EP0339300B1 - Combing machine working head monitoring system - Google Patents

Description

This invention relates to a combing machine having a plurality of work stations, each work station being provided with means for combining a combed nonwoven into a band, said means being movable between a working position and one or more other positions.

It is known to monitor the workplaces of a combing machine and to switch off the machine if an “undesirable” condition is found at one of the workplaces (also called “single head” here). The undesirable condition can be, for example, a thick spot or a thin spot in the band supplied by the single head. From the E 7/5 by Rieter, Winterthur, monitoring via a light barrier is known which monitors the pivoting movement of the tables of all workplaces at which the combed fleece is brought together to form a band.

Such shutdown devices are sufficient to monitor the quality of the end product of the combing machine. However, they do not provide any information regarding the operating states of the individual heads and are therefore not sufficient for complete monitoring in a modern automated spinning mill. In addition, a light barrier that extends across the entire machine width of the individual workstations is susceptible to any malfunction that occurs within the scanning range. This disorder can e.g. by the interruption of the light beam by a brief handle or by other elements. It is the object of this invention to substantially increase the availability of information regarding the operating states of the individual heads of a comber in the area of a means for combining a combed fleece into a band and to ensure trouble-free monitoring.

Together with the prior art, the invention sees one Monitoring device for a comber with a plurality of work stations, each work station being provided with means for combining a combed fleece into a band. The monitoring device is characterized in that an individual monitoring device is assigned to each work station in order to individually monitor the current state of each work station during operation and means are available to send the signals of the respective monitoring device to a control center with a display device for displaying one from a single work station caused interference to transmit.

The means for summarizing the fleece is usually formed from a funnel, the fleece running over a dining table to the funnel. This means (funnel) can be between one Working position and one or more other positions can be movably arranged, so that the agent moves from its working position to another position when the fleece to be summarized by the agent has a predetermined, undesirable condition on arrival at the agent, for example a thick spot or contains a thin spot. The means can for example be arranged rotatably between a working position and with one or more other positions. The individual monitoring device for the single head can then be arranged to monitor the position of the fleece-monitoring agent.

Such a monitoring device can contain two parts, one part, e.g. a sleeve is connected to the movable means consisting of a funnel attached to a table and the other part, e.g. an axis that is placed stationary on the machine frame. One or the other part is then formed as a sensor in order to react to the current position of the parts relative to one another. The sensor can e.g. deliver a first signal when the parts assume a first position corresponding to the working position of the movable means and a second signal when the parts move relative to each other from this first position.

The sensor can preferably be designed as a light barrier, which is attached to the sleeve and monitors via an element attached to a fixed axis.

Signal transmission means are preferably provided to receive signals from the individual monitoring means forward to a common data collection. The data acquisition can be housed in an end head of the machine and can record a display of the operating state of the machine. The data acquisition can be formed to enumerate the disturbances caused by the individual heads in order to enable information about changes in the operating states of the individual heads to be collected over time.

• Figur 1: Eine Kämmaschine des Typs E7/5 der Anmeldefirma in Längsrichtung gesehen und im schematischen Querschnitt gezeigt,
• Figur 2: Eine schematische perspektivische Darstellung des Auslauftisches und benachbarte Teile der Maschine von Figur 1,
• Figur 3: Eine schematische Darstellung eines Ueberwachungsgerätes gemäss der Erfindung für einen in Figur 2 gezeigten Einzelkopf der Maschine zusammen mit der Signalübertragung an ein zentrales Erfassungssystem,
• Figur 4: Einen Querschnitt durch das Gerät von Figur 3,
• Figur 5 und 6: Entsprechende Darstellungen einer Alternativlösung gemäss der Erfindung, und
• Figur 7: Eine Ansicht eines Teils der Variante von Figur 5 und 6.

An embodiment of the invention will now be described with reference to the drawings. It shows:

• FIG. 1: A combing machine of the type E7 / 5 of the application company seen in the longitudinal direction and shown in a schematic cross section,
• FIG. 2: a schematic perspective illustration of the outlet table and adjacent parts of the machine from FIG. 1,
• 3 shows a schematic illustration of a monitoring device according to the invention for a single head of the machine shown in FIG. 2 together with the signal transmission to a central detection system,
• FIG. 4: a cross section through the device from FIG. 3,
• Figures 5 and 6: Corresponding representations of an alternative solution according to the invention, and
• Figure 7: A view of part of the variant of Figures 5 and 6.

The machine frame is shown schematically at 10 in FIG. The frame carries a plurality (usually 8) individual jobs (individual heads), each job containing at least the following elements:
Feed rollers 12 for unrolling a feed winder 14 in order to feed the wadding 15 (FIG. 2) into the working elements,
Comb mechanism 16 with clamping pliers, comb elements and corresponding drives (not individually indicated) - these elements are known and are therefore not described in more detail here,
a tear-off system 18, which is also known and is therefore not described in detail.

The tear-off system 18 produces a combed fleece 20 (FIG. 2), which is conveyed from take-off rollers 22 to means 24 for combining the fleece and for forming a belt 26 supplied by the individual head. The belts 26 supplied by the individual heads run together via an outlet table 28 to the end head of the machine (not shown), where they are drawn into a belt supplied by the machine in a known manner by a drafting device (not shown). The further processing of this tape is not the subject of this invention and is therefore not described here.

The means 24 consists of a dining table 30 (Figure 2) and a funnel 32 (Figure 1) carried by the table 30 together with a pair of belt take-off rollers 34 (Figure 1), of which a roller on the table 30 and the other is mounted on the frame. The means 24 shown in the figures is formed as a so-called bias tape take-off, ie the hopper 32 and the tape take-off roller pair 34 are arranged laterally from the central plane (perpendicular to the longitudinal direction of the machine), but this is not essential to the invention.

On the side near the hopper 32 and the pair of belt take-off rollers 34, the table 30 with the aforementioned elements carried by it is supported by a sleeve 36 (FIG. 2) on a stationary axis 38 carried by the frame 10 and extending in the longitudinal direction of the machine (FIG. 1) supported. The sleeve 36 is rotatably mounted on the axis 38 so that the unit 24 (table 30, funnel 32, belt take-off roller) can move about the axis 38 between a working position and two fault positions. For this purpose, the table 30 is pushed about the axis 38 by a compression spring device (not shown) in the counterclockwise direction (viewed in the direction of view of FIG. 1), i.e. the free end of the table near the take-off rollers 22 (Figure 1) is pushed up. This feature is already known in the E7 / 5 machine and is therefore not described in detail here.

In operation, the material combined by the funnel 32 exerts a force on the unit 24 which counteracts the pressure generated by springs. In the normal operating state, this force is sufficient to compress a first spring of the device, not shown, so that the table 30 assumes a "working position" (FIG. 2) between an uppermost and a lowermost position (not shown). In the case of a thin spot in the fleece (outside a predetermined Tolerance limit), the force exerted by the material is no longer sufficient to counteract the spring pressure, so that the table 30 is pushed further upwards (counterclockwise as viewed in FIG. 1) by the spring device. This movement is limited by a balance of forces.

In the case of a thick spot in the fleece (outside a certain tolerance limit), the force exerted by the material on the unit 24 increases, so that the table 30 is rotated downward (looking clockwise from FIG. 1) about the axis 38. A second spring of the spring device is compressed even further, which ultimately limits this rotary movement of the table by balancing forces.

It is known to monitor such rotary movements of the tables 30 from their working positions by means of a light barrier common to all working heads and to switch off the machine as soon as a rotating movement of a dining table 30 from its working position is determined. This known monitoring prevents quality fluctuations in the product delivered by the machine, but does not provide any information about the current operating states of the individual heads. A first modification of the known arrangement to enable the last function will now be described with reference to FIGS. 3 and 4.

FIG. 3 schematically shows a disk 40 carried by the stationary axis 38 and a housing 42 carried by the table 30. A rod 43 fastened in the housing 42 carries a light barrier 45 with a slot 44, a light transmitter 46 and a light receiver 48 facing each other on the opposite sides of the slot 44. A light beam transmitted by the transmitter 46 is therefore received by the receiver 48 unless an obstacle is moved between these two elements. Such an obstacle is mounted in the form of a pin 50 (FIG. 3, shown in FIG. 4, but not specifically indicated) on the disk 40 and moves along the slot 44 when the housing 42 rotates about the axis 38 with the table 30 as previously described.

When the table 30 is in its normal working position (Figure 2), the pin 50 lies between the transmitter 46 and the receiver 48 to interrupt the light beam emitted by the transmitter 46. However, when the table 30 moves up or down from its working position (rotates about the axis 38), the pin 50 moves along the slot 44 to an appropriate extent. Depending on the bundling of the light beam and the dimensions of the pin 50, the optical device 46, 48 is "released" in the course of such a movement of the pin 50, i.e. the light beam from the transmitter 46 can reach the receiver 48. The signal state of the reception 48 is changed accordingly.

Each light receiver 48 is connected to a central data acquisition 56 via a corresponding signal line 52 via a respective time delay element 54. The time delay element 54 prevents an immediate reaction to a very brief movement of the table 30, so that the machine is not switched off unnecessarily. When the table 30 returns from its fault position to its normal position within a period of time determined by the element 54 Moved to the working position, the element 54 is reset by the light receiver 48, so that no interference signal reaches the central data acquisition 56. In contrast, if the table 30 remains in a fault position for the aforementioned period, the element 54 transmits a corresponding fault signal to the control center 56. The control center switches off the machine and stores a corresponding defect status signal. Such fault reports can be added individually to the individual heads in order to represent the operating conditions over a desired period of time, for example a shift, a week, a month, etc. The aggregation of such data provides important information about the status of the individual heads, for example it shows whether a specific individual head is constantly causing interference.

The control center 56 can also contain a display means (not shown) which displays the fault message and the corresponding individual head. The operation can therefore go directly to the corresponding job.

Figures 5 to 7 show a modification of the embodiment of Figures 3 and 4, wherein identical parts with the same and similar parts are indicated with similar reference numerals. The housing 42A is shown open in Figure 5 to show the modified disc 40A carried by the axle 38. In this case, the light barrier 45 is mounted directly on the housing 42A and the pane 40A itself protrudes into the slot 44 (FIG. 6) of the light barrier 45. The part of the pane 40A which extends into the light barrier is itself provided with a slot 60 (FIG. 7) in order to match the working position to that of the transmitter 46 (not shown in Figures 5 and 6) to transmit transmitted light beam. The receiver 48, not shown, reacts to this light beam and sends a corresponding signal via the signal lines 52 (FIG. 3, not shown in FIGS. 5 and 6). Upon a previously described rotational movement of the table 30, the housing 42A rotates about the axis 38 so that the slot 60 is no longer between the transmitter and the receiver. The light beam is accordingly interrupted by the pane 40A, which is reported by the receiver to the central data acquisition 56 (FIG. 3).

The disc 40A is provided with "shoulders" 62 and the housing 42A with corresponding closable openings. A suitable setting instrument can be carried out through an opening 64 in order to enable the angular position of the disk 40A (the slot 60) with respect to the light barrier 45 after loosening a screw 66.

The invention is not restricted to the details of the embodiment shown. The monitoring of the fleece-summarizing agent (aggregates 24) is advantageous in that the state of this aggregate represents a summary of the operating states of the individual head as a whole. A single monitoring device at this point in the working head is sufficient where a plurality of points would have to be monitored in the preceding process of combing.

Claims (10)

1. A monitoring device for a combing machine with a plurality of processing positions, with each processing position being provided with means (24) for joining a combed fleece (20) into a sliver (26), characterized in that each processing position is allocated a separate monitoring device so as to separately monitor the momentary condition of each processing position during the operation and that means are provided so as to transmit the signals of the respective monitoring device to a central unit with a display device for displaying a malfunction caused at any individual processing position.
2. A monitoring device as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that the central unit comprises a data acquisition means.
3. A monitoring device as claimed in claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the signal transmission comprises a time delay element so that a malfunction signal will be advanced to the central unit only when the malfunction consistently remains over a extended period defined by the element.
4. A monitoring device as claimed in one of the claims 1 to 3, characterized in that the means (24) for joining the fleece (20) is movable between a processing position and one or several other positions and that the position of said means (24) is monitored by the monitoring device.
5. A monitoring device as claimed in claim 4, characterized in that the means is rotatable between the said positions.
6. A monitoring device as claimed in claim 5, characterized in that the means (24) consists of a funnel (32) carried by a table (30), with the table being swivellably held through a bearing element (36) about a fixed axle (38).
7. A monitoring device as claimed in claim 6, characterized in that the table (30) is held in a position through spring elements and that the position is monitored through the monitoring device with respect to the fixed axle (38).
8. A monitoring device as claimed in claim 7, characterized in that the monitoring device consists of a bushing (42) attached to the table (30) and arranged coaxially to the axle (38), on which bushing a sensor (459 is attached which monitors the rotary movement of the table (30) about the axle (38) in cooperation with an element (40, 50.44, 40a) connected to the axle (38).
9. A monitoring device as claimed in claim 8, characterized in that the sensor (45) consists of a light barrier.
10. A monitoring device as claimed in claim 8 or 9, characterized in that the sensor (45) and/or the element (40, 50, 44, 40A) are adjustable with respect to their position.

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