JP3117864B2 - Article alignment device and inspection device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a posture aligning device for aligning the posture of an article such as a tablet, and an inspection device for an article provided with the posture aligning device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a device described in Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open Publication No. 57-71127 has been known as a device for inverting a tablet, for example, in order to inspect a flat circular tablet having upper and lower convex surfaces. ing.

[0003] Such an apparatus is provided with a strobe bar at a position above a belt conveyor for conveying tablets, and the tablets conveyed in a stable posture with one convex curved surface as a bottom face are gradually raised by the strobe bar. The configuration is such that the tablet is turned 180 ° so as to be turned over. The inverted tablet is sent to the inspection step in a stable posture with the other convex curved surface as the bottom surface. Note that the tablet is stable only when placed on one of the upper and lower convex curved surfaces as a bottom surface, and becomes unstable in other placement postures. Therefore, the tablet is surely turned 180 ° without being stabilized during the turning of 90 °, for example.

[0004]

In recent years, however, tablets having different shapes in which the upper and lower surfaces are convex curved surfaces and the left and right side surfaces are relatively large flat surfaces have been produced.
A tablet having such a shape is stable when placed on the upper and lower surfaces as bottom surfaces, and also becomes stable when placed on the left and right side surfaces as bottom surfaces. So, for example,
If the posture of any of the upper and lower curved surfaces of the tablet as the bottom surface is specified as the inspection posture of the tablet, correct the inappropriate posture of the tablet placed with the left and right side surfaces as the bottom surface, It is necessary to align it with the inspection posture.

However, conventionally, there is no device for automatically aligning such irregularly shaped tablets to a specific inspection posture.
Its appearance was desired. If the conventional device described above is used, regardless of the posture of the tablet, the lobe bar simply rotates the tablet by 90 °, and it is impossible to align the tablet to a specific posture at all. Can not.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide an attitude aligning apparatus which can automatically align articles such as tablets in a specific attitude and has a very simple structure, and an article inspection apparatus provided with the same. is there.

[0007]

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided an apparatus for aligning the posture of an article, wherein at least one of a plurality of side portions which may have a substantially polygonal cross section and may be a bottom surface when placed is a convex surface. An article orientation aligning device that aligns the orientation of the article, wherein a guide groove for conveying the article, and provided at the bottom of the guide groove at an angle to the length direction of the guide groove,
When the article is transferred with the convex surface as the bottom surface, it enters under the bottom surface, and when the article is transferred with the other side portion excluding the convex surface as the bottom surface, the article moves under the bottom surface. An inclined convex portion that presses and moves the article toward the side wall of the guide groove without entering, and is provided on the side wall of the guide groove, and comes into contact with the article that is moved toward the side wall, and And a contact portion for overturning.

An article inspection apparatus according to the present invention includes the above-described article alignment apparatus and inspection means for inspecting the shape of the article transferred through a guide groove of the alignment apparatus. Features.

[0009]

According to the present invention, for example, an article such as a tablet whose upper and lower surfaces are convexly curved and whose left and right side surfaces are relatively large planes is to be handled, and the article is guided in the guide groove. Depending on the moving posture, the inclined convex portion provided at the bottom of the guide groove does not press or move the article to overturn, so that an article with such a shape has a specific inspection posture with a very simple configuration And so on.

[0010]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIGS. 1 to 6 are views for explaining a first embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment, a flat elliptical tablet W is treated as a target article.

The tablet W will be described first (see FIG. 3). 3A is a side view of the tablet W, FIG. 3B is a plan view, and FIG. 3C is a side view. Tablet W
Has a plane elliptical shape and a substantially rectangular cross section, and upper and lower surfaces W
_1, W ₂ is a convex curved surface, side surfaces W _3, W ₄ is relatively large plane of the right and left. Therefore, this tablet W is
As shown in FIG. 3C, one of the upper and lower surfaces W ₁ and W ₂ can be placed as a bottom surface, and as shown in FIG. 3D, one of the left and right side surfaces W ₃ and W ₄ can be placed as a bottom surface. Can be placed. Then, the placement posture as shown in FIG. 3C is an inspection posture for inspecting the external shape of the tablet W as described later.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of an entire inspection apparatus for inspecting such a tablet W. The inspection apparatus incorporates a posture aligning device 10 for aligning the tablet W in an inspection posture.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a hopper for accommodating tablets W. Tablets W in the hopper 1 slide on a chute 3 vibrated up and down by a vibrator 2 in the direction of arrow A, and are conveyed on a transport rail. 11 is sent. Shoot 3
A sieve 5 for sifting the tablet W having a defect or the like is provided. The rail 11 is provided on a vibrator 12 that vibrates in a vertical direction, and is inclined downward from left to right in FIG. 1. And this rail 1
1 is formed with two left and right guide grooves 13 extending in the longitudinal direction. As shown in FIG. 2, the guide groove 13 is formed in a substantially U-shaped cross section by a bottom portion 13A and left and right side walls 13B, 13B. A part of the inner surface of the side wall 13B serves as an abutting portion for causing the tablet W to fall down in cooperation with the rod-shaped body 14 as described later. An inclined surface 13D that is inclined downward is formed at the right end of the bottom 13A in FIG. Also, on both sides of the guide groove 13, inclined surface portions 11A, 11A that open upward are formed, and on both sides of the rail 11, walls 11B, 11B for preventing the tablets W from jumping out are provided.

A lower half of a rod-shaped body (inclined projection) 14 made of synthetic resin or the like having a circular cross section is embedded in the bottom 13A of the guide groove 13 (see FIG. 5). Specifically, the bottom 13A
The lower half of the rod 14 is adhered to the groove 13C (see FIG. 4) having a semicircular cross-section by an adhesive. The rod-shaped body 14 is inclined at a predetermined angle θ (see FIG. 2) with respect to the length direction of the guide groove 13, and as shown in FIG. In this embodiment, three are provided, and they are set so that the inclination directions of their adjacent ones are alternately reversed.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 6 denotes a belt conveyor provided with a conveyor belt 6A.
The tablet W whose posture has been aligned is conveyed in the direction of arrow C. An inspection unit (inspection means) 7 for inspecting the external shape and the like of the tablets W is provided above the belt conveyor 6. For example, the inspection unit 7 has a built-in image pickup camera, and inspects the image of the tablet W by the camera to determine whether the tablet W is good or bad. In addition, belt conveyor 6
In the subsequent stage, there is provided a sorting mechanism (not shown) for separating non-defective and non-defective tablets W according to the inspection result of the inspection unit 7. The sorting mechanism is configured, for example, to blow the pressurized air only to the defective product among the tablets W discharged from the belt conveyor 6, and to repel the defective product from the transport path of the good product.

Next, the operation will be described.

The tablets W sent from the chute 3 onto the rail 11 enter a row in each of the guide grooves 13 and slide on the bottom 13A in the direction of arrow B (see FIG. 1). . The tablet W is inserted into the guide groove 13 as shown in FIG.
An inspection posture as shown in (c) or a posture as shown in FIG.

First, the tablet W in a bad posture is guided by the rod 14 while sliding on the bottom 13A, and is gradually brought to one side of the left and right side walls 13B, 13B along the inclination direction. In the case of FIGS. 5 (a) and 5 (b), they are gradually moved in the direction of arrow D toward the right side wall 13B in the figure. In addition, since the tablet W in the poor posture has one of the relatively large flat surfaces W ₃ and W ₄ in surface contact with the bottom 13A, the rod-shaped body 14 pushes the tablet W without penetrating under the tablet W. It approaches to one side of the left and right side walls 13b, 13b. Then, the tablet W comes into contact with the side wall 13b and falls down in the direction of arrow E as shown in FIG. 5B, and assumes the inspection posture shown in FIG. 3C. The two-dot chain line in FIG. 4 indicates the tablet W in the middle of falling.

In this embodiment, three guide grooves 13
Since two rods 14 are provided, the tablet W in a bad posture that is not taken into the inspection posture by the first rod 14 is surely inspected by the second or third rod 14. It is said. The three rods 4 are
Since the tablets W in the bad posture are alternately moved in the left-right direction in FIG. 5, even if the tablet W and the one side wall 13B have high adhesiveness, the tablets W are moved from the side wall 13B. After being separated, it can be surely turned over to the inspection posture.

On the other hand, the tablet W in the inspection posture slides on the bottom portion 13A and hits the rod-like body 4, and then rides on the rod-like body 14 as shown in FIGS. maintain. That is, since the tablet W in the inspection posture has _one of the upper and lower surfaces W ₁ and W ₂ that are convex curved surfaces as described above, one of the upper and lower surfaces W ₁ and W ₂ is in contact with the bottom portion 13A, and as shown in FIG. This is because the tablet does not fall over, slipping underneath.

Eventually, the tablets W are all aligned in the inspection posture, moved to the belt conveyor 6, and subjected to the inspection by the inspection unit 7.

By the way, when the tablet W in the bad posture falls down to the inspection posture, the portion of the side wall 13B (contact portion) with which the tablet W comes into contact is indicated by, for example, reference numeral 13D in FIG. In other words, it is only necessary that the tablet W can be turned over in cooperation with the rod-shaped body 14.

The tablet W is, for example, as shown in FIG.
Top W ₁ may be flat as shown in (b). In this case, only the state shown in FIG. 3A is the inspection posture. In addition to the state shown in FIG. 3D, either one of the side surfaces W ₃ and W ₄ is used as the bottom surface. The state of b) is a bad posture. That is, in the defect position in FIG. 8 (b), as in the case of side W _3, W poor posture one has a bottom surface _4, in surface contact with the upper surface W ₁ is on the bottom 13A is a plan, rod-shaped This is because the body 14 cannot enter under the tablet W. In the case of the bad posture shown in FIG. 4B, it is necessary to incline two turns 90 ° in the same direction by at least two rods 14. Therefore, at least two rods 14 inclined at least in the same direction may be continuously provided in the guide groove 13.

Further, when the tablet W is conveyed in the guide groove 13, the rod W enters under the inspection posture if the tablet W is in the inspection posture.
What is necessary is just to comprise the inclined convex part which presses so that it may fall. Therefore, the inclined convex portion is connected to the bottom portion 13A.
May be integrally formed. Further, the cross-sectional shape of the inclined convex portion, the inclined angle θ, and the like may be set according to the type of the tablet W, the feed speed, and the like. In addition, the height and inclination angle θ of the inclined convex portion
May be changed as appropriate, in which case, for example, the rod 14 may be provided so as to be position-adjustable.
Of course, the shape of the tablet W is not limited only to the above-described embodiment, and the point is that at least one of the plurality of side surfaces that can be a bottom surface when placed is a convex surface.

In the inspection apparatus shown in FIG.
1 is exchangeable with a different one, and each time the shape of the tablet W to be inspected is changed, the rail 1
1 may be provided.

[0027]

As described above, according to the present invention,
For example, an article such as a tablet whose upper and lower surfaces are convex curved surfaces and left and right side surfaces are relatively large planes is to be handled, and the guide groove is set in accordance with a posture in which the article moves in the guide groove. Since the inclined convex portion provided at the bottom of the device does not press or move the product to overturn, the product having such a shape can be aligned to a specific inspection posture or the like with a very simple configuration.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of an entire inspection apparatus showing one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an enlarged sectional view of a rail shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is an external view of a tablet inspected by the inspection device of FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a main part for describing the overturning operation of the tablet in the guide groove shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional view for explaining an operation when a tablet in a bad posture slides and moves in the guide groove shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 6 is a cross-sectional view for explaining an operation when the tablet in the inspection posture slides and moves in the guide groove shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 7 is a sectional view of a main part for describing another embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is an external view of another example of a tablet to be handled according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

6 Belt Conveyor 7 Inspection Unit (Inspection Means) 10 Posture Alignment Device 11 Rail 12 Vibrator 13 Guide Groove 13A Bottom 13B Sidewall 13C Groove 13D Contact Part 14 Rod W Tablet W ₁ Upper Surface W ₂ Lower Surface W ₃ , W ₄ Side Surface

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. An article posture aligning apparatus for aligning the posture of an article having at least one of a plurality of side surfaces having a substantially polygonal cross-section and being a bottom surface when placed, having a convex surface. A guide groove for conveying the article, provided at the bottom of the guide groove so as to be inclined with respect to the length direction of the guide groove, and when the article is transferred with the convex surface as a bottom surface, A slope that moves downwardly and presses and moves the article toward the side wall of the guide groove without entering under the bottom surface when the article is transported with the other side portion excluding the convex surface as a bottom surface. A posture of the article, comprising: a convex portion; and a contact portion provided on a side wall of the guide groove and abutting on the article moved toward the side wall to fall the article. Alignment device. 2. An article posture aligning device according to claim 1, and an inspection means for inspecting a shape of the article conveyed through a guide groove of the posture alignment device. Inspection equipment for goods.