JP2005349543A - Screw supplying device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a screw supplying device sufficiently supplying small screws and quickly taking out screws, without expanding a clearance between a side wall of a casing adjacent to a screw storing portion and a rotating drum, when supplying the small screws into a through-hole provided on the rotating drum. <P>SOLUTION: The screw supplying device 10 comprises the storing portion 13 for storing screws, a discharging portion 14 having a guide rail 25 aligning and moving the screws discharged from the storing portion 13, and a bit guide 32 disposed at a screw outlet portion provided on the guide rail 25. At a part of the casing adjacent to the storing portion 13, a notch portion 27 facilitating feeding of the screws into the storing portion 13 is formed. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

The present invention relates to a screw supply device that is a simple screw supply device installed in an assembly line, and that allows a plurality of screws housed in a screw housing portion to be taken out in parallel and taken out one by one.

Conventionally, as this type of screw supply device, for example, Japanese Patent No. 2997865 (see Patent Document 1) is known. As shown in FIGS. 8 and 9, the screw supply device 1 includes a screw accommodating portion 2 having a box-shaped space, and the screw accommodating portion 2 is formed by a mountain-shaped guide rail 3 that divides the central portion. Divided into left and right. Push-up members 4a and 4b that are alternately raised on the bottom surface of the screw accommodating portion 2 are provided, and a number of small screws 5 placed on the inclined upper surfaces of the push-up members 4a and 4b are carried up above the guide rail 3. Slide down on guide rail 3. Above the guide rail 3, a brush member 8 that swings in the left-right direction around the support shaft 7 is provided. The guide rail 3 extends to the tip of a drive unit 9 provided adjacent to the screw accommodating unit 2, and a screw take-out unit 10 is provided at the tip weaving unit.
A part of the small screw 5 sprayed on the guide rail 3 from the left and right push-up members 4a and 4b is inserted into the screw groove 8 of the guide rail 3 at the same time as the shaft portion 5a, and the head 5b of the screw groove 8 It is supported at the opening edge. On the other hand, the small screw 5 remaining on the guide rail 3 without being inserted into the screw groove 8 of the guide rail 3 is removed from the guide rail 3 by the brush member 6. The machine screw 5 inserted into the screw groove 8 of the guide rail 3 reaches the screw take-out part 10 while gradually moving on the guide rail 3, and is taken out by the bit operation of the assembly line operator.
However, in the screw supply device 1 described above, the small screws 5 are scattered on the guide rails 3 from the push-up members 4a and 4b, and the small screws 5 are inserted into the guide rails 3 while being brushed by the brush member 6. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 10, the head 5b of the machine screw 5 may be caught in the screw groove 8 of the guide rail 3. In particular, as shown in FIG. 10, when a small screw 5 having a diameter of the head portion 5b and a length of the shaft portion 5a that are substantially the same and a large thickness of the head portion 5b is caught. Even if the brush member 8 is used, the brush member 8 cannot be easily removed, and remains in the state of being sandwiched between the guide rails 3. Therefore, the movement of the machine screw 5 from the rear inserted into the screw groove 8 of the guide rail 3 is hindered, and each time the main switch of the screw supply device 1 is turned off and the screw 5 is sandwiched between the screw grooves 8. The screw 5 had to be removed, which caused the work efficiency of the assembly line to decrease.

Accordingly, the present inventors have disclosed a screw supply device that is designed to increase the working efficiency of the assembly line by avoiding troubles such that a small screw is caught in the screw groove of the guide rail. (See Patent Document 2).
The screw supply device according to the invention of the above-mentioned Patent Document 2 is a device in which screws are once aligned in a stage before the head of the screw is supported on the guide rail, and the aligned screw is supplied to the screw groove of the guide rail. Specifically, the screw accommodating portion, the conveying means for conveying the screw accommodated in the screw accommodating portion, the aligning means for aligning the screws conveyed by the conveying means, and the downstream of the aligning means. And a guide rail that supports the heads of the aligned screws.
According to the above invention, the screw conveyed from the screw accommodating portion is not directly sprayed onto the guide rail, but is once aligned by the aligning means and then guided to the guide rail. The part is not caught in the thread groove of the guide rail. In particular, it is possible to easily adjust the directionality by aligning the screws in a row in a state where the screws are twisted.
In particular, a rotating drum is used as the screw conveying means, and the screw can be conveyed to the aligning means by providing a through hole in the rotating drum. And, by tilting the bottom surface of the screw storage city downward toward the rotating drum, it becomes easier for screws to enter the through hole, and by tilting the inner wall surface of the through hole in the direction opposite to the rotational direction of the rotating drum. The screw can be effectively prevented from dropping from the through-hole during conveyance.
Japanese Patent No. 2997865 International Publication Number WO03 / 106307

By the way, when supplying small screws to the through holes provided in the rotating drum, even if a large amount of screws are supplied to the screw accommodating portion, the gap between the side wall of the casing adjacent to the screw accommodating portion and the rotating drum is small. It was difficult to supply enough small screws. However, if the gap between the side wall of the casing and the rotating drum is increased, there is a problem that the entire apparatus becomes large.
Therefore, the problem to be solved by the present invention is that when supplying the small screw to the through hole provided in the rotating drum, the small screw can be provided without widening the gap between the side wall of the casing adjacent to the screw accommodating portion and the rotating drum. It is to make it possible to quickly remove the screw by supplying enough.

In order to achieve the above-described object, a screw supply device according to the present invention includes a storage unit that stores screws, a discharge unit that includes a guide rail that aligns and moves screws discharged from the storage unit, and the guide rail. In a screw supply device comprising a bit guide disposed on a screw take-out portion provided above, a notch portion for facilitating insertion of a screw into the housing portion is provided in a part of the casing adjacent to the housing portion. It is characterized by being formed.

The screw supply device according to the present invention includes a housing portion that houses screws, a rotating drum that scoops up the screws in the housing portion and discharges them on the guide rail,
A discharge part having a guide rail for aligning and moving the screw discharged from the rotating drum;
In a screw supply device comprising a bit guide disposed on a screw take-out portion provided on the guide rail,
It is also characterized in that a notch portion is formed in a part of the casing adjacent to the housing portion so as to facilitate the screwing into the housing portion.

In the screw supply device according to the present invention, the cutout portion for facilitating the insertion of the screw into the housing portion formed in a part of the casing may be a rectangular cutout portion having a width close to the width of the rotating drum. It is a feature.

According to this invention, when supplying the small screw to the through hole provided in the rotating drum, the small screw can be sufficiently supplied without widening the gap between the side wall of the casing adjacent to the screw accommodating portion and the rotating drum. As a result, it has become possible to provide a screw supply device that can quickly remove a screw.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.
FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing the overall structure of a screw supply device according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a plan view of the screw supply device. As shown in FIG. 1 and FIG. 2, the screw supply device 10 according to this embodiment has a small box shape that can be put on a palm as a whole, and includes a casing 11 and screws 12 incorporated in the casing 11. A housing part 13 and a discharge part 14 are provided. The accommodating portion 13 and the discharge portion 14 are partitioned by a vertical wall 15 extending in the vertical direction at a substantially central portion of the casing 11, and a disc-shaped rotating drum 16 is disposed along the vertical wall 15. Has been.

In this embodiment, a large rectangular cutout portion 27 is formed in a part of the casing 11 adjacent to the housing portion 13. By providing the cutout portion 27, it becomes easy to put a large number of screws 12 into the housing portion 13.
Note that it is desirable that the cutout portion 27 for facilitating the insertion of the screw into the accommodating portion 13 formed in a part of the casing 11 has a rectangular shape with a width close to the width of the rotary drum 16. The depth of the cutout portion 27 can be appropriately determined in consideration of whether it is easy to insert a screw, whether or not a large number of screws 12 can be accommodated in the accommodating portion 13, and the like.

The rotary drum 16 is for sending out the screw 12 accommodated in the accommodating portion 13 to the discharge portion 14 side, and is formed with cutout recesses 17 for scooping the screw 12 at four locations on the outer peripheral surface. . As shown in FIG. 1, the shape of these notch recesses 17 is such that the front wall and the rear wall are inclined in parallel to the discharge unit 14 side with respect to the rotation direction of the rotary drum 16, The screw 12 is devised so that it can be easily discharged to the discharge portion 14 side. In addition, the bottom plate 18 of the housing part 13 has a height position of the center part of the notch recessed part 17 of the rotating drum 16 so that the notch recessed part 17 of the rotating drum 16 can be easily screwed at the bottom of the housing part 13. Corresponds to the position.

The rotating drum 16 is driven by a motor 19 disposed adjacent to the accommodating portion 13, and this driving force is transmitted to the rotating drum 16 by a belt 20 and a pulley 21. In addition, the number of the notch recessed parts 17 provided in the outer periphery of the rotating drum 16 is not specifically limited to four.

As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the discharge unit 14 includes a mechanism for aligning the screws 12 extracted from the notch recesses 17 of the rotating drum 16 and moving the screws 12 to the outside of the casing 11. A plate portion 23 that once receives the screw 12 discharged from the rotary drum 16, a concave groove-shaped guide groove portion 24 formed along the outer periphery of the plate portion 23, and a tip portion of the guide groove portion 24. A guide rail 25 linearly extending to the outside of the case 11 and a slider portion 26 for returning the screw 12 spilled from the guide rail 25, the plate portion 23, and the guide groove portion 24 to the accommodating portion 13 are provided. The screws 12 discharged from the accommodating portion 13 to the plate portion 23 are fed into the guide groove portion 24 by the slight vibration generated in the entire apparatus, and are arranged in a line here and then fed into the guide rail 25. . The guide rail 25 is composed of a pair of long and thin plates 25a and 25b whose gap is adjusted according to the diameter of the shaft portion of the screw 12 to be discharged, and the shaft portion of the screw 12 is inserted into the gap. The screw 12 fed into the guide rail 25 gradually moves along the guide rail 25 with the head of the screw 12 supported on the upper end of the guide rail 25.

The guide rail 25 has a tip portion protruding from the casing 11, and an upper end of the guide rail 25 is exposed on substantially the same plane as the upper surface 43 of the casing 11. A screw extraction part is provided. The screw take-out portion is disposed at the top of the stopper member 31 for temporarily stopping the screw 12 moving on the guide rail 25, and the stopped screw 12 is taken out by the tip of a tool such as a driver. A bit guide 32. The stopper member 31 is provided with a spring (not shown), and the screw 12 is stopped at a predetermined position by the biasing force of the spring.

What should be noted in the present invention is that the bit guide 32 is formed by welding two rectangular guide plates 33 and 34 as shown in FIGS. Unlike the case of forming a single metal plate in a V shape as in the conventional example, the V-shaped groove portion 35 is formed by the two guide plates 33, 34. In addition to being able to form the guide surfaces 36a and 36b at an acute angle, an intersection line 37 where the guide surfaces 36a and 36b meet at the bottom of the V-shaped groove 35 appears sharply. More specifically, the two guide plates 33 and 34 have outwardly bent portions 38 and 39, respectively. When welded, the guide plates 33 and 34 are sharply V-shaped at the positions of the bent portions 38 and 39. The groove part 35 is formed. Therefore, the V-shaped groove portion 35 having a desired angle can be obtained by appropriately setting the bending angles of the bent portions 38 and 39 of the guide plates 33 and 34. Further, the intersecting line 37 of the V-shaped groove portion 35 appears as a sharp line because the bent portions 38 and 39 of the guide plates 33 and 34 are overlapped to form a single line. Note that the V-shaped groove 35 is provided continuously from the upper end to the lower end of the bit guide 32 and is inclined forward toward the lower end side.

The bit guide 32 is further formed with wide-angle guide surfaces 42 a and 42 b on the outer side of the V-shaped groove portion 35 via second bent portions 40 and 41. The opening angle α1 created by the outer guide surfaces 42a and 42b is larger than the opening angle α2 of the guide surfaces 36a and 36b of the V-shaped groove 35. The second bent portions 40 and 41 are substantially parallel to the bent portions 38 and 39 forming the V-shaped groove portion 35. In this embodiment, as shown in FIG. 5, the outer guide surfaces 42 a and 42 b are slightly shorter at the lower end than the guide surfaces 36 a and 36 b of the V-shaped groove 35, and the upper surface 43 of the casing 11. There is a gap between them. As shown in FIGS. 5 and 7, a screw head regulating member 45 that extends along the upper surface of the guide rail 25 is integrally formed at the rear end of one guide plate 33. The restricting member 45 is disposed in the vicinity of the upper surface of the guide rail 25 and is disposed in the vicinity of the head of the screw 12 moving on the guide rail 25, thereby preventing the screw 12 from being lifted. Further, as shown in FIG. 7, by extending the rear end 45 a of the regulating member 45 to the slider portion 26, the slider 12 is moved by the rear end portion 45 a of the regulating member 45 against the screw 12 riding on the guide rail 25. The screw is dropped on the portion 26 to prevent clogging of the screw on the tip side of the guide rail 25.

The bit guide 32 having the above-described configuration is fixed to the upper surface 43 of the casing 11 by an L-shaped bracket 44. Specifically, the bit guide 32 is gradually moved along the guide rail 25 at a position where the screw 12 stops by the stopper member 31. The V-shaped groove portion 35 of the guide 32 is fixed so as to correspond. When the bit guide 32 is fixed, as shown in FIG. 5, the lower end of the V-shaped crossing portion 35, specifically, the lower ends of the left and right guide surfaces 36a, 36b forming the V-shaped groove portion 35 are guide rails. 25 is set at a position close to the upper surface of the head of the screw 12 supported by the screw 25.

Next, the operation of the bit guide 32 having the above configuration will be described with reference to FIGS.
When the screw 12 that gradually moves while being supported by the guide rail 25 is taken out by a tool such as the driver 50, the movement of the driver 50 with respect to the bit guide 32 is in the order of A, B, and C as shown in FIG. . First, the screw 12 is stopped by the stopper member 31, and at the same time, the driver 50 is brought to the position “a” and the bit 51 is pressed against the V-shaped groove portion 35 of the bit guide 32. At this time, the position of the bit 51 is fixed by the two left and right guide surfaces 36a and 36b of the V-shaped groove 35 as shown in FIG. it can. Next, the driver 50 is pushed down as it is. At this time, since the bit 51 moves downward along the V-shaped groove 35 in a state where the two sides of the bit 51 are slidably guided by the guide surfaces 36a and 36b, the right and left direction blur is prevented in the same manner as described above. When the driver 50 reaches the position B, the bit 51 can be immediately engaged with the cross-shaped groove on the head of the screw 12. When the driver 50 is pulled forward from this state, the stopper member 31 biased by the spring is opened, and the screw 12 magnetically attached to the bit 51 can be taken out.

In the bit guide 32 according to this embodiment, since the V-shaped groove portion 35 is formed at an acute angle as described above, as shown in FIG. The location always contacts the left and right guide surfaces 36a, 36b. Therefore, even if the diameter of the bit 51 is changed in order to take out several types of screws 12 having different sizes, the above-described bit guide 32 can appropriately cope with the change.

In the above embodiment, the case where the notch recess 17 is formed as the rotating drum 16 has been described. However, it is needless to say that the present invention can also be applied to a case where a through hole is provided instead of the notch recess 17.

The screw supply device of the present invention can be used not only in electrical products, precision instruments, and other assembly lines, but also in various scenes where screws are taken out by a tool such as a screwdriver.

It is a perspective view which shows the whole structure of the screw supply apparatus which concerns on this invention. It is a top view of the said screw supply apparatus. It is a top view which shows a pair of guide plate of a bit guide. It is a top view of a bit guide. It is a side view which shows the motion of the driver with respect to a bit guide. It is explanatory drawing which shows the state which the bit from which a diameter differs contacts the left and right guide surfaces of a bit guide, respectively. It is a partial side view of the screw supply apparatus which shows the effect | action of the screw holding part provided in the bit guide. It is a top view which notches and shows a part of conventional screw supply apparatus. It is sectional explanatory drawing which shows the state which supplies a screw to a guide rail in the conventional screw supply apparatus. In the conventional screw supply apparatus, it is a perspective explanatory view which shows the state where the screw was pinched | interposed into the guide rail.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Screw supply apparatus 11 Casing 12 Screw 13 Accommodating part 14 Discharge part 15 Vertical wall 16 Rotating drum 17 Notch recessed part 18 Bottom plate 19 Motor 20 Belt 21 Pulley 23 Plate part 24 Guide groove part 25 Guide rail 25a, 25b Plate 26 Slider part 27 Notch part 31 Stopper member 32 Bit guide 33, 34 Guide plate 35 V-shaped groove 36a, 36b Guide surface 37 Intersection line 38, 39 Bent part 40, 41 Bent part 42a, 42b Guide surface 43 Casing upper surface 44 L-shaped bracket 45 Restricting member 45a Rear end 50 Driver 51 bit

Claims (3)

An accommodating portion for accommodating screws;
A discharge part having a guide rail for aligning and moving the screws discharged from the storage part;
In a screw supply device comprising a bit guide disposed on a screw take-out portion provided on the guide rail,
A screw supply device, wherein a notch portion is formed in a part of a casing adjacent to the housing portion so as to facilitate insertion of a screw into the housing portion. An accommodating portion for accommodating screws;
A rotating drum that picks up the screw in the housing and discharges it on the guide rail;
A discharge part having a guide rail for aligning and moving the screw discharged from the rotating drum;
In a screw supply device comprising a bit guide disposed on a screw take-out portion provided on the guide rail,
A screw supply device, wherein a notch portion is formed in a part of a casing adjacent to the housing portion so as to facilitate insertion of a screw into the housing portion. The screw supply device according to claim 2, wherein the notch for facilitating the insertion of the screw into the housing formed in a part of the casing is a rectangular notch having a width close to the width of the rotating drum.

Images