier or a chain, which adjusts all the slides together.

A disadvantage of the known machines is that when the carriage is moved further from one processing station to the next a certain time passes, which has a disadvantageous effect on the productivity of the brush production machine.

To solve this problem is out of DE 10 2014 103 599 A1 a brush manufacturing machine known, which is characterized by very short cycle times and thus high productivity. This known machine is based on the 1 to 3rd described.

The brush making machine has a guide block 10th on, along which several sledges 12th can be adjusted all around.

Around the leader block 10th there are several processing stations around 14 , 16 , 18th , 20th , 22 , 24th arranged. If the sledge 12th around the leader block 10th are moved around, they move past the processing stations.

The leadership block 10th is with a guide 26 provided, the function of which is the sledge 12th movable on the guide block 10th to attach. The leadership 26 should in particular ensure that the carriage 12th be performed precisely and with as little tolerance as possible.

The leadership 26 can be designed, for example, as a guide rail on which the carriage 12th are guided with rollers, roller bearings or similar elements.

To adjust the sled 12th is a drive device 28 provided with which each sled individually and individually around the guide block 10th can be moved around. The only limitation of the individual movability of the sledges is that no sled can overtake the other. Otherwise, each slide can be moved individually and independently of the other slide in terms of travel and speed.

The drive device 28 can for example be formed by a drive motor on each carriage 12th , which is coupled to a drive element, for example a drive wheel or a gearwheel, which in turn is connected to a corresponding counter element of the central guide block 10th interacts, for example a career or a rack. The drive device 28 can also be designed as a linear motor, which is assigned to the carriage and this contactless relative to the guide block 10th adjusted. The drive device 28 can also be formed by several belt drives with which the slide can be individually adjusted. Here it is possible, by appropriately assigning the belt drives to the processing stations, to make do with fewer belt drives than slides are available, since it is sufficient for a minimized cycle time to adjust the slides individually and independently of one another only in the area of some processing stations, for example in the area of the drilling - and the tamping station, while the slides can be adjusted synchronously (and therefore by means of the same belt drive) from a removal station to a loading station, without this having a negative effect on the cycle time.

The drive devices mentioned are only examples and are not a conclusive list.

On every sledge 12th is at least one jig 30th for a brush body 32 appropriate. In the embodiment shown, two clamping devices are used per slide 30th used. If necessary, more clamping devices can be provided.

Any jig 30th can be swiveled or tilted around two axes. Firstly, there is a swivel device 36 provided with each fixture 30th about a pivot axis S can be pivoted. The pivot axis S is aligned parallel to the direction of adjustment of the slide.

There is also a tilting device 38 provided with which the jig 30th about a tilt axis K can be tilted. The tilt axis K is perpendicular to the direction of adjustment V the sled 12th .

There is also a height adjustment 40 provided with which the carrier 34 in the vertical direction relative to the slide 12th can be adjusted, i.e. in the direction of the double arrow H .

With regard to the orientation of the brush making machine as shown in the 1 and 2nd shown, adjusts the height adjustment 40 the carrier 34 in the vertical direction, i.e. up and down. The tipping device 38 can the clamping device assigned to it 30th , related to 1 , clockwise and counterclockwise around the tilt axis K tilt (see also the double arrow K in 1 ). The swivel device 36 can the clamping device assigned to it 30th , related to 1 , clockwise and counterclockwise around the swivel axis S swivel (see also the double arrow S in 2nd ).

Information such as "above" or the like is understood here only as a reference to the figures. The brush manufacturing machine can later be arranged differently because the guide 26 need not be in a horizontally extending plane as shown in the drawings.

To adjust the sled 12th along the guide 26 is a control shown schematically here 48 provided that can be freely programmed in the desired manner. The controller controls depending on the desired processing steps 48 , at what speed and with what steps the sled moves 12th along the guide 26 adjust.

The processing stations can carry out different processing steps. In one example, the processing station 14 be a loading station with empty jigs 30th with brush base bodies to be machined 32 be equipped.

The processing station 16 here is a drilling station at which a drill 50 is used with a reciprocating motion along the direction of the double arrow B Holes in the brush body 32 to drill. The necessary longitudinal adjustment of the brush body 32 , i.e. along the direction of adjustment V the sled 12th on the lead 26 , is done by the sled 12th by means of the drive device 28 in small steps relative to the processing station 16 is adjusted, namely for each column of holes to be drilled by the hole spacing. The brush base bodies are in the vertical direction 32 by means of the height adjustment 40 adjusted, for each row of holes to be drilled by the hole spacing. If the holes in the brush body 32 The brush base body is to be drilled in directions that are not parallel to one another 32 by means of the swivel device 36 and the tilting device 38 swiveled and / or tilted in a suitable manner.

The processing station 18th here is a tamping station in which a tamping tool 52 in a reciprocating motion along the double arrow P Bundle of bristles 60 that are in a storage box 54 be kept ready in the holes of the brush body 32 stuffs. Here too the brush base body 32 by suitable control of the drive device 28 , the height adjustment 40 , the swivel device 36 and the tilting device 38 relative to the tamping tool 52 positioned.

The processing station 20th can be a removal station in which the brush body provided with bristle bundles 32 from the jig 30th is removed or even ejected.

Depending on the processing steps that are to be carried out by means of the brush production machine, further processing stations can be used. For example, a trim station can be provided, in which the brush body 32 attached bristles 60 cut and / or sanded to obtain a desired length and / or a desired profile. In this case the removal station 20th , viewed in the direction of adjustment V , of course, be arranged behind the trim station.

The brush production machine can be coupled to an injection molding station, so that in an adjacent injection molding station the brush bodies are first injection molded or additional parts are injection molded onto previously produced brush bodies. These brush bodies are then transported manually or, preferably fully automatically, to the brush manufacturing machine from the injection molding station and are coupled into the brush manufacturing machine in the loading station. This can be done in different ways. If the carriers do not leave the brush making machine, the brush bodies in the brush making machine are inserted into the carriers. In addition, the carriers could also be used in the loading station in the manufacturing machine already loaded. In the embodiment shown, however, it is the case that the carriers rotate in the brush manufacturing machine and thus do not leave it.

It is also possible to equip the brush manufacturing machine “twice”, ie in one half a loading station, various processing stations and one removal station, and then in the second half again a loading station, several processing stations and one removal station. In this way, the number of brushes produced per cycle can be doubled.

An essential feature of the brush manufacturing machine described is that a brush base is prepositioned before it is offered to the next processing station. This is shown by 3rd explained. In 3rd is the darning tool 52 to see that just the last holes of the brush body 32A stuffed with bundles of bristles. Because the bristles 60 , viewed from the top of 3rd , arranged in a fan shape, the bristle base body 32 clockwise around the tilt axis K be tilted when moving from left to right on the tamping tool 52 is led past.

The bristle base to be processed next 32B is prepositioned accordingly by placing it before the carriage carrying it 12B the processing station 18th reached, is tilted counterclockwise from a neutral position into the position shown. The longitudinal axis is in this position L the first hole of the brush body to be plugged B parallel to the plug direction P of the darning tool 52 aligned.

This prepositioning can take place on the one hand during the infeed movement from one processing station to the next, or by stopping briefly directly in front of the following processing station. This mainly depends on how far the processing stations are from each other and how time-consuming the pre-positioning is, which in turn also depends on the geometry of the brush to be manufactured.

If all holes in the brush body 32A are filled with bristles, the sled 12A in the direction of adjustment V further adjusted, and at the same time the sledge is also 12B in the direction of adjustment V further adjusted. Because the brush body 32B the darning tool can already be "correctly" aligned 52 continue working without delay. In practice, the brush body 32B in the pre-positioned state, much closer to the brush body currently being processed 32A be introduced as this in 3rd is shown. Then when processing the brush body 32A to the brush body 32B progresses, the brush body 32B only minimally in the longitudinal direction (i.e. in the direction of adjustment V ) can be adjusted. In the ideal case, the necessary adjustment movement is so small that the tamping tool can continue to work without interruption and the adjustment does not differ, or at least not noticeably, from the adjustment that is necessary from one hole to the other when tamping one and the same bristle base body.

It can be seen that the cycle rate with which the brush base body can be drilled and then equipped with bristles depends on the “slowest” of the two stations, drilling and plugging; Since as many holes have to be drilled per plug base as there are to be plugged, neither of these two stations can work faster than the other. If it does, it must then wait until processing at the other station is complete.

It has turned out that drilling the holes is currently the "bottleneck". In view of the fact that the drilling chips have to be removed from the hole and that the material cannot be processed as quickly as desired (with plastic brush base bodies there is a risk that the material will melt), the processing limits have currently been reached with standard drills and standard drilling techniques.

The object of the invention is to provide a method for manufacturing brushes and a brush manufacturing machine with which the processing speed can be increased further.

To achieve this object, a method for brush production by means of a brush production machine is provided according to the invention, which has a guide, along which several carriages can be successively moved to several drilling stations and then to at least one tamping station, the drilling stations being operated simultaneously with the at least one tamping station and wherein the number of drilling cycles that each drilling station makes per unit time is equal to the number of tamping cycles of the at least one tamping station in the same time unit divided by the ratio of the number of drilling stations to the number of tamping stations. To achieve this object, a brush manufacturing machine is also provided according to the invention, in particular for carrying out the aforementioned method, with a guide, a plurality of slides which can accommodate one or more brush base bodies and are adjustably received on the guide, a plurality of drilling stations and a tamping station, the Guide along the multiple drilling stations and then along the tamping station, and with a controller that has a cycle divider module that reduces a cycle speed of the tamping station into a cycle speed of each drilling station that is an nth of the cycle speed of the drilling station where n is the number of drilling stations in relation to the number of tamping stations.

The invention is based on the basic idea of dividing the work of drilling the holes in the brush base body over two or more drilling stations and reducing the cycle speed of the drilling stations in accordance with the ratio of drilling stations to tamping stations. This allows the holes to be drilled at two-thirds of the cycle speed (if there are three drilling stations and two tamping stations), half the cycle speed (if there are twice as many drilling stations as tamping stations) or one third, one fourth, ... of the cycle speed (if three, four, ... drilling stations are available) with which to stuff. This leaves enough time to drill the holes with standard drills without having to resort to elaborate techniques that could further increase the drilling speed.

“Cycle speed” means the rate at which a cycle (for example, plugging a hole or drilling a hole) can be carried out. For example, if there are two drilling stations at a tamping station, a cycle speed of 50 holes / sec. when drilling and a cycle speed of 100 holes / sec. to be used when stuffing. Accordingly, “cycle ratio” means the ratio of the number of different stations to each other and the resulting reduction in the cycle speed of the drilling stations in relation to the cycle speed of the tamping stations.

If two drilling stations are present, it can be provided according to one embodiment that the hole pattern drilled by one of the drilling stations corresponds to the hole pattern drilled by the other drilling station, shifted by a row of holes. This reduces the cost of programming the drilling scheme, since the drills for the two drilling stations can be adjusted synchronously. At most, a small adjustment of the alignment of the brush base body is necessary if the alignment of the holes drilled at the same time differs from one another.

It can also be provided that all drilling stations drill exactly the same hole pattern, but the brush base bodies are adjusted further when a drilling station has drilled “its” part of the hole pattern. This reduces the programming and control effort for the drilling stations, since only a single hole pattern has to be programmed.

To further reduce the control effort, the drilling stations can be operated synchronously with each other.

The carriages are preferably further adjusted simultaneously within the two drilling stations and the tamping station, that is to say synchronously from the first drilling station to the next, from the second to either the next or to the tamping station, and from the tamping station to a further processing station. This reduces the cycle times for the completion of a brush.

• - 1 eine Bürstenherstellungsmaschine aus dem Stand der Technik in einer schematischen Draufsicht;
• - 2 schematisch einen Schnitt entlang der Linie II-II von 1;
• - 3 in einer vergrößerten Ansicht eine Bearbeitungsstation mit einem aktuell bearbeiteten Borstengrundkörper und einem vorpositionierten, anschließend zu bearbeitenden Borstengrundkörper; und
• - 4 in einer schematischen Draufsicht eine erfindungsgemäße Bürstenherstellungsmaschine.

The invention is described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. In these show:

• - 1 a brush manufacturing machine from the prior art in a schematic plan view;
• - 2nd schematically a section along the line II-II from 1 ;
• - 3rd an enlarged view of a processing station with a currently processed bristle base and a pre-positioned bristle base to be subsequently processed; and
• - 4th a schematic plan view of a brush manufacturing machine according to the invention.

In 4th An embodiment of a brush manufacturing machine according to the invention is shown. For those of them 1 to 3rd known components, the same reference numerals are used, and reference is made to the above explanations.

The difference between the in 4th shown in the brush manufacturing machine 1 to 3rd Brush manufacturing machine shown is that in the embodiment according to 4th there are two drilling stations, namely a drilling station 16A and a drilling station 16B .

The two drilling stations 16A , 16B just like the tamping station 18th from a controller 48 controlled.

Another difference between the brush manufacturing machine known from the prior art and that in 4th Brush manufacturing machine shown is that in the brush manufacturing machine according to the invention a cycle divider module 49 is provided. This is in the controller 48 integrated.

The cycle divider module is used to determine the cycle speed for the two drilling stations 16A , 16A to be specified, in a fixed reduction ratio relative to the cycle speed of the tamping station 18th . This reduction ratio corresponds to the ratio of the number of drilling stations to the number of tamping stations. In the embodiment shown, a tamping station 18th and two drilling stations 16A , 16B used. Accordingly, the cycle divider module is geared down 49 the cycle speed of the tamping station 18th in a ratio of 2: 1. In other words: the cycle speed of the drilling stations 16A , 16B is half the cycle speed of the tamping station.

The reduction ratio can be set depending on the configuration of the machine, but is constant during the operation of the machine.

In order to maintain a high cycle rate overall, each drilling station drills 16A , 16B half of the holes in a brush body 32 have to be drilled.

It can be provided that the brush body 32 in the drilling stations 16A , 16B be moved synchronously with each other so that the drilling station 16A the holes 1, 3, 5, 7, a row of holes in a brush base 32 drills while the drilling station 16B synchronously holes 2, 4, 6, 8, the same row of holes in another brush body 32 drills.

It can also be provided that the order in which one half of the holes from the drilling station 16A drilling is different from the order in which the drilling station 16B "Their" half of the holes drilled.

It is particularly preferred that all drilling stations are operated synchronously, that is to say drilling the same complete hole pattern simultaneously. This is explained below using 4th explained.

If you look at a specific brush body that is moved along the guide, it first hits the drilling station 16B . This drills (in this example at half the cycle speed like the tamping station 18th ) all holes that have to be drilled on a bristle base. For example, it catches on the left side of the brush body 32 and first drill all holes on the left side.

After the drilling station 16B the last hole in the left half of the brush body 32 has drilled, the carriage is moved so that the drilling station 16B a new brush body 32 is fed. Because the drilling station 16B always drills a complete hole pattern, the holes are now on the right half of the brush body 32 drilled, but on a "new" brush body.

The "old" brush body 32 is to the drilling station 16A transported further, where the holes are now drilled on the right half of the old brush body.

When this is complete, the carriages are moved forward again, leaving the drilling station 16A now drills the holes on the left side of the next brush body while the drilling station 16B drilled the holes on the right side of a "new" brush body.

It is crucial that each drilling station has the same amount of time to drill "its" holes as the darning station needs to do all the holes in a brush body 32 to fill with bristles.

QUOTES INCLUDE IN THE DESCRIPTION

This list of documents listed by the applicant has been generated automatically and is only included for the better information of the reader. The list is not part of the German patent or utility model application. The DPMA assumes no liability for any errors or omissions.

Patent literature cited

• DE 102014103599 A1 [0004]

Claims (8)

Method for brush production by means of a brush production machine which has a guide (26) along which several carriages (12) can be moved successively to several drilling stations (16A, 16B) and then to at least one tamping station (18), the drilling stations (16A, 16B) are operated simultaneously with the at least one tamping station (18) and the number of drilling cycles that each drilling station (16A, 16B) makes per time unit is equal to the number of tamping cycles of the at least one tamping station (18) in the same time unit by the ratio of the number of drilling stations to the number of tamping stations. Procedure according to Claim 1 , characterized in that exactly two drilling stations (16A, 16B) are provided which are operated at half the cycle speed as the tamping station (18). Procedure according to Claim 2 , characterized in that the hole pattern drilled by one of the drilling stations (16A, 16B) corresponds to the hole pattern drilled by the other drilling station (16B, 16A), shifted by a row of holes. Procedure according to Claim 3 , characterized in that exactly three drilling stations (16) are provided which are operated at a third of the cycle speed of the tamping station (18). Method according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the drilling stations (16) are operated synchronously with one another. Procedure according to Claim 5 , characterized in that all drilling stations (16A, 16B) drill exactly the same hole pattern, but the brush base bodies (32) are further adjusted when a drilling station has drilled a proportion of the hole pattern that corresponds to the cycle ratio. Method according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the carriages (12) within the two drilling stations (16A, 16B) and the tamping station (18) are simultaneously adjusted further. Brush manufacturing machine, in particular for carrying out the method according to one of the preceding claims, with a guide (26), a plurality of slides (12) which can accommodate one or more brush base bodies (32) and are adjustably received on the guide (26), a plurality of drilling stations ( 16A, 16B) and a tamping station (18), the guide (26) extending along the plurality of drilling stations (16A, 16B) and then along the tamping station (18), and with a controller (48) which comprises a cycle dividing module (49 ) which reduces a cycle speed of the tamping station (18) to a cycle speed of each drilling station (16A, 16B) which is an nth of the cycle speed of the drilling station (18), where n is the number of drilling stations (16A, 16B) in relation to the number of tamping stations (18).

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