JP3158928B2 - Automatic battery charger - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a battery automatic charging apparatus which is convenient for automatically charging a battery mounted on a vehicle such as an unmanned carrier.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Unmanned transport vehicles used in factories and the like are equipped with a battery as a power source, and run along a fixed taxiway using electric power stored in the battery. Since the power of the battery is lost as the transport vehicle travels, the transport vehicle that has traveled for a certain period of time is temporarily stopped at a charging station provided in the middle of the taxiway and is charged.

[0003] The charging system as described above requires an electrical connection mechanism that can be disconnected between the carrier and the charging station. For this reason, a traveling vehicle is provided with a traveling-side contact that cooperates with the vehicle, and a charging station is provided with a ground-side contact. A system has been established in which both of these contacts come into contact with the transportation vehicle when it stops.

[0004] However, if the carriage is stopped only at a predetermined position, it is difficult to bring the traveling-side contact into contact with the ground-side contact, or safety problems are likely to occur when disconnecting the traveling-side contact.
Therefore, with respect to the ground-side contact that is easy to operate, it has been considered to adopt an actuator that moves forward and reliably presses the ground-side contact against the traveling-side contact, or that retracts by retracting. Starting with such an actuator,
A control means for automating the operation and a charging means (rectifier, transformer, etc.) for charging the battery through a ground contact have become essential.

[0005]

In order to establish a charging system as described above, an actuator, a charging means, and a control means must be combined so as to be compatible with the system. A great deal of labor has to be paid, and as a result, the cost may be increased and the size may be easily increased. In addition, at the point of contact between the traditional carrier and the charger,
There are many mechanical scissoring methods using elastic bodies such as springs, but in order to adopt this method, it is necessary to maintain high stopping accuracy of the transport cart, and the contacts tend to be worn out by scissoring. Frequent maintenance was required.

Therefore, the present invention overcomes the above-mentioned problems of the prior art, and an actuator to be assembled with a contact.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a battery automatic charging device in which the charging means and the control means are compactly arranged to improve the ease of handling and the reliability of the contacts is high.

[0007]

As shown in the accompanying drawings, an automatic battery charger provided by the present invention has a ground contact and a running contact A electrically connected to an on-board battery. And a charging unit X having a control means for controlling the movement of the actuator unit and charging means for flowing a charging current to the battery through a ground contact, and having an operation panel. That is, the actuator unit and the charging unit are divided and combined and integrated. In this way, by combining and integrating the actuator unit that captures the ground-side contact and the charging unit that incorporates its control means and charging means and has an operation panel, it is possible to make the entire system compact. Handling is also improved.

Although various layouts of each unit are conceivable, it is preferable that the actuator unit is arranged on the lower side and the charging unit is arranged on the upper side. Alternatively, the actuator unit and the charging unit are arranged in parallel.

When the surface of the operation panel of the charging unit is perpendicular to the side surface of the actuator unit on which the ground contacts are provided, the operability is further improved.

The actuator unit has a linear motion part formed by a chain 6 interlocked with a motor 4 with an electromagnetic brake via a sprocket 5 and has a shaft 8 supported by a slider 9. Preferably, the retreating end is linked to the linear motion portion of the chain, and the advancing end is linked to the ground contact.

In this case, a bottom plate is connected to the linear reciprocating portion of the chain and connected to the rearward end of the shaft, and limit switches are provided at the forward limit position and the reverse limit position of the bottom plate, and the limit switch is controlled. Automatic control can be achieved by incorporating it into the circuit.

Lead cable 15 to be connected to ground side contact
Is connected and suspended to the terminal block 16 in the charging unit, and the lead cable is slackened so as to be able to swing, whereby the operation of the ground contact in the actuator unit can be tolerated by the slack of the cable.

In a preferred embodiment of each contact, a wide contact surface A2 is formed on the traveling contact by a sheet contact material A1,
A conductive bar B2 which is fixed a button-type contact material B1 that can contact pressing at any point of the contact surface of the wide according to the ground side contact, the boom the conductive rod and swivelably supported via a spherical joint B3 B2 And a bottomed guide cylinder B5 for piercing the boom movably in the axial direction, and a compression spring B6 mounted in the bottomed guide cylinder and engaged with the boom. The cylinder is linked to an actuator unit via a drive base 10.

A contact confirmation limit switch is provided for the ground contact, and the limit switch is preferably arranged at a position where the retreat end of the boom can be detected when the traveling contact and the ground contact are in contact. Or,
A contact rod 19 capable of pushing the insulating portion of the traveling trolley is provided so as to be able to move forward and backward in parallel with the ground contact, and is used for confirming contact at a position where the retracted end of the contact rod at the time of pushing can be detected. Preferably, the limit switch 21 is provided.

[0015]

1 to 6 show a preferred embodiment of an automatic battery charging apparatus according to the present invention. FIGS. 1 and 2 show only the ground side, and FIG. 3 shows an actuator unit on the ground side. FIG. 4 shows a charging procedure, FIG. 5 shows a state of connection between contacts, and FIG.
Fig. 2 shows the specific structure of the ground contact.

As shown in FIG. 4, the automatic battery charging apparatus according to the present embodiment basically includes a trolley-side contact A, a ground-side contact B, and a terrestrial-side contact B incorporated in a transport trolley Z on which a battery 11 is mounted. For reciprocating (forward / backward movement), and control means and charging means for the actuator.

As shown in FIG. 4, when the transport vehicle Z stops at the charging station and attempts to charge, first,
As shown in (a), the transport vehicle Z is stopped so that the bogie-side contact A of the transport vehicle Z is directly opposed to the ground-side contact B. Then, as shown in (b), the ground-side contact B is made.
Is driven forward by the actuator unit Y, and the ground contact B is pressed against the bogie contact A to achieve electrical contact conduction. If power is sent from the charging circuit and the battery 11 is charged, the above operation is performed in reverse to disconnect both of the bogie-side and ground-side contacts, thereby enabling the transport vehicle Z to travel.

In this embodiment, the mechanism in the ground station is greatly improved. That is, FIG.
As shown in FIG. 2, the charging unit X is composed of an actuator unit Y for taking in the ground contact B and a charging unit X.

The charging unit X incorporates a transformer 1 and a rectifier 2 as charging means, a control circuit 3 as control means, and the like in a housing, and a terminal block 16 as a connection terminal to each of these parts. Further, an operation panel 17 provided with instruments is installed on an obliquely upper slope of the housing. The control circuit 3 controls the charging circuit in the charging means and the actuator unit Y. The actuator unit Y has a housing having the same size around the side surface as the housing of the charging unit X, and a driving mechanism is arranged in the housing. As shown in FIGS. Has an opening for letting the ground side contact B in and out.

Each of the charging unit X and the actuator unit Y can be handled as one box, and a series of station boxes can be constructed only by assembling the actuator unit Y on the lower side and the charging unit X on the upper side. In general, the carriage Z has a low vehicle height. Therefore, as described above, the actuator unit Y
Should be provided at a lower position. In order to adjust the connection with the transporting trolley Z (see FIG. 4), it is preferable to further raise the height below the actuator unit Y with a structural member such as a channel material. In that sense, it is desirable to dispose the actuator unit Y at the lowermost position.

As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, if the surface of the operation panel 17 in the charging unit is made perpendicular to the side of the actuator unit where the ground contact B is inserted and removed, the movement of the ground contact B will be described. The worker can be sufficiently separated from the part, and the operability is improved by safe work. When the housings of the charging unit X and the actuator unit Y are each square when viewed from directly above, the surface of the operation panel 17 can be directed to any of the three side surfaces other than the above ground side contact B access surface. Assembling between units becomes possible, and the degree of freedom in selecting an operation position increases.

In the integration of the combination of the charging unit X and the actuator unit Y, it is preferable to disassemble the housing by connecting them with bolts or the like in consideration of maintenance. In consideration of ease of assembly, it is preferable that the eyebolt 18 be screwed onto the upper portion of the housing of the charging unit X so that the charging unit X can be lifted by a hoist or a crane. In this case, a female screw is provided at the upper part of the housing, and the eyebolt 18 is usually removed, and the eyebolt is preferably screwed to the female screw only during work.

As shown in FIG. 3, the drive mechanism in the actuator unit Y includes a motor 4 with an electromagnetic brake, a sprocket 5 provided on a drive shaft of the motor with the electromagnetic brake, and a sprocket facing the sprocket. 5 'and a chain 6 wound between the sprockets 5 and 5' constitute a drive unit.
Is set as a linear motion part. In addition, a shaft 8 is supported by a slider 9 so as to be axially movable, and the axial movement of this shaft is parallel to the linearly moving portion of the chain 6. A flat bottom plate 7 is attached to the linear motion portion of the chain 6 in an upright state.
The shaft 8 is linked to the linearly moving part of the chain 6.

The motor 4 with the electromagnetic brake is capable of freely rotating in the forward and reverse directions, thereby reciprocating the linear motion portion of the chain 6 and moving the shaft 8 forward and backward.
Make retreat possible. In order to set the range of reciprocating movement, that is, the stroke of the forward and backward movements of the shaft 8, a limit switch 12 is preferably arranged at the forward limit position of the bottom plate 7 and a limit switch 13 is arranged at the backward limit position of the bottom plate 7, respectively. By incorporating these limit switches 12 and 13 in the control circuit 3, the rotation of the motor 4 with the electromagnetic brake can be automatically operated under the control of the control circuit 3.

Two ground-side contacts B, B are used, one for + and the other for-. These ground-side contacts are arranged so as to be able to face the bogie-side contacts A under the same driving conditions. Therefore, the bottom plate 7 is widened in the lateral direction, and one shaft 8 is fixed at both ends in the width direction, so that the forward end of the two shafts 8, 8 has a wide drive base similarly to the bottom plate. 10 and 2
By connecting the ground-side contacts B, B, the ground-side contacts B, B are devised so that one-sided pressing does not occur. Note that the bogie-side contact A with respect to the ground-side contacts B, B is +,-.
It is needless to say that each has one contact number.

Since the two ground contacts B, B are supplied with power from a charging circuit including the transformer 1 and the rectifier 2, leads connected to their terminals and the terminal block 16 in the charging unit A are provided. It has a cable 15. As shown in FIGS. 1 and 4, the lead cable 15 is connected to the transformer 1 in the charging unit X from the actuator unit Y.
Of the ground-side contact B by connecting and suspending it to the terminal block 16 above the charging unit in a state where the cable is loosened through the space for cable passage between the rectifier 2 and the rectifier 2. With this movement, the amplitude is made possible, so that the ground contact B can be moved while the lead cable 15 is connected, so that no burden is imposed on the lead cable 15.

FIGS. 5 and 6 specifically show the bogie-side contact A and the ground-side contact B. FIG. Thus, the trolley side contact A is
A wide contact surface A having a planar contact material A1 mounted on an insulating substrate to allow deviation of contact points.
2 is formed. The contact surface A2 is shown in FIG.
As shown in FIG. 6, by installing the device in the recessed space of the transport vehicle Z, safety measures are taken to prevent a person from intentionally touching the contacts during charging. Is less likely to become dirty.

On the other hand, the ground contact B is made up of a conductive rod B2 to which a button-type contact material B1 capable of being pressed and contacting an arbitrary point on the wide contact surface A2 is fixed, and this conductive rod is connected via a spherical joint B3. It has a boom B2 supported so as to be able to swing, a bottomed guide tube B5 through which the boom is movably moved in the axial direction, and a compression spring B6 mounted in the bottomed guide tube and engaged with the boom. The bottomed guide cylinder B5 is connected to the drive base 10 described above.
The boom B4 is parallel to the shaft 8 (see FIG. 3) and can be moved forward and backward by driving the actuator unit Y. B7 is a terminal fixed to the rear end of the boom, and is connected to the conductive rod B2 with a flexible conductor,
The connection of the lead cable 15 (see FIGS. 1 and 4) is enabled.

The trolley contact A and the ground contact B as described above.
With this configuration, a series of contact operations and the maintenance or release thereof can be performed reliably and with good reproducibility by a very simple driving operation without increasing the stopping accuracy of the carrier (even if roughened to some extent). It is.

To automatically detect whether or not the button-type contact material B1 of the ground contact advancing by the driving of the actuator unit Y has contacted the contact surface A2 of the planar contact material of the bogie contact. As shown in FIG. 5, a contact confirmation limit switch 14 may be provided. The contact confirmation limit switch 14 may be fixedly disposed on the lower overhang 10a of the drive base 10 at a position where the rear end B4a of the boom B4 when retracted can be detected. In this case, two contacts are arranged so that the + and-poles of the ground contact A can be detected.

The operation (operation) of the battery automatic charging apparatus of the present embodiment configured as described above will be described. First, a transport trolley whose battery has been exhausted is charged with a battery Z in FIG. As shown in the figure, when the vehicle stops at the fixed position of the charging station, a charge request signal is sent to the control circuit 3 from the host computer controlling the carrier Z by wire . Upon receiving the signal, the control circuit 3 issues a signal to rotate the motor 4 with the electromagnetic brake in the actuator unit in the forward direction.
The ground contact A is advanced by the pushing force of the drive base 10, and the button-type contact material B1 is located on the contact surface A2 of the truck-side contact opposed thereto. When the point is pressed and the bottom plate 7 at the rear end of the shaft hits the limit switch 12 for detecting the forward limit position, a signal is sent to the control circuit 3 to stop the forward operation, and the rotation of the motor 4 with the electromagnetic brake is stopped. .

At this time, the bottomed guide cylinder B5 is moved to the compression spring B6.
Is extruded while compressing it.
Since 0 moves forward relative to boom B4,
The contact position confirmation limit switch 14 linked to the drive base is hit at the rear end B4a of the boom, and issues a contact confirmation signal to the control circuit 3. Then, when the contact confirmation signals for the + and-poles are obtained, a charge start command is issued from the control circuit to the charging means (a charger including the transformer 1, the rectifier 2, etc.). Then, electric power is sent via the ground contact A and the bogie contact B, and charging of the battery is started. Such a contact confirmation method can be easily configured, and +,-
Each pole is separately checked, and if there is a contact failure of the contact, the current is not turned on, so that excellent reliability of the contact can be obtained.

When charging for a certain period of time is completed as described above, a charge completion signal is sent from the control circuit 3 to the charger.
The control circuit 3 drives and controls the actuator unit Y so that the ground side contact B is retracted, sends a signal of a charging work end to a host computer that controls the transport trolley Z, ends a series of operations for charging, and The carriage Z is shifted to a traveling operation.

[Other Embodiments and Modifications] When the battery mounted on the transport vehicle becomes large and a large charging current is required, the charging circuit becomes large and the weight increases. In such a case, it is difficult to mount the charging unit X with a built-in charging circuit on the actuator unit Y in terms of weight and strength. Therefore, as shown in FIG. It is desirable to arrange. In this case, it is preferable that the actuator unit Y is arranged in parallel with the side surface of the charging unit X excluding the side surface of the ground contact point B, and is integrated therewith.

The driving means in the actuator unit is not limited to the motor and the chain described above. For example, a method of using an air cylinder to move the ground contact forward or backward by the pressure of air may be considered.

As a means for confirming whether or not the ground contact B has reliably contacted the carriage contact A, a contact rod 19 may be used as shown in FIG. The contact rod 19 penetrates the drive base 10 at a right angle, and is urged forward through a compression spring 20. At the front end, an insulating portion 22 on the side of the transporting trolley (for example, an insulating base of the trolley-side contact A). (See FIG. 6)). The contact confirmation limit switch 21 fixed to the lower protrusion 10a of the drive base is provided to detect the rear end of the contact rod 19 when the contact rod 19 is retracted. Accordingly, when the bogie-side and ground-side contacts A and B come into contact with each other, the contact rod 19
Is pushed back by the insulating part 22 on the side of the transporting trolley, and the limit switch 21 is hit by the rear end of the contact rod that has receded. When the ground contact B is retracted, the contact rod 19 is pushed forward by the elastic force of the compression spring 20 compressed by pushing back the contact rod, and a predetermined reset is performed .
1 to FIG. 6 are denoted by the same reference numerals as those given to them, and therefore, the description regarding FIGS.

Further, in the above-described embodiment, signals are exchanged between the automatic charging device and the host computer by a wired method. However, the present invention is not limited to this. A method of mutual signal transmission and a method of wirelessly exchanging signals are also conceivable.

[0038]

According to the battery automatic charging apparatus of the present invention as described above, the actuator unit for taking in the ground contact can be combined with the charging unit having the charging means and the control means incorporated therein and the operation panel provided. In addition, the whole system is greatly reduced in size and its handling becomes very good. In addition, by bringing the contact point between the transport vehicle and the ground side face-to-face,
Can take tolerance to stopping accuracy of the conveying carriage, we are possible to achieve simplification of the maintenance of the contact portion.

[Brief description of the drawings]

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is an external side view of an automatic battery charger (only on the ground side), and FIG.

2 (a) is an overhead perspective view showing an automatic battery charging device (ground side only) before operation, and FIG. 2 (b) is an overhead battery charging device (ground side only) in an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 5 is an overhead perspective view showing a state after the operation.

FIGS. 3A and 3B specifically show a mechanism of an actuator unit in the embodiment of the present invention, wherein FIG. 3A is a rear view and FIG.

FIG. 4 is a view showing a charging procedure of the automatic battery charging apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention.
(B) is an explanatory view when the vehicle is in a charging state.

FIGS. 5A and 5B are diagrams illustrating a connection between a bogie-side contact and a ground-side contact according to the embodiment of the present invention, wherein FIG. 5A is an explanatory diagram before contact and FIG.

FIG. 6 is a structural explanatory view specifically showing a bogie-side contact and a ground-side contact in the embodiment of the present invention.

7 is a bird's-eye perspective view of another embodiment of the present invention in which the layout of the automatic battery charger (only on the ground side) is changed from FIG.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory view showing another embodiment of the present invention in which a contact confirmation mechanism of the automatic battery charger is changed from that of FIG. 1;

[Explanation of symbols]

 A cart side contact A1 planar contact material A2 contact surface B ground contact B1 button type contact material B2 conductive rod B3 spherical joint B4 boom B5 bottomed guide cylinder B6 compression spring B7 terminal X charging unit Y actuator unit Z transport carriage 1 Transformer 2 Rectifier 3 Control circuit 4 Motor with electromagnetic brake 5 Sprocket 6 Chain 7 Bottom plate 8 Shaft 9 Slider 10 Drive base 11 Battery 12 Limit switch (for detecting end of forward) 13 Limit switch (for detecting end of reverse) 14 Limit switch (contact) Confirmation) 15 Lead cable 16 Terminal block 17 Operation panel 18 Eyebolt 19 Contact rod 20 Spring 21 Limit switch (For contact confirmation) 22 Insulation of traveling side contact

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing from the front page (72) Inventor Masami Murayama 4-2-1-1, Hidaka-cho, Hitachi City, Ibaraki Prefecture Inspector, Hitachi Cable Equipment Co., Ltd. Nozomu Nagama (56) References JP-A-6-113468 (JP, A) JP-A-5-236603 (JP, A) JP-A-5-15073 (JP, A) JP-A-3-80602 (JP, U) JP-A 52-75220 (JP, U) ( 58) Field surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) B60L 11/18 H02J 7/00 H02J 7/00 301

Claims (8)

(57) [Claims] 1. An actuator unit Y for taking in a ground contact B with respect to a traveling contact A electrically connected to an on-board battery, control means for controlling the movement of the actuator unit, and ground contact. It is provided with a charging unit X having a built-operation panel charging means for supplying a charging current to the battery, Ri Na and dividable combined integrated charging unit and their actuator unit, the operation in the charging unit
Connect the panel surface to the ground side of the actuator unit.
Make it perpendicular to the side of the point
Connect the lead cable 15 to the terminal inside the charging unit.
Connected to and suspended from the table 16, the lead cable can swing
An automatic battery charger with a slack as it is . 2. The automatic battery charging device according to claim 1, wherein the actuator unit is disposed on a lower side and the charging unit is disposed on an upper side. 3. The automatic battery charging device according to claim 1, wherein the actuator unit and the charging unit are arranged in parallel. 4. The actuator unit has a linear motion portion formed by a chain 6 interlocked with a motor 4 with an electromagnetic brake via a sprocket 5 and has a shaft 8 supported by a slider 9. 2. The automatic battery charging device according to claim 1, wherein the retreat end of the shaft is linked to the linearly moving portion of the chain, and the forward end is linked to the ground contact. 5. A coupled to the linear reciprocating section of the chain and has a bottom plate connected to retreat end of the shaft, the limit switch is provided in the forward limit position and a retracted limit position of the bottom plate, according to claim 4, wherein Battery automatic charging device. 6. A wide contact surface A2 is formed by a sheet contact material A1 on the traveling-side contact, and a button-type contact material B1 capable of pressing and contacting an arbitrary point on the wide contact surface on the ground-side contact. a conductive bar B2 which is fixed to a boom B 4 that the conductive rod is supported swingably via a spherical joint B3, a bottomed guide tube B5 to movably penetrate the boom in the axial direction, the bottom The battery automatic charging according to claim 1, further comprising a compression spring (B6) mounted in the guide cylinder and engaged with the boom, wherein the bottomed guide cylinder is linked to the actuator unit via the drive base (10). apparatus. 7. A contact confirmation limit switch is provided for the ground contact, and the limit switch is located at a position where the retreat end of the boom can be detected when the traveling contact and the ground contact are in contact with each other. The battery automatic charging device according to claim 6 . 8. A contact rod 19 capable of pushing the insulating portion of the traveling trolley is provided so as to be able to advance and retreat in parallel with the ground contact, so that the retracted end of the contact rod when pushed can be detected. The battery automatic charging device according to claim 1 or 6 , wherein a contact confirmation limit switch (21) is disposed at a position.