JP2001009336A - Apparatus and method for measuring and applying extremely small amount of highly viscous liquid - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an apparatus and a method for measuring and applying an extremely small amount of a highly viscous liquid with which a highly viscous liquid in an extremely small amount (e.g. 0.1 mg or lower) can precisely be measured and applied to a coating object body at high application precision (e.g. within ±20%) and the coating process can be carried out automatically. SOLUTION: This apparatus is provided with a measuring plate 10 having a measuring through hole 10a equivalent to a prescribed extremely small amount, a filling apparatus for filling the measuring through hole with a highly viscous liquid 6, and a spraying apparatus for spraying the highly viscous liquid filled in the through hole from one end side toward a coating object by applying pressure to the other end of the measuring through hole with a pressurized gas. The highly viscous liquid 6 is filled in the measuring through hole 10a by pressure and the filling highly viscous liquid 6 is sprayed by a pressurized gas to apply the liquid 6 to a coating object 1.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for measuring a very small amount of a highly viscous liquid such as grease and applying the same to an object to be coated such as a bearing.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art High-viscosity liquids such as grease and adhesives are used.
The technology to efficiently and accurately apply components such as bearings
Required in every industry. Conventionally, for the measurement / application of such a high-viscosity liquid, for example, (a) an ultra-compact mono pump, (b) a measurement valve, and the like have been used.

[0003] An ultra-small mono pump is a kind of screw pump in which a high-viscosity liquid is held between a spiral screw shaft and a casing, and the high-viscosity liquid is supplied in the axial direction by rotation of the screw shaft. ing. Since this ultra-small mono pump can supply a high-viscosity liquid in proportion to the rotation of the screw shaft, the supply flow rate can be accurately controlled by controlling the number of rotations.

On the other hand, the metering valve is, as exemplified in FIG.
The main plunger 2a and the pilot plunger 2b are provided, and the high-viscosity liquid supplied from the pump 3 is closed except for the discharge port by the operation of the pilot plunger 2b, and the high-viscosity liquid confined inside the nozzle 5 is operated by the operation of the main plunger 2a. Is discharged from the nozzle. In this drawing, 4a and 4b are pneumatic switching valves.

As shown in FIG. 6, a high-viscosity liquid is metered and applied using this metering valve 2 as shown in FIG.
Is moved right below the nozzle 5, (b) the nozzle is lowered,
(C) discharging the high-viscosity liquid by using the metering valve 2, raising the nozzle (d), and (e) suctioning back the high-viscosity liquid in the nozzle by suction, so that the object 1 to be coated has a substantially constant height. A viscous liquid was being applied.

[0006]

In recent years, in some industries, models have been reduced in size and weighed, and there has been a demand for accurately and surely applying a very small amount of a high-viscosity liquid to these components. I have. For example, for an autofocus camera, a small printer, a copying machine, and the like, there is an increasing demand for a micro bearing having a diameter of only a few millimeters (4 mm in this example) as illustrated in FIG. In this figure, (A) is a plan view,
(B) is a sectional view.

[0007] Even such an ultra-small bearing,
It is necessary to apply an appropriate amount of lubricating grease to the cage between the balls as in a normal bearing. However, with the above-mentioned conventional measuring / applying means, it is practically impossible to perform both (a) accurate measurement of an extremely small amount and (b) accurate application of the measured high-viscosity liquid.

That is, the microminiature pump is difficult to miniaturize due to its complicated structure, and has a practical minimum flow rate of about 1 g (1000 mg). 0.014 mg-0.
A very small amount of 07 mg could not be applied at all.

Further, even in the metering / applying means using the metering valve illustrated in FIGS. 5 and 6, the components (the main plunger 2a and the pilot plunger 2a) constituting the metering valve are provided.
Due to the size limit of b), miniaturization could only be achieved up to about 1 mg to 5 mg. As shown in FIG. 6, the amount of the high-viscosity liquid applied to the object 1 depends on the adhesive strength of the high-viscosity liquid. It was very difficult to maintain within%.

Therefore, conventionally, neither (a) the microminiature pump or (b) the metering valve can be applied to the measurement / application of the high-viscosity liquid to the microminiature bearing or the like. A viscous liquid was applied and the weight was measured with a balance or the like. However, manual weighing / coating is not only inefficient and unsuitable for mass production, but also has problems in that weighing errors are large, and there are many variations and errors in the coating position.

The present invention has been made to solve such a problem. That is, an object of the present invention is to accurately measure a very small amount (for example, 0.1 mg or less) of a high-viscosity liquid and apply it to the object 1 with high application accuracy (for example, within ± 20%), and It is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and a method for measuring a very small amount of a highly viscous liquid which can be automated.

[0012]

According to the present invention, there is provided a measuring plate (10) having a measuring through hole (10a) corresponding to a predetermined very small amount, and the measuring through hole is filled with a high-viscosity liquid (6). And a jetting device (9) for pressurizing one end of the measuring through hole with a pressurized gas and jetting the filled high-viscosity liquid from the other end toward the object to be coated. A feature of the present invention is an apparatus for measuring a minute amount of a high viscosity liquid.

According to the present invention, a high-viscosity liquid (6)
A high-viscosity liquid, which is filled into a measuring through-hole (10a) corresponding to a very small amount under pressure, and the filled high-viscosity liquid is sprayed and discharged by a pressurized gas to apply the liquid to a body to be coated (1). Is provided.

According to the apparatus and method of the present invention, as a means for measuring an extremely small amount, a measuring through hole (10a) provided in a measuring plate (10) is used, and the volume of the hole is accurately controlled. Then, the hole is filled with a very small amount of a high-viscosity liquid that is roughly measured. At this time, the high-viscosity liquid that has protruded out of the measuring plate is removed by a scraper device or the like, and the high-viscosity liquid is accurately held in a fixed volume in the hole. In the next step, air is supplied to the hole by pressurized gas, and the high-viscosity liquid filled in the hole is spray-coated on the object to be coated. By this means, the volume of the hole of the weighing plate becomes the weighed amount, and accurate weighing can be performed. With the improvement of the hole processing technology, the measurement through hole can process an extremely thin long hole with high accuracy, and thus a very small amount of measurement can be performed.

According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the filling device (8) comprises an injector (12) for holding one end of the metering through-hole in an airtight manner, and a predetermined minute amount of fine liquid in the metering through-hole through the injector. A liquid pumping device for pumping the above-mentioned high-viscosity liquid and a scraper device (20) for removing the high-viscosity liquid protruding from the measuring through hole are provided. With this configuration, even in the case of a very fine measuring through-hole, the high-viscosity liquid can be reliably filled by pressure feeding, and the high-viscosity liquid protruding from the measuring through-hole is removed by shearing with the scraper device (20). The high-viscosity liquid can be accurately held in a constant volume in the hole.

Further, the injection device (9) includes a pump (16) for holding one end of the measuring through hole in an airtight manner, and a gas pumping device for pumping pressurized gas to the measuring through hole through the pump. . With this configuration, even in the case of a very fine metering through hole, the entire amount of the high-viscosity liquid filled in the hole can be ejected from the metering through hole by the pressurized gas to be applied to the object to be coated.

[0017]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. In each of the drawings, common portions are denoted by the same reference numerals, and redundant description will be omitted.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the configuration of a weighing plate constituting an ultra-small-quantity small-quantity coating device according to the present invention. In this figure, a weighing plate 10 is a disk that can be rotated horizontally about a vertical central axis, and a plurality of (16 in this example) measuring through holes 10a are provided on the circumference, and the disk is moved in the arrow direction. By rotating to
Each of them is accurately positioned at the positions A to H, and can cope with a flow operation at the time of mass-production of the object to be coated (for example, the ultra-small bearing in FIG. 7). In addition, the form of the measuring plate 10 is not limited to a circular plate, and may be an elongated flat plate or the like as necessary. Further, in this example, the disk is positioned horizontally, but may be positioned diagonally or vertically (vertically).

A measuring through hole 10a provided in the measuring plate 10
Is set so that its volume corresponds to a predetermined very small amount. For example, when the diameter is 0.3 mm and the length is 1 mm, the volume is about 0.00007 cc, and when the specific gravity of the high viscosity liquid is 1, it is 0.07 mg. Therefore, by adjusting the diameter d and the length L, 0.014 mg to
It can be seen that it is possible to set a very small amount of the through hole 10a of 0.07 mg.

FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram of a filling apparatus constituting the apparatus of the present invention. As shown in this figure, the filling device 8
The apparatus includes an injector 12, a liquid pumping device, and a scraper device 20.

In positions B1 and B2, the injector 1
2 is provided with a leakage prevention seal 12a on its end face, so that one end of the metering through hole 8a can be kept airtight. The liquid pumping device comprises a valve 13 and an injector moving cylinder 14. The valve 13 is preferably a metering valve, and pumps a predetermined very small amount or more of a high-viscosity liquid pumped from the pump 13a through the injector 12 to the metering through hole 10a. The injector moving cylinder 14 is provided with a valve 14a for operating the cylinder, and is pressed against one surface (the upper surface in the figure) of the measuring plate 10 to keep the airtight between them, or
The weighing plate 10 can be freely moved away from zero.

The scraper device 20 is composed of a pair of scraper plates provided on both sides of the measuring plate 10 and shears the high-viscosity liquid 6 protruding from the measuring through hole 10a when moving from the positions B1 and B2 to the position C. And remove it.

FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram of the injection device constituting the device of the present invention. As shown in FIG.
A pump 16, a pump moving cylinder 17, and a gas pumping device are provided.

In the position G, the pressure feeder 16 is provided with a seal 16a for preventing leakage of pressurized gas (for example, compressed air) on its end face, so that one end of the metering through hole 10a can be held airtight. Pump cylinder 17
Is equipped with a valve 17a for operating a cylinder,
0 is pressed against one surface (the upper surface in the figure) to keep the space airtight, or the measuring plate 10 can be freely moved by being separated from the measuring plate 10. The gas pumping device comprises a pressurized gas feed valve 18 and a pressurized gas reservoir 19,
The pressurized gas is fed to the measuring through-hole 10a through the pressure-feeding hole 6.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram showing the method of the present invention. Hereinafter, the operation of the above-described metering device will be described with reference to FIG.

The weighing / filling operation is sequentially performed at positions A to H shown in FIG. That is, the measurement through hole 10a of the fixed amount plate 10 is positioned at the position A, and filling is started at the next position.

In the position B (consisting of B1 and B2 for the sake of explanation), the injector 12 is lowered by the operation of the valve 14a and the injector moving cylinder 14, and is pressed against the metering plate 10 at an appropriate pressure. This pressure is set at a pressure at which the internal high-viscosity liquid does not leak outside through the seal 12a.

Next, the high-viscosity liquid 6 which is measured by the valve 13 and is larger than a predetermined very small amount is pressure-fed by the pump 13a, and is supplied through the injector 12 to the measuring through hole 10 of the measuring plate 10.
a. Excess high-viscosity liquid 6 when filled in measuring through-hole 10a is collected in surplus receiver 15 provided below measuring plate 10.

When the operation of the valve 13 is completed, the injector 12 is raised by the operation of the valve 14a and the injector moving cylinder 14, and is separated from the weighing plate 10. Next, the weighing plate 10 is rotated to the position C.

At the position C, the excess of the high viscosity liquid 6 such as x and y adheres to the upper and lower sides of the measuring plate 10, and is removed by the scraper device 20. As a result, as shown in the position E in FIG. 4, a very small amount of the high-viscosity liquid determined in the measuring through hole in the measuring plate 10 is filled.

At the position F, it is confirmed by the optical sensor composed of the optical sensor light emitting body 11 and the optical sensor light receiving body 12 that the filling into the measuring through hole 10a is completed. When the light sensor light receiver 12 does not detect the transmitted light from the light sensor light emitter 11, it can be determined that the light is normal.

At the position G, the pump 16 is lowered by the operation of the valve 17a and the pump moving cylinder 17, and a suitable pressure is applied to the metering plate 10 (a pressure at which the internal pressurized gas does not leak outside due to the seal 6a). Is crimped.

Next, the pressurized gas pressure feed valve 18 is opened, and pressurized gas (compressed air) in the pressurized gas reservoir 19 is sent into the pressure feeder 16. This pressurized gas is supplied to the measurement through hole 10a of the measurement plate 10.
In order to pressurize the end surface of the high-viscosity liquid 6 filled in the liquid, the filled high-viscosity liquid is instantaneously ejected / discharged from the measuring plate 10.

The object to be coated 1 is arranged below the weighing plate 10. Therefore, the discharged high-viscosity liquid 6 is applied to the object 1 accurately. When the application is completed, the pressurized gas pressure delivery valve 18 closes. Valve 17a and pumping cylinder 17
When the pump 16 rises and separates from the weighing plate 10, the weighing plate 10 is rotated by an appropriate method, and the high viscosity liquid 6 in the weighing through hole 10a is rotated by the optical sensors 23 and 24 at the position H.
Make sure that has been discharged. Photosensor light receiver 2
4 can be determined to be normal when the transmitted light from the optical sensor light emitter 23 is detected. By repeating the positions A to H in this manner, the measurement / application of the high-viscosity liquid 6 can be continuously performed, and automation can be performed.

According to the apparatus and method of the present invention described above,
As a means for measuring a very small amount, a measuring through hole 10a provided in the measuring plate 10 is used, the volume of the hole is accurately controlled, and a very small amount of the highly viscous liquid 6 roughly measured in the hole is measured.
Fill. At this time, the high-viscosity liquid 6 which has protruded out of the measuring plate is removed by the scraper device 20 or the like, and the high-viscosity liquid is accurately held in a fixed volume in the hole. In the next step, air is supplied to this hole by pressurized gas, and the high-viscosity liquid 6 filled in the hole is spray-coated on the object 1 to be coated. By this means, the volume of the measurement through hole 10a of the measurement plate 10 becomes the measured amount, and accurate measurement can be performed. With the improvement of the hole processing technology, the measurement through hole can process an extremely thin long hole with high accuracy, and thus a very small amount of measurement can be performed.

It should be noted that the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and it goes without saying that various changes can be made without departing from the spirit of the present invention.

[0037]

As described above, the ultra-small amount metering application apparatus and method of the present invention can accurately measure an extremely small amount of high-viscosity liquid and apply it to the object 1 with high application accuracy. In addition, it has excellent effects such as automation.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a weighing plate constituting an apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram of a filling device constituting the device of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram of an injection device constituting the device of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram illustrating the method of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a configuration diagram of a conventional high-viscosity liquid measuring and applying apparatus.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory view of a measuring / coating method of the apparatus of FIG.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a specific example of an object to which the present invention is applied.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Coated body (ultra-small bearing) 2 Measuring valve 2a Main plunger 2b Pilot plunger 3 Pump 4a, 4b Pneumatic switching valve 5 Nozzle 6 High viscosity liquid (grease) 8 Filling device 9 Injection device 10 Measuring plate 10a Measuring through hole 12 Injector 16 Pumper 20 Scraper device

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page F term (reference) 4D075 AA02 AA74 AA78 AA83 CA47 DA31 DB02 DC16 EA05 EA35 EA37 4F033 BA03 CA07 DA05 EA01 PA18 PC07 QA05 QB02X QC04 4F040 AA17 AB01 AB11 AB20 BA03 CA03 DB10 DB22 ABA4A04A04 BA36 BA38 BA56 BA59

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A measuring plate (10) having a measuring through hole (10a) corresponding to a predetermined minute amount, a filling device (8) for filling the measuring through hole with a high-viscosity liquid (6), and a measuring through hole An injection device (9) for injecting a high-viscosity liquid filled by pressurizing one end of the hole with a pressurized gas toward the object to be coated from the other end, and measuring an extremely small amount of the high-viscosity liquid. Coating device. 2. The filling device (8) is an injector (12) for holding one end of the metering through hole in an airtight manner, and pumps a predetermined very small amount or more of a high viscosity liquid through the injector to the metering through hole. 2. The micrometer metering and coating device according to claim 1, further comprising a liquid pumping device and a scraper device (20) for removing the high viscosity liquid protruding from the metering through hole. 3. The injection device (9) includes a pump (16) for holding one end of the metering through hole in an airtight manner, and a gas pumping device for pumping a pressurized gas through the pump to the metering through hole. 2. The ultra-small quantity metering application apparatus according to claim 1, wherein: 4. A high-viscosity liquid (6) is pressurized and filled into a measuring through hole (10a) corresponding to an extremely small amount, and the filled high-viscosity liquid is ejected and discharged by a pressurized gas to form an object to be coated (1). Coating method for measuring a very small amount of a high viscosity liquid.