JP3899790B2 - Arrangement transshipment device for thin plate workpieces - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an apparatus for aligning and transferring thin plate workpieces such as piezoelectric ceramic elements, that is, an apparatus for separating and transferring thin plate workpieces arranged in a row one by one.
[0002]
[Prior art]
Conventionally, in the process of manufacturing a piezoelectric ceramic element, a piezoelectric substrate in a mother substrate state is diced into individual elements, and then the elements are stacked in a vertical cassette container in order to adjust the frequency of each element or attach a terminal. Is being stored. A cassette container containing a large number of elements is transported to the next process, where the elements are taken out one by one from the lower opening of the cassette container, and a predetermined operation is performed.
[0003]
The handling of such a thin plate-like workpiece is difficult to handle because it may be small and thin. Usually, the piezoelectric element in the thin plate unit state is cut out by cutting by dicing, etc., and then taken out one by one or by a chuck by vacuum suction etc., and then separated once and aligned again by an aligning device such as a ball feeder or linear feeder. In a cassette container.
[0004]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
However, in the above method, the work that has been diced and aligned in advance is once separated and then aligned again, so that the work efficiency is poor. Moreover, the supply method using a ball feeder or linear feeder is slow in supply speed and cannot be stored in a cassette container at high speed.
[0005]
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a thin plate-like workpiece reordering / replacement device capable of separating and re-loading thin plate-like workpieces in an aligned state one by one at a high speed.
[0006]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
In order to achieve the above object, the invention according to claim 1 is directed to a rail base having a rail groove for storing a plurality of thin plate-like workpieces arranged in a row, and pushing the plurality of workpieces stored in the rail groove from behind. A pusher that integrally pushes the work forward along the rail groove, a receiving means that sequentially receives and pushes the work pushed out of the rail groove by the pusher, and is disposed between the rail groove and the receiving means. And a guide means having a downward suction hole that sucks the upper surface of the work even after the head work has come out of the rail groove, while sucking the upper surface of the head work by the suction hole of the guide means by pushing in the pusher, the workpiece is slid above the receiving means, the means to receive the workpiece when the workpiece is out of the suction holes It has to be dropped to provide an alignment transfer device of the thin plate-like workpiece, characterized in.
[0007]
First, a plurality of thin plate workpieces are stored in a line in the rail groove of the rail base. Then, the work is integrally pushed forward by a pusher from the rear of the work stored in the rail groove. The top work pushed by the tip of the rail groove is adsorbed on the upper surface by the suction hole of the guide means. When the work is further pushed out by the pusher, the leading work falls from the guide means at a position where the suction of the guide means is interrupted, and is stored in the receiving means. As described above, the guide means has a function of delivering the work carried in the rail groove to the receiving means. Therefore, the leading work pushed out from the rail groove is smoothly guided by the guide means without falling between the rail groove and the receiving means.
[0008]
According to a preferred embodiment, it is desirable that the receiving means is a vertical cassette container having an opening on the side facing the guide means, and workpieces are sequentially stacked and accommodated in the cassette container. That is, if the workpiece is pushed forward by the pusher, all the workpieces fitted in the rail groove can be stored in the cassette container at one time, which is extremely efficient.
The cassette container is preferably supported by being inclined at a predetermined angle so that the opening thereof faces obliquely upward toward the guide means.
[0009]
According to a preferred embodiment, it is desirable to provide elevating means for lowering the cassette container constituting the receiving means stepwise or continuously downward depending on the number of workpieces accommodated. That is, when the cassette container has a height that can accommodate a larger number of workpieces than the number of workpieces that can be accommodated by one pusher operation, the workpiece corresponding to one operation after one pusher operation is performed. If the cassette container is lowered by this thickness, the work accompanying the operation of the next pusher can be easily accommodated.
The cassette base may be lowered in synchronization with the operation of one pitch of the pusher (the length of one workpiece). In this case, there is an advantage that it is possible to reduce the fall height of the workpiece when it is dropped from the guide means and stored in the receiving means.
[0010]
According to a preferred embodiment, a suction hole or a suction groove for vacuum-sucking the lower surface of the workpiece may be formed at the bottom of the rail groove. As a result, when the work is pushed at a high speed by the pusher, the work in the rail groove can be prevented from rising and the processing capability is further improved.
[0011]
According to a preferred embodiment, it is preferable to further include a transfer head for simultaneously sucking and transferring a plurality of workpieces in an aligned state to the rail groove. For example, since the dicing cut elements are in an aligned state, if one row of the elements is adsorbed by the transfer head and supplied to the rail groove, it is not necessary to release the elements in the aligned state, thereby improving the processing capability.
[0012]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
FIGS. 1-6 shows an example of the transshipment apparatus of the thin-plate shaped workpiece | work in this invention.
This transshipment apparatus is generally composed of a rail base 1, a pusher 10, an eaves type guide 20 as a guide means, a transfer head 30, and a cassette base 40 as a receiving means. Here, as the thin plate-like workpiece W, as shown in FIG. 2, a piezoelectric ceramic element that is diced from the mother substrate state is used. The piezoelectric element W is, for example, a small and thin plate element having a square shape with one side of several mm or less and a thickness of 1 mm or less.
[0013]
The rail base 1 is composed of a plate-like member, and as shown in FIG. 4, four rail grooves 2 parallel to the upper surface are formed. The rail groove 2 has a width in which the workpiece W can be slidably fitted, and the depth is slightly larger than the thickness of the workpiece W. A narrow suction groove 3 for vacuum-sucking the workpiece W is continuously formed in the longitudinal direction on the bottom surface of each rail groove 2, and is connected to a vacuum suction device (not shown) via a suction hose 4. . The width of the suction groove 3 is formed such that the work W does not fall, and the length of the suction groove 3 is longer than the length of the work W for one row. Instead of the suction groove 3, a plurality of suction holes may be arranged in the length direction of the rail groove 2.
The rail base 1 can be exchanged depending on the type of workpiece W. Further, the rail base 1 may be composed of two parts, that is, a lower base member and an upper base member having the rail groove 2, and the upper base member may be replaceable according to the type of workpiece W.
[0014]
The pusher 10 includes a thick base portion 11 connected to a linear motion drive device (not shown), and a thin fork portion 12 protruding forward from the lower surface of the base portion 11. The fork portion 12 is continuously formed up to the lower surface of the base portion 11. The fork portion 12 is slidably engaged with the rail groove 2, and its thickness is equal to or slightly smaller than the depth of the rail groove 2. By driving the linear drive device, the fork portion 12 slides in the rail groove 2, and the tip of the fork portion 12 pushes the work W stored in the rail groove 2 forward. The front end of the fork portion 12 can reciprocate between a position retracted from the rear end of the eaves-type guide 20 described later by the dimension of the workpiece W for one row and a position protruding slightly forward from the suction hole 23 described later.
[0015]
The eaves-type guide 20 includes a substrate portion 21 that is fixed to the upper surface of the distal end portion of the rail base 1 and a plurality of (here, four) eave portions 22 that protrude forward from the substrate portion 21. The eaves part 22 is formed on the same straight line as the rail groove 2, and a suction hole 23 (see FIG. 5) is opened on the lower surface thereof. The suction hole 23 is connected to a vacuum suction device (not shown) via a suction hose 24 connected to the upper surface of the eaves part 22. The width D of the eaves portion 22 is equal to or smaller than the width of the workpiece W, and the distance L from the tip of the rail base 1 to the center of the suction hole 23 is slightly smaller than the length of the workpiece W.
[0016]
The transfer head 30 includes a number of suction holes (not shown) on the lower surface, and is connected to a vacuum suction device (not shown) via a suction hose 31. The transfer head 30 adsorbs the workpieces W placed on the dicing table 32 shown in FIG. 2 one row at a time, conveys them above the rail base 1, and fits them in the rail grooves 2. In the example of FIG. 2, all the workpieces W on the dicing table 32 can be transferred to the rail groove 2 by repeating this operation four times (for four rows).
[0017]
The cassette base 40 has a function of supporting the cassette main body 42 for a necessary quantity (for example, four rows) and moving it up and down. As shown in FIG. 6, the cassette body 42 is a long material having a hat-shaped cross section, and U-shaped bent portions 43b formed on both sides of the cover 43 are slidably engaged with the flange portions 42a. Thus, the vertical cassette container 41 is configured. The cassette container 41 stores a large number of workpieces W in a stacked manner, and a bottom plate (not shown) for supporting the bottom surface of the workpiece W is provided at the bottom of the cassette body 42. When the workpiece W is loaded on the cassette container 41, the cassette body 42 is set on the cassette base 40 so that the opening 42 b faces the eaves-type guide 20 and a part of the eaves 22 of the eaves-type guide 20. Is inserted into the opening 42b of the cassette body 42. Therefore, the width dimension D of the eaves part 22 is set slightly narrower than the width dimension of the opening part 42 b of the cassette body 42. After a predetermined number of workpieces W are stored in the cassette body 42, the cover 43 is attached to the cassette body 42.
The cassette body 42 is supported by the cassette base 40 at a predetermined angle so that the opening 42 a faces obliquely upward toward the eaves-type guide 20. The reason is that the workpieces W pushed out from the rail grooves 2 are aligned and stacked with the back surface of the cassette body 42 as a guide surface.
[0018]
Next, the operation of the transshipment apparatus having the above configuration will be described with reference to FIGS. First, as shown in FIG. 7, the pusher 10 is retracted from the rear end of the eaves-type guide 20 to a position opened by the dimension of the work W for one row or more. Then, the transfer head 30 adsorbs the workpieces W placed on the dicing table 32 by one row, conveys them onto the rail base 1, and stores them in the rail grooves 2. This operation is repeated for all columns (here, 4 columns).
After the work rows are stored in all the rail grooves 2, the transfer head 30 is raised and the pusher 10 is advanced as shown in FIG. Accordingly, the rear end of the work row is pushed by the fork portion 12 of the pusher 10 that slides on the rail groove 2, and the entire work row moves forward along the rail groove 2. At this time, since the workpiece W is sucked from the suction groove 3 opened in the bottom surface of the rail groove 2, the workpiece W is prevented from rising.
Further, when the pusher 10 is advanced, the leading work W is removed from the rail groove 2 as shown in FIG. 9 and is sucked through the suction holes 23 formed in the lower surface of the eaves portion 22 of the eaves type guide 20. Therefore, even if the rail groove 2 is removed, the workpiece W does not fall into the gap between the rail base 1 and the cassette body 42. As the pusher 10 moves forward, the leading work W is detached from the suction hole 23. A part of the eaves portion 22 is inserted into the cassette main body 42, and the cassette main body 42 is inclined so that the opening 42a faces obliquely upward. Are guided by the back surface of the cassette body 42 and stacked one above the other.
As shown in FIG. 10, the pusher 10 can advance to a position where the tip of the fork portion 12 exceeds the suction hole 23, so that all the workpieces W stored in the rail groove 2 are moved by one advance operation of the pusher 10. The cassette main body 42 is stacked and stored.
After the completion of one transshipment operation, as shown in FIG. 7 again, the pusher 10 is retracted from the rear end of the eaves-type guide 20 to a position opened more than the size of the work W for one row, and the transfer head 30 is moved to the dicing table. The workpieces W placed on 32 are sucked by one row and conveyed onto the rail base 1. At the same time, the cassette base 40 lowers the cassette body 42 by a certain distance. This distance corresponds to the total thickness of the workpieces W stacked by one transfer operation. For example, if six workpieces W are stored in the cassette body 42 at a time, the cassette body 42 may be lowered by the thickness of six sheets.
[0019]
In the above embodiment, the vertical cassette container 41 is used as the receiving means, but the present invention is not limited to this. For example, a tape in which a large number of recesses for storing workpieces W are formed at a constant pitch is pitch-synchronized with the forward movement of one work of the pusher 10 so that the workpieces W are stored one by one in the recesses. May be. Further, the workpiece may be stored in a pallet in which a plurality of concave portions are arranged.
Further, in order to align and fit the workpieces W to the rail grooves 2 in one row, the transfer head 30 that sucks a plurality of workpieces W simultaneously and transfers them to the rail grooves 2 is used. Instead, the workpiece may be fed into the rail groove by a transfer means such as a slider.
[0020]
【The invention's effect】
As apparent from the above description, according to the aligned transshipment device of the first aspect, the plurality of thin workpieces accommodated in the rail grooves are pushed forward together by the pusher, and the guide means is moved from the leading workpiece. After being sucked upward by the suction hole, it is dropped from the guide means and stored in the receiving means, so the leading work pushed from the rail groove falls between the rail groove and the receiving means by the guide means. There is no. Since the workpieces are once adsorbed by the guide means and separated one by one and stored in the receiving means, even if the pusher is moved at a high speed, it can be reliably separated and transshipped, and an improvement in processing capacity can be realized. .
Further, even if the work is pushed at a high speed with a pusher, only the drag force caused by the air suction force acts on the work.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view of an example of an aligned transshipment apparatus according to the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a plan view of the aligned transshipment device shown in FIG.
FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the aligned transshipment device shown in FIG. 1;
FIG. 4 is a plan view of a rail base.
FIG. 5 is an enlarged view of a main part of the aligned transshipment device shown in FIG. 1;
FIG. 6 is a perspective view of a cassette container.
FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a first step of the aligned transshipment apparatus according to the present invention.
FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a second step of the aligned transshipment apparatus according to the present invention.
FIG. 9 is a diagram showing a third step of the aligned transshipment apparatus according to the present invention.
FIG. 10 is a diagram showing a fourth step of the aligned transshipment apparatus according to the present invention.
[Explanation of symbols]
W Work 1 Rail base 2 Rail groove 3 Suction groove 10 Pusher 20 Eave type guide (guide means)
22 eaves part 23 suction hole 30 transfer head 40 cassette base 41 cassette container 42 cassette body

Claims (5)

A rail base having a rail groove for storing a plurality of thin plate-like workpieces arranged in a line;
A pusher that pushes a plurality of workpieces stored in the rail groove from the rear, and integrally pushes the workpiece forward along the rail groove;
Receiving means for sequentially receiving the workpieces pushed out of the rail groove by the pusher, and storing them stacked;
A guide means that is disposed between the rail groove and the receiving means and has a downward suction hole that sucks the upper surface of the work even after the leading work comes out of the rail groove,
By pushing the upper surface of the top work piece with the pusher while adsorbing it by the suction hole of the guide means, the work is slid above the receiving means, and when the work is removed from the suction hole, the work receiving means is received. An apparatus for aligning and transposing thin plate-like workpieces, wherein the apparatus is made to drop onto a plate. The receiving means is a vertical cassette container opened on the side facing the guide means,
2. The apparatus for aligning and transferring thin workpieces according to claim 1, wherein the workpieces are sequentially stacked and accommodated in the cassette container. 3. The apparatus for aligning and transposing thin workpieces according to claim 2, wherein the cassette container is supported at a predetermined angle so that the opening of the cassette container faces obliquely upward toward the guide means. Thin plate-shaped work according to claim 2 or 3, further comprising a lifting means for the cassette container constituting the receiving means, stepwise or to continuously lowered downwards according to the number of workpieces to be accommodated Sort of transshipment device. The thin plate-like workpiece reordering / transposing apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 4 , wherein a suction hole or a suction groove for vacuum-suctioning the lower surface of the work is formed at the bottom of the rail groove.

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