JP4494829B2 - Coating liquid supply apparatus and coating liquid supply method - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a coating liquid supply apparatus and a coating liquid supply method.

Conventionally, what was described in patent document 1 as a coating liquid supply apparatus is proposed.
The coating liquid supply apparatus described in Patent Document 1 supplies a coating liquid from a coating liquid tank to a syringe pump through a coating liquid flow path, and supplies a required amount of the coating liquid from the syringe pump to the coating machine through the coating liquid flow path. To do.

And as a syringe pump, the thing of the structure which provides the piston which can reciprocate the inside of a cylinder, and provides the valve plate in the cylinder head part so that rotation is possible is controlled.
JP 2002-200452 A

  The syringe pump described in Patent Document 1 does not clearly describe how to seal between the cylinder and the piston, but the length of the piston is significantly shorter than the full stroke. For example, as shown in FIG. 6, a seal member 103 such as an O-ring is attached to the outer periphery of the piston 102 and press-fitted into the cylinder 101 to achieve a seal between the cylinder 101 and the piston 102. It is done.

  Therefore, when the flatness of the inner surface of the cylinder 101 is poor, the smooth movement of the piston 102 is hindered, and the accuracy of the amount of coating liquid to be supplied is lowered. In particular, in the syringe pump, when bubbles enter the inside, the quantitative accuracy is lowered due to the bubbles being compressible. Therefore, a cylinder made of glass having excellent internal visibility can be adopted as the cylinder 101. Generalized. Since the glass cylinder 101 has considerable irregularities on the inner surface, the friction between the seal member 103 and the inner surface of the cylinder 101 fluctuates considerably, and the force required to move the piston 102 is considerably large. Fluctuating greatly, the seal member 103 and the cylinder 101 slip, and as a result, the discharge amount of the coating liquid varies.

  Since the inner surface of the glass cylinder 101 is uneven, the seal member 103 is strongly pressed against the cylinder 101 so that the unevenness is absorbed by the seal member 103. Thereby, the wear of the seal member 103 is intense, and the life of the seal member 103 is shortened.

Furthermore, due to individual differences of the cylinders 101, the grooves of the piston 102 for receiving the seal member 103 must be formed in different shapes accordingly.
The glass can be honed and then polished with an abrasive such as cerium oxide to obtain a transparent glass with high flatness. In this case, however, a new cost is required to produce a cylinder. In practice, such a method has not been adopted.

  When the syringe pump described in Patent Document 1 is used for supplying a plurality of types of coating liquids, it is necessary to clean the inside of the cylinder and then supply a new coating liquid. In this case, since the syringe pump described in Patent Document 1 sucks and discharges the liquid through the head portion of the cylinder, the liquid flowing into the cylinder hardly flows in the cylinder. It flows only in the vicinity of the inlet and outlet.

Therefore, the amount of liquid staying in the cylinder increases, and the time required for completely cleaning the inside of the cylinder and starting the supply of a new coating liquid becomes long.
The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and can improve the control accuracy of the discharge amount of the coating liquid regardless of the state of the inner surface of the cylinder, and can extend the life of the seal member. It is an object of the present invention to provide a coating liquid supply apparatus and a coating liquid supply method that employ a syringe pump that can reduce the time required for cleaning the inside of a cylinder.

The coating liquid supply device according to claim 1 is provided with a coating liquid tank that stores the coating liquid, a coating mechanism that coats the coating liquid on the object to be coated, and a coating liquid that is supplied from the coating liquid tank through the coating liquid flow path. a coating liquid supply apparatus comprising a syringe pump for supplying the coating mechanism a coating liquid through the coating liquid flow path, the syringe pump, and the coating liquid is opened at an angle to the normal of the cylinder into the cylinder Including the coating liquid introduction part , a seal member is provided on the opening side of the cylinder and brought into contact with the outer peripheral surface of the piston, so that the piston can be reciprocated while ensuring the sealing state of the coating liquid It is.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a coating liquid supply method for supplying a coating liquid from a coating liquid tank to a syringe pump through a coating liquid flow path and supplying a required amount of the coating liquid from the syringe pump to a coating mechanism through the coating liquid flow path. A method for inhaling a coating liquid into a syringe pump and introducing the coating liquid into the cylinder through an opening opened at an angle with respect to the normal line of the cylinder and discharging the cylinder. This is a method of reciprocating the piston while ensuring the sealing state of the coating liquid by providing a seal member on the opening side of the nozzle and bringing it into contact with the outer peripheral surface of the piston.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a coating liquid supply method in which the piston pump is pushed into the cylinder when the coating liquid is sucked into the syringe pump and discharged. This is a method of sucking and then pushing the piston to supply the coating liquid to the coating mechanism.

If it is invention of Claim 1, since a sealing member is pressed against the piston which does not affect internal visibility, the surface flatness of a piston can be raised easily and the control precision of the supply amount of a coating liquid can be improved. In addition, the wear of the seal member can be reduced and the life can be extended. When the inside of the cylinder needs to be cleaned, a swirling flow can be generated in the cylinder and the cleaning time can be shortened.

According to the invention of claim 2 , since the seal member is pressed against the piston that does not affect the internal visibility, the surface flatness of the piston can be easily increased to improve the control accuracy of the supply amount of the coating liquid. In addition, the wear of the sealing member can be reduced and the life can be extended , and when the inside of the cylinder needs to be cleaned, a swirling flow can be generated in the cylinder and the cleaning time can be shortened.

If it is invention of Claim 3 , the lubrication between a piston and a sealing member can be ensured continuously, and the lifetime of a sealing member can be made still longer.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the coating liquid supply apparatus and the coating liquid supply method of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic view showing an embodiment of a coating liquid supply apparatus of the present invention.
The coating liquid supply apparatus includes a coating liquid tank 1, a coating mechanism unit 2, a syringe pump 3, a first coating liquid channel 4 that communicates the coating liquid tank 1 and the syringe pump 3, and a first coating liquid flow. A first valve 5 interposed in the path 4, a second coating liquid channel 6 communicating the syringe pump 3 and the coating mechanism 2, and a second valve 7 interposed in the second coating liquid channel 6. Have.

In addition, as a coating liquid, although the glass paste for PDP apply | coated on a glass substrate can be illustrated, it is not limited to this, Various conventionally well-known coating liquids can be employ | adopted.
The syringe pump 3 includes a cylinder 31 whose lower part is opened, a piston 32 that can be operated in a pushing direction and a pulling direction with respect to the cylinder 31, and a manifold 33 that is integrally provided at an opening edge of the cylinder 31. is doing. As shown in FIG. 2, the manifold 33 has a through hole substantially the same as the inner diameter of the cylinder 31 and a seal member 34 such as an O-ring at a predetermined position on the inner surface. And it has the coating liquid introduction part 35 so that a coating liquid can be introduce | transduced into a cyclic | annular space formed between the inner surface of the manifold 33 and the piston 32 from a substantially tangential direction.

The second coating liquid flow path 6 is communicated with the inside of the cylinder 31 through the upper part (cylinder head portion) of the cylinder 31.
The cylinder 31 may be made of any material, but is preferably made of glass in view of internal visibility.

  The piston 32 does not affect the internal visibility at all, so it is made of metal that can be easily mirror finished (for example, stainless steel, iron, chrome plating, etc.), and has been subjected to surface flattening such as mirror finishing. If it is.

The manifold 33 is preferably made of a material different from that of the cylinder 31 for the convenience of manufacturing, but may be made of the same material as the cylinder 31.
The operation of the coating liquid supply apparatus having the above-described configuration is as follows.

  As shown in FIG. 3, the syringe pump 3 stands by with the piston 32 pushed into the cylinder 31. The piston 32 is preferably pushed to the innermost part of the cylinder 31. Further, both the first valve 5 and the second valve 7 are closed, and there is no bubble in the space between the cylinder 31 and the piston 32, and only the coating liquid is present.

  Next, as shown in FIG. 4, the first valve 5 is opened, and the piston 32 is moved in the extraction direction by a distance corresponding to the required amount of the application liquid, thereby storing the required amount of the application liquid in the cylinder 31. be able to. In this case, the coating liquid flowing into the cylinder 31 forms a swirl flow as shown by a spiral arrow and becomes a spiral flow.

  Further, as the piston 32 moves in the extraction direction, a small amount of the coating liquid remains in the part drawn out, and the piston 32 can be smoothly operated immediately from the standby state shown in FIG.

  After that, as shown in FIG. 5, the first valve 5 is closed and the second valve 7 is opened, and the piston 32 is moved in the pushing direction to apply the coating liquid in the cylinder 31 through the second coating liquid channel 6. It can be supplied to the mechanism unit 2. Accordingly, the coating liquid in the cylinder 31 is supplied to the coating mechanism unit 2 by an amount corresponding to the moving distance of the piston 32 in the pushing direction. In this case, in the operation shown in FIG. 4, since a thin layer of the coating liquid has already been formed in the drawing portion of the piston 32, a sufficient space between the piston 32 and the seal member 34 can be obtained even when the piston 32 moves in the pushing direction. Lubrication can be achieved.

  As can be seen from the above description, since the coating liquid forms a swirl flow from the manifold 33 toward the cylinder head portion and flows spirally, the coating liquid stays in the cylinder 31 almost completely. .

  Further, when the coating liquid to be supplied is switched, the inside of the cylinder 31 is cleaned using a cleaning liquid. In performing this operation, when the piston 32 is in a standby state as shown in FIG. 3, the first valve 5 and the second valve 7 are opened, and a cleaning liquid tank (not shown) is used instead of the coating liquid tank 1. It is preferable to employ

  In this case, since the cleaning liquid forms a swirling flow from the manifold 33 toward the cylinder head portion, the cleaning liquid flows in a spiral shape. Since the effective volume of can be reduced, the time required for cleaning can be greatly shortened.

When the non-uniformity of discharge of the coating liquid per hour was measured by operating the syringe pump having the configuration shown in FIG. 1, it was ± 0.1% / sec.
As a comparative example, when the non-uniformity of the coating liquid discharged per hour was measured by operating the syringe pump having the configuration shown in FIG. 6, it was ± 2% / sec.

  Comparing both measurement results, it can be seen that the syringe pump configured as shown in FIG. 1 can achieve a smoother movement of the piston.

  When the life of the seal member was measured by repeatedly operating the syringe pump having the configuration shown in FIG. 1, it was 10,000 times.

  As a comparative example, the life of the seal member was measured by repeatedly operating the syringe pump having the configuration shown in FIG.

  The lifetime was defined as the number of repetitions until the liquid leakage was confirmed by visually checking the liquid leakage. Also, a fluorine rubber seal member was used. Comparing both measurement results, it can be seen that the friction between the seal member and the piston is small in the syringe pump configured as shown in FIG.

  It was 15 minutes when the syringe pump of the structure shown in FIG. 1 was made into the standby state, and it wash | cleaned in this state and measured the required time.

  As a comparative example, the syringe pump having the configuration shown in FIG. 6 was washed and the required time was measured and found to be 60 minutes.

  In addition, completion of washing was determined by visually observing the inside of the syringe pump. A 150 cc syringe pump was used. When both measurement results were compared, it was found that the syringe pump having the configuration shown in FIG.

It is the schematic which shows one Embodiment of the coating liquid supply apparatus of this invention. It is a schematic cross-sectional view of the syringe pump shown in FIG. It is a schematic longitudinal cross-sectional view which shows the standby state of a syringe pump. It is a schematic longitudinal cross-sectional view which shows the liquid inhalation state of a syringe pump. It is a schematic longitudinal cross-sectional view which shows the liquid discharge state of a syringe pump. It is the schematic which shows the conventional coating liquid supply apparatus.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Application liquid tank 2 Application | coating mechanism part 3 Syringe pump 4 1st application liquid flow path 6 2nd application liquid flow path 31 Cylinder 32 Piston 34 Seal member 35 Application liquid introduction part

Claims (3)

A coating liquid tank (1) that stores the coating liquid, a coating mechanism (2) that applies the coating liquid to the object to be coated, and the coating liquid is supplied from the coating liquid tank (1) through the coating liquid channel (4), A coating liquid supply apparatus including a syringe pump (3) for supplying a required amount of the coating liquid to the coating mechanism (2) through the coating liquid channel (6),
The syringe pump (3) includes a coating liquid introduction part (35) in which the coating liquid is opened in the cylinder (31) at an angle to the normal line of the cylinder,
By providing a seal member (34) on the opening side of the cylinder (31) and bringing it into contact with the outer peripheral surface of the piston (32), the piston (32) can be reciprocated while ensuring a sealing state of the coating liquid. A coating solution supply apparatus characterized by being a thing. The coating solution is supplied from the coating solution tank (1) to the syringe pump (3) through the coating solution channel (4), and a required amount of coating solution is applied from the syringe pump (3) through the coating solution channel (6) ( 2) a coating liquid supply method to be supplied to
  Inhale the coating solution into the syringe pump (3),
  In inhaling the coating liquid, the coating liquid is introduced into the cylinder (31) through an opening portion opened at an angle to the normal line of the cylinder,
  In discharging, a sealing member (34) is provided on the opening side of the cylinder (31) and brought into contact with the outer peripheral surface of the piston (32), thereby reciprocating the piston (32) while ensuring a sealing state of the coating liquid. A coating liquid supply method, characterized by being moved. When sucking and discharging the coating liquid into the syringe pump (3), the piston (32) is pushed into the cylinder (31) as a standby position, and the piston (32) is moved in the extraction direction to apply the required amount. The coating liquid supply method according to claim 2, wherein the liquid is sucked and then the piston (32) is pushed in to supply the coating liquid to the coating mechanism (2).

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