JP2893102B2 - Powder material identification device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention is used as an apparatus for preventing mistakenly changing the type of a powder material when the package material is unpacked and used. The present invention has been invented in order to prevent mixing of inoculants mixed only in a small amount with the raw iron material at the foundry,
It can be widely used not only in foundries but also in the process of unpacking and using powder materials.

The present invention is an applied invention of the prior application of the applicant of the present invention, entitled "Volume Detector" (Japanese Patent Application No. 5-94535, unpublished at the time of filing the present application).

[0003]

2. Description of the Related Art There is widely known a technique for maintaining the quality of a cast product in a desired state by mixing a small amount of a metal or alloy material in a cast iron as an inoculant. There are many types of this inoculant, and in many cases, a plurality of types are used in combination.

On the other hand, such an inoculant is packaged as a powder material in bags of, for example, 10 kilograms.
When used, remove the bag by hand.
Since it is a powder material, its type is printed on the packaging bag, but when the package is unpacked, the type cannot be identified.

Conventionally, the name of the inoculant to be charged is described in a lid provided at the input port of each hopper, the type printed on the packaging bag is visually checked, and the packaging is performed as described above. I had to throw it in.

[0006] Here, inoculation refers to a physical or physical effect beyond the effect of alloying by adding a small amount of metal or alloy into a molten metal poured into a mold during casting of cast iron. Refers to a process that gives a chemical change. The metallurgical meaning is to give the melt a “seed” or “crystal nucleus” for the solid phase that grows during solidification, and, phenomenally, to promote heterogeneous nucleation and reduce the graphite crystallization state. They are trying to improve. It varies slightly depending on the inoculant, processing conditions, and time, but is used to improve the material quality, such as reducing the thickness sensitivity by increasing the number of graphite eutectic cells and improving the machinability by preventing the generation of cementite.

[0007]

[0005] In daily work, there is a case where an error that this type is mistaken occurs. Once the inoculant is incorrectly blended, many defective products will be produced. Further, the work for this compounding may involve a confirmation work by a plurality of workers, and the drawback is that the number of working steps is large.

It is an object of the present invention to improve the above-described object, and to provide an apparatus which can greatly simplify the operation and eliminate the occurrence of an error in which the type of the powder material is changed.

[0009]

According to the present invention, there is provided a table, a cylindrical container mounted on the table, and a distance from the table to a predetermined height mounted on the table to the contents of the container. An ultrasonic ranging device that is arranged to measure and outputs a measurement result as an electric signal, and that the electric signal is captured by comparing the distance to the contents of the container with a value stored in advance and taking the electric signal. A control circuit including a unit for identifying a type, and a unit for displaying a position of a hopper into which the contents of the container are to be charged in accordance with the identification output of the control circuit.

[0010] Means for imparting vibration to the cylindrical container placed on the table is provided, and the means for displaying the position of the hopper to be charged is means for automatically opening a lid provided at the input port of the hopper. It is desirable that

The indication of the position to be turned on can be made by turning on a lamp or other optical display.

[0012]

The ultrasonic distance measuring device measures the distance to the contents of the cylindrical container placed on the table, and outputs the measurement result as an electric signal. Since the contents are contained in standardized bags, their types can be identified by their volumes. The control circuit fetches the electric signal and compares the measured distance to the content with a value stored in advance to identify the type of the content. The position of the hopper into which the contents of the cylindrical container are to be charged is displayed in accordance with the identification output.

The various powder materials (inoculants) to be taken out into the cylindrical container have different specific gravities. Therefore, when the same weight is put into the same container, the heights up to the surface are not the same and are different enough to be distinguished. There is no mistake. Further, when the powder material is put into the cylindrical container, vibration is applied from the outside, so that the surface of the contents becomes flat and accurate identification is performed.

As a result, it is possible to prevent the powder material from being mixed and stored in the hopper, and it is possible to reliably prevent the quality and reliability from being lowered due to the production of a defective product.

[0015]

Next, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of an embodiment of the present invention,
FIG. 2A is a front view showing the configuration of the hopper according to the embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2B is a side view thereof.

The embodiment of the present invention comprises a table 1, a cylindrical container 2 placed on the table 1, and a container 2 mounted at a predetermined height from the table 1 to the contents of the cylindrical container 2. An ultrasonic distance measuring device 3 arranged to measure the distance and outputting the measurement result as an electric signal; a storage means 4; an electric signal output from the ultrasonic distance measuring device 3; Identification means 5 for identifying the type of the contents by comparing the distance of the container with the value stored in advance in the storage means 4, and the contents of the cylindrical container 2 are loaded in accordance with the identification output from the identification means 5. Display means 6 for displaying the position of the hopper 21 to be performed by automatically opening the lid 21a provided at the input port thereof, and judging that the contents are different from the type specified by the identification means 5 Alarm output means for outputting an alarm when it is issued And a control circuit 8 including a vibrating means 9 for vibrating the cylindrical container 2 placed on the base 1, and an operation panel 10 for inputting operation instructions.

The ultrasonic distance measuring device 3 is fixed to a holder 13 attached to a cylinder 12, and a vibrating means 9 includes a vibrating cylinder 9a horizontally disposed on the table 1, and a vibrating cylinder 9a. The operation panel 10 includes a plurality of designation switches 10a for giving various operation instructions, and an alarm device 10b.
Are provided.

As shown in FIG. 2 (b), each hopper 21 has a crushing means 14 for crushing when the supplied powder material (hereinafter referred to as inoculant) is taken out, and a lid 21a for opening and closing. And an opening / closing cylinder 18 for performing the operation.
At a predetermined position where the upper cylindrical container 2 is placed, the cylindrical container 2 is placed.
And a container confirmation switch 15 for detecting that the is mounted and sending a detection signal to the operation panel 10 is provided.

Next, the operation of the embodiment of the present invention thus configured will be described. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an outline of an operation flow in the embodiment of the present invention.

In the casting step, a small amount of metal material or alloy material is mixed into cast iron as an inoculant. This inoculant requires a plurality of types, and its cutting is performed by a material weighing device. As shown in FIG. 2, a plurality of hoppers 21 are provided in the material weighing device, and a predetermined amount of inoculum is stored in each hopper 21. Further, a moving body 23 on which an operation board 27, weighing means 25, and a cup 24 for cutting out the inoculant are placed is provided, and a control device (not shown) controls the moving body 23 by an operation input from the operation board 27. The hopper 21 is moved to a predetermined position, and the opening / closing means 22 of the hopper 21 is opened and closed to cut a predetermined amount of the inoculant into the cup 24. At the time of this cutting, the inoculum is crushed by the crushing means 14.

After the inoculant is cut out in this manner, the inoculant is replenished into the hopper 21. The tubular container 2 shown in FIG. 1 is used for replenishment. When the inoculant is introduced from the packaging material into the cylindrical container 2 and is placed at a predetermined position on the table 1, the container confirmation switch 15 detects that the cylindrical container 2 is placed, and the detection is performed. The output is sent to the operation panel 10. The operation panel 10 receives this detection output and sets the distance measurement enabled state.

Here, the designated switch 10 on the operation panel 10
When the vibrating means 9 is started from a, the control circuit 8 switches the air supply from the air valve 16, drives the vibrating cylinder 9a, and causes the vibrating section 9b to apply the air to the side surface of the cylindrical container 2 for a predetermined time. Vibration over The surface of the injected inoculant is leveled by this vibration.

Next, the designation switch 10a of the operation panel 10
The control circuit 8 activates the ultrasonic range finder 3 and then controls the air valve 17 to move the cylinder 12 at a predetermined speed as shown by a solid line arrow when a designation input indicating the type of the inoculum injected from is made. To reciprocate. By this reciprocating movement, the ultrasonic distance measuring device 3 measures the average distance to the contents in the cylindrical container 2 and uses the measurement result as an electric signal in the control circuit 8.
Output to

The control circuit 8 takes in the electric signal, and the discriminating means 5 compares the average distance to the contents measured by the ultrasonic distance measuring device 3 with the value stored in the storage means 4 in advance. When the object is identified and the type is different from the designated type, the alarm output means 7 sends an alarm output to an alarm device 10b on the operation panel 10, and the alarm device 10b sounds a buzzer or lights a lamp according to the alarm output. Notify that there was an error.

When the identification means 5 determines that the contents in the cylindrical container 2 are of the specified type, the display means 6
Operates the air valve 19 to open the lid 21 a by the opening / closing cylinder 18 to indicate that the hopper 21 is to be charged with the contents in the cylindrical container 2.

Although each inoculant is sold in packaging bags of the same weight, for example, in units of 10 kilograms, their specific gravities are so different that when taken out into the cylindrical container 2, their heights are not the same. The inoculant, which can be sufficiently identified by the ultrasonic ranging device 3 and thus confirmed to be correct, is stored in a predetermined hopper 21.

After the inoculum is injected into the predetermined hopper 21, when the instruction of the completion of the injection is inputted from the operation panel 10, the display means 6 of the control circuit 8 operates the air valve 19 to open and close the lid 21a by the opening / closing cylinder 18. Close and reset for the next identification.

These series of operations are performed each time the operation panel 9
The operation can be performed by program control instead of the operation input from the user. In this case, the operation panel 10 and the designation switch 10a can be omitted.

The apparatus of the present invention can be used for a plurality of types of powder materials. In such a case, the required inoculant can be confirmed by performing the above-described operation.

[0030]

As described above, according to the present invention, a plurality of types of powder materials used for molding such as casting can be automatically determined by a simple input operation, and the powder materials can be mixed. In such a case, an alarm is immediately issued to notify the user of the error, so that the reliability of the work process can be enhanced and the loss of work steps due to the mistake can be reduced.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an overall configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2A is a front view showing a configuration of a hopper according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2B is a side view thereof.

FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining an outline of an operation flow in the embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 unit 2 cylindrical container 3 ultrasonic ranging device 4 storage unit 5 identification unit 6 display unit 7 alarm output unit 8 control circuit 9 excitation unit 9a excitation cylinder 9b excitation unit 10 operation panel 10a designation switch 10b alarm device 12 Cylinder 13 Holder 14 Crushing means 15 Container confirmation switch 16, 17, 19 Air valve 18 Opening / closing cylinder 21 Hopper 21a Lid 22 Opening / closing means 23 Moving body 24 Cup 25 Weighing means 27 Operation board

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on front page (58) Field surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁶ , DB name) B22D 1/00 G01F 23/28

Claims (3)

(57) [Claims] 1. A table, a cylindrical container placed on the table, and mounted at a predetermined height from the table and arranged to measure the distance to the contents of the container. Control including an ultrasonic ranging device that outputs the electric signal as an electric signal, and a unit that captures the electric signal and compares the distance to the contents of the container with a value stored in advance to identify the type of the contents. An apparatus for identifying a powder material, comprising: a circuit; and means for displaying a position of a hopper into which the contents of the container are to be charged, in accordance with an identification output of the control circuit. 2. The powder material identification apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising means for applying vibration to the cylindrical container placed on the table. 3. The powder material identification apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the means for displaying the position of the hopper to be charged is a means for automatically opening a lid provided at a charging port of the hopper.