JP3157064B2 - Welding machine - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a welding machine for joining pipes such as pipes and joints made of a thermoplastic resin such as PPS by butt fusion.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As a welding machine for a pipe material of a thermoplastic resin molded product, a pipe material is gripped by a pair of clamps, a connection end of each pipe material is melted by heating with a heater, and then a handle operation is performed. There is a structure in which one of the clamps is moved toward the other clamp side so that the respective fusion parts are brought together at a predetermined pressure and fused to each other (for example, Japanese Utility Model Publication No. Sho 56-26217). Further, as another fusion machine, there is a system device in which a clamp is automatically moved by a mechanism using an air cylinder.

[0003] This type of fusing machine is generally of the type that can be used to connect a plurality of types of pipes with a single device.

[0004]

According to the fusion machine for performing the joining by butt fusion, when the diameter of the pipe to be connected is changed, the butt load is changed according to the diameter every time the size is changed. There is a need. However,
According to the conventional welding machine described above, the pressure adjustment at the time of abutting of the pipe members is performed manually by an operator such as torque control by operating a handle or adjustment of a regulator of an air cylinder. The butt load fluctuates each time the replacement is performed, and therefore, stable joining strength cannot always be obtained.

The present invention has been made in view of such circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to always perform fusion bonding under stable conditions even if the size of a pipe or joint to be connected is changed. An object of the present invention is to provide a welding machine having high strength reliability.

[0006]

A structure for achieving the above object will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 to 4 corresponding to an embodiment. The present invention provides a fixed side clamp 1 and a movable side clamp 2. An air cylinder 20 that provides the movement;
The two clamps 1 and 2 have a heater 3 for heating the connection ends of the pipes P and J gripped by the clamps 1 and 2, and the clamps 1 and 2 grip pipes of various diameters by changing liners. In the fusion machine having the structure to be obtained, lockers P2 and P3 having different lengths from each other are provided on the liners of each caliber type (for example, the liner L3 of the fixed side clamp). The sensors S1... S5 for detecting the tip positions of the pins are arranged in a positional relationship corresponding to the length of each pin.
The pneumatic circuit 21 has a number of pneumatic controllers R1,..., R5 corresponding to the respective diameter types of the liner, and switching means (electromagnetic controller) for selectively connecting any one of the pneumatic controllers to the air cylinder. Valves V1... V5) are provided. And it is characterized by having the controller 7 which controls the switching of the connection according to each sensor output.

[0007]

When the liners of the clamps 1 and 2 are exchanged when changing the size of the pipe / joint to be connected, the switching means is switched in accordance with the length of the lock pin P3 of the liner L3 and connected to the air cylinder 20. Is automatically selected. Therefore, each air pressure controller R1.
By setting each adjustment pressure to a pressure (butting load) suitable for each bore type of the liner, that is, the size of the pipe / joint to be connected, each size change can be adjusted to various sizes. Butt fusion is performed under suitable conditions.

[0008]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a front view showing the structure of the embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a plan view thereof. FIG. 3 is a sectional view taken along line AA of FIG. In FIG. 1, a specific configuration of the heater 3 is omitted.

Fixed side clamp 1 and movable side clamp 2
Is for holding piping materials (PPS molded products) P and J to be joined, and is arranged on the bed 5. Further, the clamps 1 and 2 are fixed to ends of the frames 1a and 2a slidably disposed on the guides 6a and 6b, respectively.
They face each other.

Each of the clamps 1 and 2 has a vertically divided structure, and each upper half thereof has a structure that opens upward with a hinge 1b (moving side not shown) as a center.
Tightening mechanisms 1c and 2c for fastening upper and lower members are provided on opposite sides of the hinges. Further, the gripping centers of the pair of clamps 1 and 2 coincide with each other.

The gantry 1a of the fixed clamp is fixed to the bed 5 via a holding rod 12 for position control and a lock mechanism 10 thereof. The lock mechanism 10 locks the movement of the holding rod 12 by operating the lever 11 and releases the movement of the holding rod 12. When the handle 13 is rotated in the unlocked state, the lock mechanism 10 is fixed. The position of one bed 5 can be adjusted.

A rod 20a of the air cylinder 20 is connected to the base 2a of the movable clamp.
The gantry 2a, that is, the movable clamp 2 moves toward the fixed clamp 1 by the movement (retreat) of 0a.

On the other hand, as shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, a heater 3 and a spacer 4 are arranged on the bed 5 of the welding machine at positions facing each other with a pair of clamps 1 and 2 therebetween. ing.

The heater 3 can arbitrarily set a heating temperature up to about 500 ° C., for example, a cartridge type is used. The heater 3 is selectively disposed at a standby position (an upright state shown in FIG. 3) and a use position, that is, an intermediate position between the two clamps 1 and 2 by a rotating mechanism 30 driven by a geared motor 31 with a brake. Is done. The rotation speed of the heater 3 is preferably within 0.5 seconds in one direction, and the heater 3 is preferably disposed at a position corresponding to the gripping center of each of the clamps 1 and 2 at the use position. .

The spacer 4 is used for positioning when fixing the pipe members P and J to the clamps 1 and 2, and is entirely supported by a manual rotating mechanism 40. The thickness of the spacer 4 is 2 mm thicker than the heater 3, and the spacer 4 is positioned at a use position (an intermediate position between the two clamps 1 and 2) by operating the lever 41 of the rotating mechanism, and its positioning surface 4 a , 4b are set so as to be closer to the fixed side clamp 1 and the movable side clamp 2 by 1 mm with respect to the positions of the heating surfaces 3a, 3b of the heater 3, respectively.

Here, the procedure and operation for connecting pipes and joints by the fusion machine having the above structure will be briefly described. First, before automatic fusion splicing is performed, an operator sets the connection piping materials P and J in the fusion splicer. The setting is
The spacer 4 is manually moved and placed at the use position,
In this state, the pipes P and J are disposed on the two clamps 1 and 2, and the closing and tightening of the clamps 1 and 2 are performed with the respective connection end surfaces being in contact with the positioning surfaces 4 a and 4 b of the spacer 4. By doing so, the piping materials P and J are fixed. After the setting is completed,
The spacer 4 is moved to the standby position. Further, the heater 2 performs preheating, and keeps its temperature at, for example, 400 ° C. or more.

After the above setting is completed, the automatic operation of the fusion bonding is started. The operation is as follows. First, the heater 2 is moved to the use position,
After a certain period of time (the melting time of the connection end) has elapsed, the heater 2 is retracted to the standby position, and then the movable clamp 2 is moved toward the fixed clamp 1, so that the piping material P and the piping material J are moved. Butt joints are performed by bringing the ends of the base plates into contact with each other.

In the embodiment of the present invention, each liner L3 of the pair of clamps 1 and 2 (only the fixed-side clamp is shown) has a structure that can be exchanged. The material can be gripped. In this example, liners for five kinds of diameters (L2,
L3, etc .: see FIG. 4).
2, L3 are provided with lock pins P2, P3 having different lengths, respectively. These lock pins P2, P3
Is a pin for positioning and fixing when the liner is mounted on the clamp.

Further, as shown in FIG. 4, the fixed side clamp 1 of the pair of clamps has five proximity switches S1... Around a hole 1h in which the lock pin is fitted.
S5 is arranged. Each of the proximity switches S1... S5
Are located at a depth corresponding to the length of the lock pin (P3) of the liner (L3) of each caliber type mounted on the fixed side clamp 1. These proximity switches S1... S5 are connected to the controller 7.

On the other hand, a pneumatic circuit 21 of an air cylinder 20 for moving the moving clamp 2 has an air compressor 21.
a and five cylinders R1 between cylinder a and cylinder 20
R5 are connected in parallel with each other. The adjustment pressure of each of the air pressure regulators R1,..., R5 is set to a value (butt load) suitable for each size of the piping material connected by this fusion machine. Each of the air pressure regulators R1... R5 has a solenoid valve V1 controlled to be opened and closed by the controller 7.
V5 is connected to each outlet side.

The controller 7 sets only one of the five solenoid valves V1... V5 to "open" based on the ON / OFF output of each proximity switch S1. Then, the other four valves are set to “closed”. That is, in the example of FIG. 4, since the liner L3 is attached to the clamp 1, only the proximity switch S3 at the position corresponding to the tip of the lock pin P3 is turned ON, and only the solenoid valve V3 is opened. Compressed air is supplied to the air cylinder 20 through an air pressure regulator R3.

Here, when the size is changed and, for example, the liner L2 is mounted on the clamp 1, the solenoid valve which is "opened" is automatically switched from V3 to V2, whereby the driving pressure of the air cylinder 20 is changed. Is set by the air pressure regulator R2. Similarly, every time the liner is changed at the time of size change, the air pressure regulator (R1... R5) corresponding to the size after the change is automatically selected.

In the above embodiment of the present invention, the number of air pressure regulators is five. However, the number of air pressure regulators is not limited to five. Select according to the number of possible pipe diameter types.

The clamp for arranging the proximity switch may be either a fixed side clamp or a movable side clamp, but is preferably provided on the fixed side clamp in consideration of the durability of the switch signal line and the like. Further, instead of the proximity switch, another general position detection sensor such as a photoelectric switch may be employed.

Further, in the above embodiment, an example of connection of PPS pipe material has been described. However, in addition to such a thermoplastic resin molded product having a high melting point, the fusing machine according to the present invention may be used, for example, vinyl chloride. It can also be used to connect piping materials molded of low melting point resin.

[0026]

As described above, according to the fusing machine of the present invention, a plurality of air pressure regulators are provided for an air cylinder (one unit) which performs a clamp movement at the time of butt fusion. One of the air pressure regulators is automatically selected according to the diameter of the liner attached to the clamp, so even if the size of the connecting pipe is changed, the butt load will be Is automatically set to a value suitable for the size of the pipe, whereby the fusion splicing conditions can be always kept constant in any size pipe connection, so that the reliability of the connection strength is improved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a front view showing the structure of a mechanism section according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a plan view of the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a sectional view taken along line AA of FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of a control unit according to the embodiment of the present invention, and also illustrates a block diagram of a pneumatic circuit 21 and a control system.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Fixed side clamp 1h Positioning hole L2, L3 Liner P2, P3 Lock pin S1... S5 Proximity switch 2 Moving side clamp 20 Air cylinder 21 Pneumatic circuit R1... R5 Air pressure regulator V1. Controller P, J Piping material

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on front page (58) Field surveyed (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) B29C 65/00-65/82

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] An apparatus for connecting pipes such as pipes and joints formed of a thermoplastic resin by butt fusion, comprising: a fixed clamp for gripping one of the pipes to be connected; A moving clamp for gripping the other pipe material to be connected and disposed so as to be able to approach and separate from the clamp, an air cylinder for providing the movement, and each connection end of the pipe material gripped by these two clamps After the connection end is melted by heating the heater, the melted portions are configured to abut each other by moving the moving side clamp, and the clamp is configured to have a plurality of types by changing the liner. In a welding machine having a structure capable of gripping a pipe material having a diameter, lock pins having different lengths are provided in the liners of the respective diameter types, respectively. The clamp is provided with a sensor for detecting the position of the tip of the lock pin in a positional relationship corresponding to the length of each pin, and the pneumatic circuit of the air cylinder is provided with each type of bore of the liner. And a switching means for selectively connecting any one of the pneumatic controllers to the air cylinder, and switching the connection to each of the sensor outputs. A fusing machine comprising a controller that controls the fusing according to the following conditions.