JP2008143479A - Carrying device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a carrying device having simple construction for smoothly and reliably moving a carriage along a travelling rail having a curved portion. <P>SOLUTION: A first portion 11 is formed in a first cross size along the travelling rail 10 having the curved portion, and a second portion is formed in a second cross size different therefrom. A front roller mechanism 30 and a rear roller mechanism 40 each having a pair of rotatably supported rollers are provided on the front and rear sides at a predetermined distance in the moving direction of the carriage 20. The front roller mechanism is arranged so that the outer peripheral faces of the rollers abut on both side faces of the first portion in the cross direction, and the rear roller mechanism is arranged so that the outer peripheral faces of the rollers abut on both side faces of the second portion in the cross direction. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2008,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a transport apparatus, and particularly relates to a transport apparatus that moves a transport carriage along a traveling rail having a curved portion.

  Various devices are known as a transport device that moves a transport carriage along a travel rail to transport an article between predetermined positions. For example, a curved section is formed like a race track loop travel rail. It is not easy to smoothly move the transport carriage along the traveling rail. For this reason, for example, in Patent Document 1 below, the traveling body can be quietly and smoothly traveled at high speed along the rails without generating noise and vibration, and the inner ring at the time of curve traveling In order to prevent adverse effects due to the difference, the following driving device for a traveling body has been proposed. That is, a pair of left and right drive wheels sandwiching the rail from both sides are movable laterally and in directions close to each other on the frame of the traveling body mounted on the rail so as to be movable in the longitudinal direction of the rail. The drive wheels are urged and mounted, and the drive wheels are linked to the drive means so as to be rotated by the drive means provided on the frame.

  Patent Document 2 below also discloses a drive device using a rack and a pinion with respect to a guide system having a traveling vehicle guided on a rail, and “a pitch line of a tooth portion is at least on one side. The traveling vehicle has a guide element that is guided at a support point on the side guide surface and a drive gear that meshes with the rack at a force acting point. And the guide elements are arranged such that the connecting straight line defined by the force application point and the support point is always perpendicular to the current travel direction. In particular, the traveling vehicle uses three guide rollers, two of which are urged in the rail direction.

JP 2003-146206 A JP 2000-52978 A

  However, each of the devices described in the above-mentioned patent documents requires a biasing means for biasing the roller, and has a complicated mechanism. For example, the above-described traveling body or traveling vehicle can be used as a loop traveling rail. It is not easy to move smoothly along.

  Then, this invention makes it a subject to provide the conveying apparatus which can move a conveyance trolley smoothly and reliably along the traveling rail which has a curved part with simple structure.

  In order to achieve the above object, according to the transport device of the present invention, a transport device that moves a transport carriage along a travel rail having a curved portion as described in claim 1, the travel rail is centered on the rail. A first portion formed in a first width direction dimension along the rail, and a second portion formed in a second width direction dimension different from the first width direction dimension along the rail center; A front roller mechanism and a rear roller mechanism each having a pair of rollers rotatably supported on the front and rear of the transport carriage separated by a predetermined distance in the moving direction of the pair of rollers constituting the front roller mechanism. The outer peripheral surfaces are in contact with both side surfaces of the first portion in the width direction, and the outer peripheral surfaces of the pair of rollers constituting the rear roller mechanism are respectively in contact with both side surfaces of the second portion in the width direction. To do It is intended.

  For example, as described in claim 2, the width direction dimension of the first portion constituting the traveling rail may be set larger than the width direction dimension of the second portion constituting the traveling rail. Or you may set the width direction dimension of the said 2nd part which comprises the said travel rail larger than the width direction dimension of the said 1st part which comprises the said travel rail.

  Further, as described in claim 3, the traveling rail is disposed at the center in the width direction, and includes a rack that is fixed along the center of the rail, and a driving device that rotationally drives a pinion that meshes with the rack. The driving device may be supported by the transport carriage.

  Since this invention is comprised as mentioned above, there exist the following effects. That is, in the conveying device according to claim 1, the outer peripheral surfaces of the pair of rollers constituting the front roller mechanism are in contact with both side surfaces in the width direction of the first portion, and constitute the rear roller mechanism. Since the outer peripheral surfaces of the pair of rollers are arranged so as to abut on both side surfaces of the second portion in the width direction, the urging means is not particularly required even for the traveling rail having the curved portion. The transport carriage can be moved smoothly and reliably.

  In particular, if the transport apparatus is configured as described in claim 2 or claim 3, the transport cart can be moved smoothly and reliably with a simple configuration.

  Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a plan view and a front view of a transport apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, and is configured to move a transport carriage 20 along a racetrack-shaped loop travel rail (hereinafter simply referred to as travel rail) 10. Has been. That is, the traveling rail 10 of the present embodiment has a racetrack shape as shown in FIG. 5, and has a pair of curved portions 10a and a pair of straight portions 10b. In addition, although the traveling rail 10 of this embodiment is being fixed to the some support stand (represented by 1 typically) in the lower part, you may support so that it may suspend from upper direction.

  As shown in part of the traveling rail 10 in FIGS. 3 and 4, the first portion 11 having a first width direction dimension (W1) that is substantially uniform along the rail center and the first portion 11 that is substantially uniform along the rail center. 1 has a second portion 12 having a second width direction dimension (W2) different from the first width direction dimension (W1), and has a step on both end surfaces in the width direction as shown in a cross section below FIG. Is formed. In the present embodiment, the width direction dimension (W1) of the first portion 11 is set larger than the width direction dimension (W2) of the second portion 12 (W1> W2).

  A transport carriage 20 is disposed above the traveling rail 10 and is supported so as to sandwich the traveling rail 10 from above and below via support rollers 21 to 28 as shown in FIGS. Furthermore, a pair of rollers 31 and 32 are disposed on the transport carriage 20 so as to abut on both side surfaces of the first portion 11 in the width direction before and after a predetermined distance in the movement direction (of the transport carriage 20). A front roller mechanism 30 is configured. In addition, a pair of rollers 41 and 42 are disposed so as to contact both side surfaces of the second portion 12 in the width direction, and the rear roller mechanism 40 is configured. As shown in FIG. 1, the front roller mechanism 30 and the rear roller mechanism 40 are supported such that each roller is rotatably supported below the transport carriage 20 and sandwiches the traveling rail 10 from the left and right (width direction). Has been.

  A rack 51 is disposed at the center in the width direction of the traveling rail 10 and is fixed along the traveling rail 10. On the other hand, a motor 60 as a driving device is fixed to the transport carriage 20, and a pinion 52 is fixed to the tip of a rotating shaft that extends downward. The pinion 52 meshes with the rack 51 and is disposed so that the pitch surface is positioned at the center in the width direction of the traveling rail 10. Note that the relationship between the rack 51 and the pinion 52 is the same as that in the above-mentioned patent documents and the like, and thus the description thereof is omitted.

  The rollers 31 and 32 and the rollers 41 and 42 are rotatably supported before and after being separated by a predetermined distance (L0) in the moving direction of the transport carriage 20. That is, as shown in the upper part of FIG. 3, the rollers 31, 32 and the rollers 41, 42 are arranged such that the axes connecting the rollers are parallel and the distance between the two axes is a distance L0. As shown in FIG. 2, each roller is supported below the transport carriage 20 so that it can rotate (spin) around an axis perpendicular to the surface of the traveling rail 10 on a surface parallel to the traveling rail 10. Yes. In particular, rollers 31 and 32 are arranged in front of the distance L1 from the central axis Ta (the axis that bisects the curved portion 10a) Ta between the pair of linear portions 10b, and rollers 41 and 42 are in the rear of the distance L2. Has been placed. In this embodiment, L1 and L2 are set to the same value, but may be different values. 3 and 4, Tb indicates the boundary between the curved portion 10a and the straight portion 10b.

  As described above, the straight portion 10b of the first portion 11 is parallel and formed with a uniform width (first width direction dimension W1), but the pair of rollers 31 and 32 in the front roller mechanism 30 is a curve of the traveling rail 10. The movement trajectory centering on the center of curvature Ca of the outer peripheral surface in contact with the portion 10a has an inner and outer curved shape shown in FIG. Thus, since the planar shape of the first portion 11 of the traveling rail 10 is irregular in the vicinity of the boundary between the curved portion 10a and the straight portion 10b as shown in FIG. 3, the width of the rail itself in this portion is substantially uniform. That is, the interval between the portions where the rollers 31 and 32 face each other is formed to be the first width direction dimension W1. Similarly, the straight portion 12b of the second portion 12 is formed in a parallel and uniform width (second width direction dimension W2), but the pair of rollers 41 and 42 constituting the rear roller mechanism 40 is a curve of the traveling rail 10. The movement trajectory centering on the center of curvature Ca of the outer peripheral surface in contact with the portion 10a has an inner and outer curved shape shown in FIG. Accordingly, the planar shape of the second portion 12 of the traveling rail 10 is also different in the vicinity of the boundary between the curved portion 10a and the straight portion 10b as shown in FIG. 4, but the interval between the portions where the rollers 41 and 42 face each other is second. The width direction dimension W2 is formed.

  Further, a chuck mechanism 70 (the support portion of which is shown in FIG. 1) is fixed to the transport carriage 20, and the chuck mechanism 70 is configured to be able to grip an object to be transported (not shown). However, since the structure is the same as before, the description is omitted.

  Thus, according to the transport device according to the above-described embodiment, the rollers 31, 32 of the front roller mechanism 30 are not particularly required as shown in FIGS. While the outer peripheral surface abuts on both side surfaces of the first portion 11 in the width direction, and the outer peripheral surfaces of the rollers 41 and 42 of the rear roller mechanism 40 abut on both side surfaces of the second portion 12 in the width direction, Even in the vicinity of the boundary between the curved portion 10a and the straight portion 10b, the transport carriage 20 moves (along the traveling rail 10) smoothly and reliably.

  In the above embodiment, the width direction dimension (W1) of the first portion 11 constituting the traveling rail 10 is set larger than the width direction dimension (W2) of the second portion 12 constituting the traveling rail 10. However, conversely, the width direction dimension (W2) of the second portion 12 may be set larger than the width direction dimension (W1) of the first portion 11. Further, the moving direction of the transport carriage 20 may be the reverse of that in FIG.

It is the top view and front view which show a part of conveying apparatus which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. It is a bottom view which shows arrangement | positioning of the roller of the conveyance trolley | bogie in one Embodiment of this invention. It is a top view which shows the relationship between the front roller mechanism which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention, and the 1st part of a traveling rail. It is a top view which shows the relationship between the back roller mechanism which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention, and the 2nd part of a running rail. It is the top view and front view which show the traveling rail and conveyance trolley which concern on one Embodiment of this invention.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Supporting base 10 Traveling rail 11 1st part 12 2nd part 20 Conveyance cart 21-28 Support roller 30 Front roller mechanism 40 Back roller mechanism 31,32,41,42 Roller 51 Rack 52 Pinion 60 Motor 70 Chuck mechanism

Claims (3)

  In the transport device that moves the transport carriage along the travel rail having the curved portion, the travel rail has a first portion formed in a first width direction dimension along the rail center, and the first along the rail center. And having a second portion formed in a second width direction dimension different from the width direction dimension of the transport carriage, and rotatably supported on the front and rear of the transport carriage separated by a predetermined distance in the movement direction of the transport carriage. A front roller mechanism having a pair of rollers and a rear roller mechanism, and the outer peripheral surfaces of the pair of rollers constituting the front roller mechanism are in contact with both side surfaces of the first portion in the width direction, and the rear roller mechanism is A conveying device, characterized in that the outer peripheral surfaces of a pair of constituting rollers are arranged so as to be in contact with both side surfaces of the second portion in the width direction.   The conveying apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a width-direction dimension of the first portion constituting the traveling rail is set larger than a width-direction dimension of the second portion constituting the traveling rail.   A rack disposed at the center in the width direction of the traveling rail and having a rack that is fixed along the center of the rail and a drive device that rotationally drives a pinion that meshes with the rack, and the drive device is supported by the transport carriage. The transport apparatus according to claim 1 or 2.

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