JP2005058904A - Direction controllable small diameter pipe-inside washing device having endoscopic function or the like - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a washing device for washing the inside of a drain pipe and a technique for washing the inside of a pipe especially used in an underground drain passage of farmland. <P>SOLUTION: This washing device is formed into an integrated structure capable of performing pipe-inside washing work and pipe-inside inspecting or observing work at the same time using the same instrument and equipped with an endoscopic function, a direction controller, a washing or propelling high pressure fluid jet nozzle and a position detector. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI

Description

   The present invention relates to a cleaning device in a drain pipe, and more particularly to a technique for cleaning the pipe used in an underground drainage channel of agricultural land.

In the cleaning of a small-diameter pipe having an inner diameter of about 5 cm used for a conventional underground drainage channel for agricultural land, a single pipe without branching is mainly targeted. This is because there is no technique for controlling the forward direction of the route at the branching portion. For example, there is an example in which a cleaning device and a camera that can accidentally enter the branch pipe by manual operation are provided, and a self-propelled device and a cleaning device that are remotely operated on a monitor television are provided.
Noto 3027120 JP2001-269638

For example, underground drainage pipes for drainage of fields in the agricultural field include small diameter pipes with an inner diameter of about 5 cm. In this case, conventionally, an injection nozzle connected to the tip of the hose for high-pressure fluid is inserted from the drainage port of the pipe, and jet cleaning is performed to remove sludge and the like in the pipe.
In order to examine the condition inside the cleaned tube, the cleaning tool must be pulled out of the tube and the inspection instrument / device must be placed inside the tube.

In addition, there is currently no means for achieving the above-mentioned purpose in terms of the size of the equipment for the agricultural underdrain drainage pipe having a small diameter of 5 cm and a branch diameter of several hundred meters.
Even if the instrument can be swung in the left-right direction, if the instrument itself rotates in the tube, it will be smooth if the vertical direction in the tube is not known at this branching point or at the bent part of the tube. Direction operation is not possible.

In addition, in order to facilitate these operations, it is necessary to clean the vicinity of the head of the instrument to some extent, but the conventional in-pipe cleaning nozzle is equipped with a high-pressure fluid rear jet cleaning with a propulsion function of the nozzle itself, There is a hole for spray cleaning, and the tip spray force is quite strong, and there is a risk of damaging them if equipment is installed at the nozzle tip.

  In addition, when the instrument is retracted or pulled out from the tube, the entire cleaning tool, including the drive unit connected to the tip of the nozzle, can be smoothly cornered in the case of a small-diameter tube in the state where the direction of retraction is not observed at the bent part of the tube. There are difficulties that cannot be done.

  Furthermore, in this case, even if the instrument can be operated in the left-right direction and the vertical direction, the large stepped part of the instrument body may cause the foreign matter in the pipe, such as the groove, corner or plant root of the pipe inner wall, to be caught. This also becomes a problem when retreating.

  Another problem is that it is often unclear in which direction and how the pipes that are buried underground are laid, and the pipe is simply a straight line. For example, if the length of the hose in the pipe is known, the position of the tip can be easily grasped, but if the piping is branched in a complicated way and the positional relationship is unknown even in the drawing, the above work is in progress. However, it has a great economic burden, such as having to dig several places by searching for the approximate position.

In the case of an instrument consisting of an electric drive, the influence of high-pressure water from the nozzle hole must be excluded, but in order to provide a waterproof cover without impairing the various operability mentioned above, the selection of materials and both ends of the cover must be performed. The tightening method is an issue.

The structure of the in-pipe cleaning apparatus according to the present invention for realizing the above object will be described below.
The tube inner wall was cleaned, the tube was inspected and confirmed, and the unit was constructed so that it could be performed simultaneously with the same instrument.
For this purpose, first, an injection nozzle for high-pressure fluid connected to one end of the hose, an injection hole for both propulsion and cleaning functions, and a forward injection hole for securing the field of view of the camera of the main body head to be described later Is provided.
A drive device for guiding the spray nozzle into the branched pipe is required at the front of the nozzle. It is a series of structures described below.

1) The head of this series of structures is equipped with an ultra-compact camera (hereinafter referred to as a camera) with illumination (LED).
This camera displays the state of the front of the tube. However, the vertical direction in the tube cannot be identified from the projected image alone because the camera itself may rotate without permission due to twisting of the high-pressure hose. If the branch pipe cannot identify the vertical direction, and the swing direction cannot match the horizontal direction of the branch pipe, the swing direction cannot be operated.

2) Therefore, in order to solve this, a small sphere is put in front of the lens in the camera so that a part of the sphere is projected. That is, since the sphere is always positioned so as to indicate the vertically downward direction due to gravity, a part of the sphere in the image projected by the camera always indicates the vertically downward direction.
For example, if this (part of the ball) is an image and is shown on the right side, this camera is sleeping on the right side, and if it is shown on the top, it indicates that the camera is upside down. Therefore, the above-described direction operation is facilitated by operating the drive unit described later so that the position of the sphere of the image is reflected below.

As means for changing the posture of the above-mentioned illuminated camera, there are 1) a swing operation in a plane and 2) a rotation operation around the injection nozzle axis.
In order to operate the swing of 1), the bevel gear fixed to the pulley is driven by the bevel gear fixed to the micro motor, and one wire hung on the pulley is wound, and at the same time the other wire is loosened. As a result, the top is bent in the direction in which the wire is wound around a coil spring having an appropriate bending resistance.
2) The operation of rotating the illuminated camera around the axis of the injection nozzle is performed by injecting a pinion gear coupled to the output shaft of the motor fixed in the opposite direction to the frame to which the motor for swinging is fixed Engage with the pinion gear connected to the shaft and take the reaction force.

When the main body of the present invention is escaped (or retracted) from the pipe, if the hose for high-pressure fluid connected to the nozzle is pulled out as it is, the gear of the control device is engaged at the bent portion of the pipe or at the branch point. Retreating operation is extremely difficult in a situation where the state of the pipe in the retreating direction is not known. Therefore, if the meshing of the part of the bevel gear is pulled apart and released in order to facilitate the backward movement, the forward part from the frame becomes a neutral state, and it is easy to smoothly move backward according to the pipeline.

Detachment retreats the nozzle hose connected by a joint to the shaft of the second motor.
In the case of forward movement, the bevel gear is engaged again by a series of extrusions by nozzle injection. Further, when the injection is stopped, the teeth are engaged again in the same manner by the forward extension of the attached spring itself.

  The part from the head camera to the motor drive part is an electrical structure part and is covered with a waterproof material as will be described later, but the rear part is not covered, so the bent part of the tube Alternatively, at the branching portion, the joint portion is easily caught, and there is a risk of breakage if it is forcibly retracted. Therefore, in order to prevent this catch, the end of the cylinder of the drive unit is rounded.

  The position in the tube is not known only with a series of devices so far. As a means for detecting the position, an electromagnetic wave transmitter cable is provided, and the position is detected by a ground receiver.

Next, as for the injection nozzle, a plurality of rear injection holes for cleaning the tube are provided on the back of the nozzle body, and a few front injection holes are provided at the front of the main body.
The front injection hole is not for cleaning the tube, but for cleaning the vicinity of the lens of the head camera and ensuring the view of the camera. This is because if the front injection holes are increased, the injection force from the propulsion / cleaning rear injection holes becomes smaller.

Although it is the above-mentioned waterproof material, rubber has a problem that resistance to the flexibility of the apparatus main body is large, and a flexible resin material is processed and used.

The direction-controllable small-diameter tube cleaning device having an endoscopic function and the like according to the present invention is configured as described above, and thus can achieve the effects described below.
In the case of agricultural drainage pipes that have a small diameter of about 5 centimeters and that are intricately branched to several hundred meters, the cleaning operation and in-pipe inspection can proceed simultaneously, so that the efficiency is extremely high.
In addition, by adding an electromagnetic wave generation function, when the underground piping route is unknown, a piping diagram can be easily created by a detection operation using a receiver on the ground.
In addition, various trouble spots such as pipe slipping, bending, cracking and blockage due to foreign matter can be immediately grasped on the spot in a pinpoint manner, and the efficiency of repair work involving excavation is extremely high.

The best mode is as follows.

Although it is the best embodiment of the present invention, as has been described in various places so far, it has a small diameter of about 5 centimeters, has many branch pipes, and the underground arrangement of the pipes is unknown. A basic example of cleaning and inspecting a culvert drain pipe will be given and will be described below with reference to the following drawings.
FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing the whole of a tube cleaning apparatus (hereinafter referred to as this machine) showing the whole of the present invention.
2 to 15 show the structure of each main part of the machine in a continuous perspective view.
FIG. 16 is a diagram showing the control direction of this machine. FIG. 17 is a view showing a state of the waterproof cover of the apparatus. FIG. 18 is a situation diagram of using this machine.

This machine moves forward in the pipe with the propulsive force of the rear injection nozzle 45, but in the case of a branch pipe, it is not possible to control the direction at the branch point with this alone. It is necessary to decide the direction of travel.

For this purpose, as shown in FIG. 2, an ultra-small camera is required at the nozzle tip. This is composed of a lens unit 5 and a printed circuit board 4 that is printed and wired. Illumination is necessary in the dark tube. For this purpose, several LEDs (light emitting diodes) 2 are arranged around the lens unit 5. A cylindrical waterproof cap 1 is attached to the camera portion.

The rotation posture of the machine itself cannot be determined from only the images captured by the camera. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 5, a small sphere 5-2 is inserted in front of the lens 5-1 in the lens unit 5 so as to block a very small part of the visual field. As a result, the small sphere 5-2 is always vertically downward, and the image in the tube projected on the monitor TV on the ground projects a part of the small sphere 5-2 as a shadow. This shadow portion can be set vertically downward by rotating the camera of the camera so that it will be positioned at the center / lower of the screen by the drive device of the camera to be described later. If this vertically downward direction is determined, this 90-degree direction, that is, the left-right direction is determined automatically, and the propulsion direction operation of the branch pipe becomes easy. The camera is housed in the camera mounting case 6, and the camera wire 13 from the camera base 4 and the LED wire 3 of the LED 2 are inserted from the upper opening 6-1.
Next, the lid 7 is attached. FIG. 6 is a rear view of the camera base 4.

Regarding the structure for operating this machine as described above, as shown in FIG. 10, in the horizontal direction (or vertical direction), the bevel gear 25 (screw portion 25-1) attached to the shaft of the motor 26 is used. At the attachment), the bevel gear 24 and the pulley 22 coaxially connected to the bevel gear by the screw portion 24-1 are rotated. The pulley wire 23 wound around the pulley 22 passes through the top (9, 10, 11) and the hole of the lid 12 (17, 18 for the top 9), and ends at the holes 7-4 and 7-5 of the lid 7. Stopped. In addition, the wire is passed through the connecting wire 20-1 of the frame at a position of 90 degrees, and is similarly terminated by the holes 7-1 and 7-2 of the lid 7. FIG. 7 is a rear view of the lid 7.

  The electric wires 3 and 13 of the camera base 4 and the LED 2 are passed through the coil spring 14 that is passed through the central hole of the frame (the hole 21 for the frame 10). The cross sections of the frames (9, 10, 11) are shown as a vertical cross section XX in FIG. 8 and a horizontal cross section YY in FIG. With the wire 23 by the rotation of the pulley 22, the three pieces (9, 10, 11) all show the same direction of bending.

The lid 12 is fitted in the front inner 15-3, and these are located at the position AA with the pins (15-1, 15-2) on the driving inner 15-4 in the lateral direction with respect to AA. Fixed to move. The drive unit inner 15-4 houses a series of drive units including the pulley 22, the motors 26 and 27, and the pinion gears 30 and 31, and is further stored in the inner cover 15-5. When the motor 27 is activated, it will be described later.

As a result, the drive section inner 15-4 rotates in the inner cover 15-5.

  Next, shaft rotation, that is, control in the vertically downward direction, may be performed by rotating the motor 27 in FIG. 10 in the state identified in [0025]. The motor 27 and the motor 26 fix the joint frame 32 with an adhesive or the like therebetween. The motor 26 is housed in the same frame 32, and the motor 27 is positioned thereon. The pinion gear 30 is fastened and fixed to the frame 32 by the shaft 32-1 and the screw portion 30-1 of the gear 30. On the other hand, the pinion gear 31 is fastened and fixed to the motor 27 with a screw portion 31-1. The gear 30 and the gear 31 are engaged. Therefore, if the motor 27 is rotated, the rotation from the gear 30 to the camera head is integrated and the vertical direction can be controlled.

  As described above, the operation at the branching portion and the bending portion can be performed by controlling the swing direction and the shaft rotation. FIG. 16 shows this state.

Up to this point, this is the case of the forward movement of the machine, but in the case of backward movement, if the gears are kept engaged, the backward operation at the bending part and the branching part in the pipe cannot be seen. It is extremely difficult. Therefore, in order to escape (retreat) the machine from the pipe, the bevel gears 24 and 25 are separated from the meshed gears.

First, the motor pressing spring 16 is inserted between the recess 31-2 provided at the end of the pinion gear 31 and the recess 33-3 provided in the lid 33 (cross-sectional view in FIG. 12). Put in a state of being compressed to some extent. Do not fix. The pinion gear 30 is connected to the shaft 34 passed through the hole 33-5 of the lid 33 by bolt tightening 30-2. This shaft moves backward as soon as a hose 47 connected to a later-described injection nozzle 46 is pulled. A play of about 3 to 5 mm is provided between the end of the pinion gear 30 and the inner wall of the lid 33 in FIG. In a state where the propulsive force by the nozzle 46 is not working, the pinion gear 31 is pushed forward by the amount of the play by the motor pushing spring 16, and the bevel gear 25 of the motor 26 fixed integrally is engaged with the bevel gear 24. When the driving force is applied, the teeth are pushed and bite. In the case of reverse, the bevel gear 25 is separated from the bevel gear 24 by the amount of play. At this time, the pulley 22 is neutral, and the tops (9, 10, and 11) are freely oriented in the left-right direction. Accordingly, it is possible to easily escape (retreat) from the pipe along the shape of the bent portion and the branch portion. The motor 27 and the pinion gear 31-1 are notched in the slide portion 15-6 so as to be accommodated in the cylindrical drive portion inner case 15-4.

In FIG. 12, it is necessary to devise measures to prevent fluids such as water from entering the drive unit from between the shaft 34 passing through the shaft hole 33-5 of the lid 33. For this purpose, a cylindrical recess 33-1 is provided outside the lid 33, and a soft rubber ring 35 is passed through the shaft 34 to make the lid 36 a concave portion 33-2 for waterproofing. The previous wires (3, 13) and the wires (28, 29) of the motors (26, 27) pass through the holes 33-4, and this portion is waterproofed with a filler such as silicon.

The right end of the shaft 34 is fitted into the concave portion 37-1 of the joint 37 and is tightened and connected with a screw portion 37-3. The pin 40 passed through the hole 38-1 of the movable balance belt 38 and the washer 39 is inserted into the recess at the end of the joint 37 and tightened and connected by the screw portion 37-2 of the joint 37. The movable balance belt 38 serves to keep the balance of the operation of the joint belt 43 described below so that the entire machine can be smoothly bent at the bent and branched portions of the pipe.

  Next, as for the joint belt 43, the bolt 41 is passed through the hole 43-1. Further, a washer 44- is used to tighten and connect to a screw part 45-2 provided at the tip of the injection nozzle 45 of FIG. The joint belt 43 thus connected to the injection nozzle 45 is connected by bolts (43-2, 43-3) at the position B-B of the joint 37.

As described later, the electric wires (3, 13, 28, 29) coming out from the lid 33 of the cylinder of the drive unit are a part of the electric cable (12 cores) 47, and 2 electric wires per electric wire. Use a core wire. The electric cable 47 is bundled with the fluid hose 46.

  Further, the position of the machine in the pipe is detected by the cable of the electromagnetic wave emitter 48. The transmitted electromagnetic wave is detected by a ground receiver.

  Next, the injection nozzle 45 has an injection hole 45-3 for cleaning and propulsion on the back as shown in FIG. In addition, the injection hole 45-1 provided in the front part of the nozzle 45 of this machine is for the purpose of cleaning the portion of the waterproof cap 1 forward, and the number of holes is made to be a gentle injection of about 3 as shown in FIG. Yes.

This machine waterproofs the waterproof cap 1 at the tip to the drive unit cylinder 15 as shown in FIG.
The problem is the waterproof material, but in the case of rubber, it is difficult to bite by the wrinkle breakage of the waterproof cover 49 and the resistance to bendability at the top (9, 10, 11) part, so it is flexible The resin material is adopted.

FIG. 18 illustrates the state of use of the apparatus described so far.

It is a perspective view of the apparatus which shows the whole this invention. It is a perspective view which shows the structure of the camera part of this machine. It is a perspective view which shows the structure of the top which is a neck swing part of this machine. A coil spring disposed in the center of the frame, illumination (LED) passing through the inside, and a cable of the camera. It is a front view of the lens part which put the small ball for identifying a top-and-bottom direction. It is the figure which looked at the camera part from the back. It is the figure which looked at the camera cover from the back. It is sectional drawing which divided | segmented the center of the top of the perspective view, and was divided | segmented into length XX. It is sectional drawing which divided and saw the center of the top of the perspective view into YY. It is a perspective view which shows the structure of drive parts, such as a motor of this machine. It is a perspective view which shows the structure of the connection part of the drive part and injection nozzle of this machine. It is sectional drawing of the back end part (lid) of the case of the drive part of this machine. It is a figure which shows the position of the injection nozzle and electromagnetic wave generator of this machine. It is the figure which rotated and looked at the front part of the injection nozzle of this machine. It is the figure which rotated and looked at the back of the injection nozzle of this machine. It is the figure which showed the state of the bending by the direction control of this machine. It is the figure which showed the state of the waterproof cover of this machine. It is a situation figure of this machine use.

Explanation of symbols

1 Waterproof cap
2 LED (Light Emitting Diode)
3 LED wires
4 Camera base
5 Lens part
5-1 Lens
5-2 Small ball
6 Camera mounting case
6-1 Upper opening of the frame
7 Case lid
7-1 Hole for wiring
7-2 Connecting wire retaining hole
7-3 Connecting wire retaining hole
7-4 Pulley wire retaining hole
7-5 Pulley wire retaining hole
8 Substrate wire hole
9 frames
10 frames
11 frames
12 Lid
13 Cable for camera
14 Coil spring
15-1 pin
15-2 Pin 15-3 Front Inner 15-4 Drive Inner 15-5 Inner Cover 15-6 Slider 16 Motor Push Spring 17 Pulley Wire Hole 18 Pulley Wire Hole 19 Connection Wire Hole 20 Connection Wire Hole 20-1 Connection Wire 21 Top hole 22 Pulley
23 Pulley wire
24 Bevel gear
24-1 Screw part 25 Bevel gear
25-1 Screw part
26 motor
27 motor
28 Electric wires for motors
29 Electric wire 30 for motor 30 Pinion gear 30-1 Screw part 30-2 Bolt tightening 31 Pinion gear 31-1 Screw part 31-2 Recess 32 Joint frame 32-1 Shaft 33 Lid 33-1 Recess 33-2 Recess 33-3 Recess 33-4 Cord outlet hole 33-5 Shaft hole 34 Shaft bolt 35 Soft rubber ring 36 Lid 37 Joint 37-1 Recess 37-2 Screw part 37-3 Screw part 37-4 Screw part 38 Movable balance belt 38-1 Hole 39 Washer 40 Pin 41 Bolt 42 Washer 43 Joint belt 43-1 Hole 43-2 Bolt 43-3 Bolt 44 Washer 45 Injection nozzle 45-1 Injection hole 45-2 Screw part 45-3 Injection hole 45-4 Joint part 46 Hose 47 Electric cable 48 Electromagnetic wave emitter 49 Waterproof cover

Claims (4)

  Houses a jet nozzle with small holes for jetting high-pressure fluid before and after, a drive unit consisting of a motor and bevel gear for swing control at the tip of the nozzle, and a drive unit consisting of a motor for shaft rotation control and a bevel gear A small camera having a light emitting diode illuminating body in front of the foremost frame, and a plurality of direction control pieces that pass illumination and camera wires are connected by coil springs in front of the cylindrical body. An apparatus for cleaning a small-diameter pipe having an introspection function, comprising a cylindrical main body to be deployed, and having an electromagnetic wave generating device for position confirmation of the cylindrical main body.   2. A detection unit (having an endoscopic function) formed by inserting a small sphere for irregularly reflecting light in order to indicate a vertical direction in the tube into a frame so as to be freely fallable in front of the lens of the camera unit. Small diameter pipe cleaning equipment.   The small diameter pipe cleaning apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a releasing device that releases the meshing of the gears constituting the direction control driving unit and releases the restraint by the wire of the top. The small-diameter tube cleaning device according to claim 1, wherein the camera unit, the frame unit, and the drive unit are protected by a waterproof sheet.

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