JP2874438B2 - Electrode coating device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electrode applying apparatus for applying an electrode paste to an end of a chip component.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a holding plate having a large number of holding holes has been used in order to efficiently attach electrodes to the ends of a large number of chip components (Japanese Patent Publication No. 62-20885). This holding plate forms a large number of through holes in a thin flat plate formed in the center of the hard substrate,
A rubber-like elastic body is embedded in a concave portion formed by a flat plate portion, and a holding hole having a smaller diameter than the through hole is formed in the elastic body. Then, the chip component is elastically held so as to partially protrude from the holding hole, and an electrode paste such as silver is uniformly attached to the protruding surface, and then the chip component is heated to dry the electrode paste. As a method of applying an electrode paste to a chip component, the above publication describes an example using a roller. That is, a part of the chip component is projected and held on the upper surface side of the holding plate, and the roller coated with the electrode paste on the peripheral surface is brought into contact with the projecting portion of the chip component while transporting the holding plate by a conveyor. Electrode paste is applied to chip components. In order to apply the electrode paste with a uniform thickness to the peripheral surface of the roller, excess paste is scraped off with a leveling plate called a scraper while rotating the roller.

For example, in the case of a chip part having a length of about 1.6 to 5.7 mm, the thickness of the electrode is 0.15 to 0.3 mm.
It is extremely thin, and high precision is required for controlling the film thickness. However, in the above-described coating method, the paste applied to the peripheral surface flows as the roller rotates,
The thickness of the paste changes slightly depending on the location of the roller,
There is a problem that the electrode thickness of the chip component varies. Further, the thickness of the electrode varies depending on the vibration and the level of the conveyor.

[0004]

As another method for attaching an electrode paste to a chip component, Japanese Patent Publication No. Hei 3-4440 is known.
No. 4, as described in JP-A No. 4 (1999), an electrode paste is applied in a thin film form on the upper surface of a flat coating plate, and a holding plate holding a part of the chip component so as to protrude downward is brought close to the coating plate.
There is a method in which an electrode paste is adhered by pressing a projecting portion of a chip component against an application plate. This adhesion method does not cause any inconvenience as in the application method using a roller.
In the case of this method, the protrusion of the chip component is pressed against the bottom surface of the coating plate on which the paste is applied, whereby the variation in the protrusion length of the chip component can be eliminated and the electrode width can be made uniform. However, once one process is completed, the thickness of the paste at the portion where the chip component has come into contact becomes thin. Therefore, the paste on the application plate must be once scraped and then adjusted again to a constant thickness. Therefore, there is a problem that it takes a lot of time and effort to adjust the film thickness, and it is difficult to adjust the film thickness to a constant value with good reproducibility. Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide an electrode coating apparatus that can adjust the thickness of an electrode paste with high accuracy and high reproducibility and can perform uniform electrode coating.

[0005]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the present invention provides an electrode paste coated on a bottom surface of a dipping tank by holding a chip component in a holding hole of a holding plate so as to partially protrude downward. In an electrode coating apparatus for applying an electrode to the end of the chip component by pressing the chip component onto a chip, a collecting blade for scraping the electrode paste on the bottom surface of the dip tank to one end of the dip tank, A leveling blade for adjusting the film thickness to a constant level while leveling the electrode paste scraped to one end to the other end of the dipping tank, and a collecting blade and a leveling blade relative to the dipping tank. Driving means for reciprocating in a horizontal direction, and first elevating means for elevating and lowering a collecting blade between a position in contact with the bottom surface of the dip tank and a position retracted upward. The blade for leveling is obtained and a second lifting means for vertically moving between a position retracted to a position and an upper proximate to the bottom of the dip tank. The collecting blade and the leveling blade need only reciprocate in the horizontal direction relative to the dip tank.The dip tank is installed at a fixed position, and when the blade reciprocates, the blade is installed at a fixed position. In some cases, the dip tank reciprocates.

[0006]

First, a predetermined amount of electrode paste is injected onto the dipping tank with both blades moved to one end of the dipping tank. Then, the collecting blade is lowered to a position where the collecting blade comes into contact with the bottom surface of the dipping tank by the second lifting / lowering means, and the collecting blade is horizontally moved from one end of the dipping tank to the other end by the driving means. At this time, the leveling blade is at a position retracted upward, and horizontally moves integrally with the collecting blade. By moving the collecting blade to the other end of the dipping tank, almost all of the electrode paste injected into the dipping tank is scraped to the other end. Next, the recovery blade is raised by the second lifting means, and the leveling blade is lowered to a position close to the bottom surface of the dip tank by the first lifting means. The gap between the leveling blade and the bottom surface of the dip tank is the thickness of the electrode paste. In this state, when the leveling blade is horizontally moved in the opposite direction from the other end of the dipping tank to the one end by the driving means, a paste film having a constant thickness is formed on the bottom surface of the dipping tank by the leveling blade. You. Since the first elevating means only needs to bring the collecting blade into contact with the bottom surface of the dip tank, high accuracy is not required, and a linear actuator such as a cylinder may be used. On the other hand, since the second elevating means needs to set the gap between the leveling blade and the bottom surface of the dip tank strictly, a high-precision drive mechanism that can be finely adjusted, such as a pulse motor and a ball screw mechanism, is used. It is desirable.

[0007]

FIG. 1 shows an example of an electrode coating apparatus according to the present invention, which is used for coating an electrode on an end of a chip component B. Chip component B is 2, resiliently and part of which is held so as to protrude into the holding hole a ₁ of the holding plate A shown in FIG. The specific structure of the holding plate A is the same as that disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 3-44404. The electrode coating apparatus according to the present invention includes an apparatus main body 1, a dip head unit 2, a carry-in conveyor 5, a carry-out conveyor 6, a dip tank 7, and a blade unit 8. A control device (not shown) for controlling the operation of each unit is built in the device main body 1.

The dip head 2 is fixed on the apparatus main body 1 via a fixing column 3, and a chuck 10 is supported by a lower part thereof by a plurality of shafts 11 so as to be vertically movable. I have. A not-shown elevating unit is built in the dip head unit 2, and by driving the elevating unit, the shaft 11 is moved up and down, and the chuck unit 10 can be moved up and down while maintaining the levelness. A pair of chuck claws 12 are provided on both front and rear sides of the chuck portion 10.
By opening and closing 2 in the longitudinal direction, the groove a ₂ on either side of the carried-in holding plate A by the conveyor 5 so that the can chuck.

A carry-in conveyor 5 and a carry-out conveyor 6
The upper half is provided with a slide mechanism for sliding the upper half toward the center of the apparatus, and the upper half is provided with a transfer mechanism for transferring the holding plate A in one direction. ing. And each conveyor 5,
The upper half of 6 can be advanced in the opposite direction to the center position as shown by the two-dot chain line in FIG.

The conveyors 5, 6 and the chuck 10
Are performed in the following order. First, the holding plate A is placed on the carry-in conveyor 5. As shown in FIG. 3, the chip component B is held on the holding plate A so as to protrude from the lower surface side. Then, the upper half of the carry-in conveyor 5 is slid in the center direction together with the holding plate A, and the built-in transport mechanism is driven at a position where the upper halves of both the conveyors 5 and 6 are closest to each other. It is assumed that it is supported over the conveyors 5 and 6. At this position, the chuck unit 10 is lowered, and the holding plate A is chucked by the chuck claws 12. After the holding plate A is chucked, the upper halves of the conveyors 5, 6 are retracted to the solid line position. Then, the chuck unit 10 further descends, and presses the chip component B held on the holding plate A against the bottom surface of the dip tank 7 to perform electrode application. Then, the chuck 10
Rises to a position higher than the transport level of the conveyors 5, 6, and moves the conveyors 5, 6 again to the position indicated by the two-dot chain line in FIG. Put on. Thereafter, the transport mechanism built in the conveyors 5 and 6 is driven to move the holding plate A onto the unloading conveyor 6 and transport the plate to the next processing step. In addition,
The specific structures of the lifting device of the dip head unit 2, the chuck unit 10, and the conveyors 5, 6 are the same as those described in Japanese Patent Application No. 3-347938.

FIGS. 4 to 6 show the structures of the dip tank 7 and the blade section 8, which are main parts of the present invention. Dip tank 7
Is formed in the shape of a rectangular tray slightly larger than the holding plate A, and a pair of guide rails 20
Is installed. A blade supporting frame 21 is slidably supported on the guide rail 20 so as to straddle the dip tank 7 in the front-rear direction. The blade supporting frame 21 is provided with a collecting blade 22 for scraping the electrode paste to one end of the dipping tank 7 and a leveling blade 23 for adjusting the electrode paste to a predetermined thickness. It is mounted to be able to move up and down. The width dimensions of the blades 22 and 23 are the same, and are slightly smaller than the inner width dimension of the dip tank 7 in the short side direction. The collection blade 22 is fixed to the lower surface of a bridging rod 24 supported on the upper part of the blade supporting frame 21 so as to be movable up and down. The bridging rod 24 is a pair of blades installed at both ends of the blade supporting frame 21. The cylinder 25 is driven to move up and down. A rubber blade piece 26 is attached to the lower end of the collection blade 22, and the blade piece 26 comes into close contact with the bottom surface of the dip tank 7 to scrape the electrode paste.

On the other hand, a pair of blocks 27 is fixed to one side surface of the leveling blade 23, and a screw shaft 28 is screwed into the block 27 and a slide shaft 30 whose upper end is fixed to a support plate 29. It is slidably inserted. The screw shaft 28 rotatably penetrates the support plate 29, and the upper end of the screw shaft 28 is connected to the leveling adjustment motor 3 via a belt 46.
1 driven. A lifting cylinder 32 is fixed to both front and rear ends of the support plate 29.
The two piston rods are connected to the blade support frame 21. Further, slide shafts 33 are provided at both ends of the support plate 29.
Is protruded downward, and is inserted into the blade support frame 21 so as to be vertically movable. Therefore, the lifting cylinder 3
2, the support plate 29 can be raised and lowered greatly while maintaining the levelness with respect to the blade support frame 21, and the position of the leveling blade 23 can be changed by driving the leveling adjusting motor 31. Fine adjustment up and down with respect to the support plate 29 is possible. Since the lower limit position of the support plate 29 is set by the boss 33a of the slide shaft 33, the leveling blade 2 from the bottom surface of the dip tank 7
3 can be set precisely. This means that the thickness of the electrode paste applied on the bottom surface of the dip tank 7 can be precisely adjusted.

The lower surface of the dip tank 7 is provided with four mounting holes 34 each having a circular shape at one end and a T-shaped vertical cross section at the other end, and four headed pins corresponding to the mounting holes 34 on the apparatus body 1. 3
5 are protrudingly provided. The dip tank 7 is placed on the apparatus main body 1 so that the circular portion of the hole 34 engages with the head of the pin 35, and the dip tank 7 is slid rightward in FIG. The part is engaged with the T-shaped part of the mounting hole 34, and the dip tank 7 is positioned in the apparatus main body 1.
The dip tank 7 is held in close contact with the apparatus main body 1 by lowering the pin 35 with a cylinder or the like.

A ball screw 36 is disposed on the rear side of the dip tank 7 in parallel with the long side of the dip tank 7.
A guide rail 37 on the apparatus body 1 is attached to the ball screw 36.
A nut member 38 slidable along is screwed. The nut 3 has an engaging piece 3 having a handle 40.
9 can swing about an axis parallel to the ball screw 36. When the engagement piece 39 is swung toward the blade support frame 21 by the handle 40, the engagement piece 39 is engaged with the receiving groove 41 formed at the rear end of the blade support frame 21, and the nut member 38 is engaged. The blade support frame 21 can be connected.
A pulley 42 is attached to the right end of the ball screw 36. The pulley 42 is connected to a belt 43 and a pulley 44.
When driven by the motor 45 through the
8 and the blade support frame 21 reciprocally move left and right integrally.

Here, the operation of the blade unit 8 will be described with reference to FIG. First, as shown in FIG. 7A, when the blade piece 26 of the collection blade 22 is pressed against the bottom surface of the dip tank 7 and the blade support frame 21 is stroked leftward, it enters the dip tank 7. The electrode paste P is scraped to the left. Next, as shown in FIG. 7B, the recovery blade 22 is raised, and the leveling blade 23 is brought close to the bottom surface of the dip tank 7. At this time, a pool portion of the electrode paste P collected by the collecting blade 22 is formed immediately before the leveling blade 23. Next, when the leveling blade 23 is stroked to the right as shown in FIG. 7C, a thin film corresponding to the gap between the leveling blade 23 and the dip tank 7 is formed on the bottom surface of the dip tank 7. Electrode paste film P
m is formed.

FIG. 8 shows a method for attaching electrodes to the protruding portions of the chip components B held on the holding plate A using the dip tank 7 coated with the thin-film electrode paste Pm as described above. Therefore, it will be described. First, the chuck chip component B is engaged with the tip portion of the chuck pawl 12 in the groove a ₂ of the holding plate A holding so as to protrude downward, and by pulling the chuck jaws 12, the upper surface of the holding plate A It is crimped to the part 10. The parallelism between the lower surface of the chuck portion 10 and the bottom surface of the dip tank 7 is strictly set in advance. Here, when the lifting / lowering means incorporated in the dip head unit 2 is driven, the chuck unit 10 descends while maintaining the levelness. After the projection of the chip component B is lowered to a position abutting the bottom surface of the dipping vessel 7, the chip component B is to slightly lower the chuck portion 10 as slightly pushed into the holding hole a _1. Thereby, the chip component B
Is corrected to be constant, and an electrode having a uniform width can be formed. At this time, the tip of the chuck claw 12 is
Since it is engaged with the chuck groove a ₂ , it does not contact the bottom surface of the dipping tank 7 and does not hinder the dipping process. Since one holding plate A holds thousands of chip components B, when the chip components B are pressed against the bottom surface of the dip tank 7 coated with the paste, a large reaction force acts on the holding plate A. I do. However, since the upper surface of the holding plate A is surface-supported by the chuck portion 10, the bending is prevented, and the electrode width does not vary. Note that the chip component B may be pressed a plurality of times into the dip tank 7 in order to increase the accuracy of the electrode width.

When the type of electrode paste is changed, the engagement piece 39 is removed from the receiving groove 41 and the mounting hole 34 on the bottom surface of the dip tank 7 is removed from the pin 35 of the apparatus main body 1. 7 can be easily replaced with another tank. That is, the dip tank 7 and the blades 22 and 2
Since the type of paste can be changed without removing the paste attached to 3, the replacement time can be greatly reduced. Further, since the dip tank 7 and the blades 22 and 23 are integrally treated when changing the type of paste, the bottom surface of the dip tank 7 and the leveling blade 2 which require high accuracy are required.
There is no shift in the positional relationship with No. 3.

In the above embodiment, the leveling blade 23 is raised and lowered by the lifting cylinder 32, and the fine adjustment is performed by the leveling motor 31. However, the present invention is not limited to this. If the motor 23 is moved up and down by a pulse motor or the like having high positional accuracy, the motor 31 for fine adjustment becomes unnecessary.

FIGS. 9 and 10 show another embodiment of the present invention, particularly a dip tank portion. In this embodiment, unlike the first embodiment, the collecting blade 64 and the leveling blade 65 are installed at fixed positions, and the dip tank 50 is moved to perform leveling. The dip tank 50 includes a pair of slide rails 52 set on a table 51.
9 so as to be slidable in a direction perpendicular to the plane of FIG. A ball screw 55 driven by a motor 53 via a belt 54 is horizontally disposed below the dip tank 50, and a nut 56 screwed to the ball screw 55 is fixed to the lower surface of the dip tank 50. I have. Therefore, when the ball screw 55 is rotationally driven, the dip tank 50 slides horizontally.

On the table 51, a gate-shaped blade support frame 57 is provided so as to straddle the dip tank 50. Inside the blade support frame 57, a pair of two blade mounting rods 58, 59 are provided. The guide pins 60 and 61 are mounted so as to be able to move up and down in a horizontal state. Springs 62 and 63 are inserted through the guide pins 60 and 61, and constantly urge the blade mounting bars 58 and 59 upward. The collecting blade 64 and the leveling blade 65 are fixed to the lower surfaces of the blade mounting rods 58 and 59, respectively.

A pair of recovery blade lowering cylinders 66 are fixed to the upper surface of the blade support frame 57, and the rod 66 a of the cylinder 66 is in contact with the upper surface of one blade mounting rod 58. A pair of leveling blade lowering pulse motors 67 are fixed to the upper surface of the blade support frame 57 via brackets 68. A ball screw 69 driven by the pulse motors 67 is screwed to the elevating member 70. doing. The ball screw 69 is rotatably supported by a bearing 71 attached to a bracket 68. A guide rail 72 is fixed to the bracket 68 in parallel with the ball screw 69, and the elevating member 70 is slidably guided by the guide rail 72.
A pusher 73 slidably penetrating the blade support frame 57 is attached to the lower surface of one end of the elevating member 70, and the lower end of the pusher 73 contacts the upper surface of the blade mounting rod 59. Therefore, the collecting blade 64 can be lowered by the cylinder 66 and the leveling blade 65 can be lowered by the pulse motor 67.

When the electrode paste injected into the dipping tank 50 is scraped to one end side, the cylinder 66 is operated to press the blade piece 64a at the lower end of the collecting blade 64 against the bottom surface of the dipping tank 50. What is necessary is just to drive the motor 53 and slide the dip tank 50 as it is. In order to adjust the scraped electrode paste to a constant film thickness, the cylinder 66 is first released and the spring 62 is released.
Then, the lower end of the leveling blade 65 is lowered by the pulse motor 67 to a position close to the bottom surface of the dip tank 50, and the motor 53 is driven in this state to drive the dip tank. What is necessary is just to slide 50 in the reverse direction.

[0023]

As apparent from the above description, according to the present invention, first, the collecting blade is brought into contact with the bottom surface of the dipping tank, and the electrode paste on the dipping tank is scraped to one end side, and then the leveling is performed. The blade is brought close to the bottom of the dipping tank so that the electrode paste is leveled to a constant thickness, so that the scraping of the electrode paste and the leveling operation can be automated. Therefore, the thickness adjustment of the electrode paste becomes very easy, and the electrode thickness can be adjusted to a constant thickness with good reproducibility. As a result, uniform electrode application can be performed on the end of the chip component.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic front view of an electrode coating device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a holding plate used in the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a sectional view of a holding plate holding a chip component.

FIG. 4 is a plan view of a dip tank and a blade section.

FIG. 5 is a sectional view taken along line VV of FIG. 4;

FIG. 6 is a sectional view taken along line VI-VI of FIG. 5;

FIG. 7 is an operation explanatory view showing a method of applying an electrode paste to a dip tank.

FIG. 8 is an operation explanatory view showing a method of applying an electrode paste to a chip component.

FIG. 9 is a sectional view of another embodiment of the electrode coating apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a sectional view taken along line XX of FIG. 9;

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Apparatus main body 2 Dip head part 7 Dip tank 8 Blade part 10 Chuck part 12 Chuck claw 21 Blade support frame 22 Recovery blade 23 Leveling blade 25 Recovery blade elevating cylinder 31 Leveling adjustment motor 32 Support plate elevating Cylinder A Holding plate B Chip parts

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing from the front page (72) Inventor Tadahiro Nakagawa 2-26-10 Tenjin, Nagaokakyo-shi, Kyoto Stock Company Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (72) Akihiko Takahashi 2-26-10 Tenjin, Nagaokakyo-city, Kyoto Prefecture Stock (56) References JP-A-64-50406 (JP, A) JP-A-1-214008 (JP, A) (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁶ , DB name) H01G 13 / 00 H01C 17/28

Claims (3)

(57) [Claims] A chip part is held in a holding hole of a holding plate in a partially protruding state downward, and the chip part is pressed against an electrode paste applied on a bottom surface of a dipping tank, whereby an electrode is provided on an end of the chip part. In the electrode coating device for applying the electrode paste, a collecting blade for scraping the electrode paste on the bottom of the dipping tank to one end of the dipping tank, and the electrode paste scraped to one end of the dipping tank for the other end of the dipping tank A leveling blade that adjusts the film thickness to a constant level while smoothing, a driving unit that reciprocates the collecting blade and the leveling blade horizontally relative to the dipping tank, and dips the collecting blade. First lifting means for raising and lowering between a position in contact with the bottom of the tank and a position retracted upward, and a leveling blade close to the bottom of the dip tank Position and the electrode coating apparatus is characterized in that a second elevating means for elevating between a retracted position upward. 2. The electrode coating apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the dipping tank is installed at a predetermined position in a horizontal state, and slide means are provided on both sides of the dipping tank, and are movable along the slide means. And a blade supporting frame reciprocally driven by the driving means is disposed so as to straddle the dip tank. The blade supporting frame includes the collecting blade and the leveling blade, respectively, the first elevating means and the second elevating means. An electrode coating device which is attached via means. 3. The electrode coating apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the dipping tank is movable along a horizontally installed sliding means and is reciprocally driven by the driving means, so that the collecting blade and the leveling-out means are provided. An electrode coating apparatus, wherein the blade is attached to a blade support frame provided at a predetermined position via a first elevating unit and a second elevating unit, respectively.