JPH03193499A - Apparatus for automatic supply of writing lead for xy plotter - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To supply a lead to a writing utensil smoothly, certainly and efficiently by rotating a drum cartridge by predetermined quantity to allow the lower end opening pact of the lead receiving hole thereof to coincide with the lead falling hole of a support stand and allowing one lead in the lead receiving hole to fall to the opening and closing part of a shutter mechanism from the lead falling hole under its own wt. CONSTITUTION:A support stand 24 is fixed to the home position of a movable image line head 10 in a detachable manner by a screw 28 and a drum cartridge 44 is rotated by driving a motor 52 to allow a lead receiving hole 48 to coincide with the hole 30 of the support stand 24. An arm 68 is revolved by driving a motor 62 and a shutter cam 32 is rotated by the arm 68 to allow the lead falling hole corresponding to the pin 40 engaged with the arm 68 to coincide with the hole 30 of the support stand 24 and the writing lead in the hole 30 is allowed to fall downwardly to be inserted in the lead insertion hole 22 of the writing utensil 18.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention] [Industrial application field] The present invention relates to an automatic writing lead supply device for an XY plotter.

[Conventional technology]

A plurality of writing leads are stored in a lead storage container, a shutter mechanism placed below the lead storage container is opened and closed, and the lead in the lead storage container is inserted into a lead insertion hole of a writing instrument placed below the shutter mechanism. An automatic core feeder that drops cores one by one is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1-101196.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

As mentioned above, when multiple writing leads are stored in the lead storage container, when the shutter mechanism opens, there is a risk that the writing leads in the lead storage container will fall twice, and the bottom of the lead storage container may fall. There was a defect in that other writing leads came into pressure contact with the writing lead about to fall from the drop hole, and the lead did not fall smoothly due to the pressure of the other writing lead.

The present invention aims to eliminate the above-mentioned defects.

[Means to solve problems]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides an
In a plotter, a drum cartridge in which a support stand 24 is disposed on the printing head, and a plurality of lead storage holes 48 are provided on the support stand 24 for vertically slidably inserting and arranging one lead. 44 rotatably supported, and the support base 2
4 is provided with a hole 30 for dropping the lead located directly below the arrangement circle of the lead storage hole 48, and a hole 30 for dropping the lead in the support base 24 is provided.
A shutter mechanism for opening and closing the lower part of the hole 30 is provided below the hole 30, and the drum cartridge 44 is removably engaged with the rotation drive device 52.

[Effect]

When the drum cartridge 44 is rotated by a predetermined amount and the lower end opening of the lead storage hole 48 is aligned with the lead drop hole 30 of the support base 24, one core in the lead storage hole 48 of the drum cartridge 44 is inserted into the support base. The lead falls under its own weight from the lead drop hole 30 of No. 24 to the opening/closing part of the shutter mechanism. In this state, when the opening/closing portion of the shutter mechanism is opened, one lead falls and is inserted by its own weight into the lead insertion hole of the writing instrument disposed below the shutter mechanism.

〔Example〕

The structure of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to embodiments shown in the accompanying drawings.

In FIG. 7, reference numeral 2 denotes the body of an XY plotter, to which a paper mounting table 4 is fixedly installed. Rail guide mechanisms are provided on both sides of the paper mounting table 4, and both ends of the moving rail 6 are movably supported by these. A groove 8 is formed in the side edge of the mounting table 4 for use in retaining the core.

A printing head 10 is attached to the moving rail 6 so as to be movable along the moving rail 6. A lifting drive device 12 (built-in to the head 10) consisting of a moving coil (
A pen holding means 14 supported by an elevating guide provided in the casing of the head 10 so as to be movable up and down is connected to the elevating output body 15 of the pen (see FIG. 1) via an arm 16.

The moving rail 6 is configured to move in parallel on the mounting table 4 in the X direction by driving an X motor (not shown) that is controlled by a controller built in the machine body 2. , is configured to move along the moving rail 6 by driving a Y motor (not shown) controlled by a controller built into the aircraft body. The controller controls the movement of the moving rail 6 in the X direction and the drawing head 10 along the moving rail 6 in the Y direction. is controlled to move up and down with respect to the upper surface of the mounting table 4, and the tip of the writing instrument 18 held by the pen holding arm of the pen holding means 14 is moved up and down from the mounting table 4.
Press it against the paper above and lift it up.

A predetermined drawing can be made on the paper. Said aircraft 2
The writing instrument 18 is configured to be able to be exchanged between the plurality of pen holding means of the pen stocker 20 disposed in the drawing head 10 and the pen holding means 14 of the drawing head 10. The writing instrument exchange is performed by bringing the drawing head 10 close to a desired pen holding means on the pen stocker side, and then moving the drawing head 10 in a direction away from the pen stocker 20 to exchange the writing instrument between the pen stocker 20 and the head 10. Let's do it. The writing instrument 18 has a lead insertion hole 22 into which a consumable writing lead is received, and the upper end of the hole 22 opens at the center of the upper end surface of the writing instrument 18. The internal structure of the writing instrument 18 is disclosed in detail in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 132394/1983. Reference numeral 24 designates a disc-shaped cartridge support base, and a fitting recess formed in the center of the bottom surface of this base is removably fitted into a pin 26 protruding from the support surface of the casing of the printing head 10. ing. A screw 28 rotatably inserted into a hole in the casing of the printing head 10 is screwed into a screw hole drilled in the side of the support base 24, and the screw 28 allows the support base 24 to , is removably fixed at a fixed position on the support surface of the head 10. The support stand 24 is
The support stand 24 is arranged above the pen holding means 14.
A hole 30 for dropping the lead is transparently provided in the thickness direction of the writing instrument 18, located on an extension of the central axis of the writing instrument 18 held by the pen holding means 14. located around the hole 30,
As shown in FIG. 5, a notch 32 is formed at the bottom of the support base 24, and a light emitting device is formed on both sides of the notch 32, with an extension line of the central axis of the hole 30 sandwiched therebetween. an optical sensor 32 for detecting waiting status, which includes a body 32 and a photoreceptor 34;
34 are arranged. A rotary shutter cam 36 is rotatably supported on the bottom surface of the support base 24, and openings on the upper and lower surfaces of the cam 36 are opened on a circular line centered on the center of rotation of the cam 36, and openings are provided at equal intervals for dropping the lead. A plurality of holes 38 are transparently provided in the thickness direction. A pin 40 is provided on the lower surface of the cam 32 and protrudes perpendicularly to the lower surface for each hole 38 . The hole 3° of the support base 24 is located directly above the circular arrangement line of the hole 38. A cartridge support shaft 42 is protruded from the upper surface of the support stand 24 at the center thereof. Reference numeral 44 denotes a drum cartridge having approximately the same diameter as the support base 24, and a mounting hole 46 is bored in the bottom of the drum cartridge at the center thereof, and the hole 46 is rotatably connected to the support shaft 42. They are mated. A plurality of lead storage holes 48 are transparently provided in the axial direction in the drum cartridge 44 at positions away from its rotation center axis.

The drum cartridge 44 has an opening on a circular line with the same radius centered on the center of the upper and lower surfaces, and the support base 2 is opened on the circular line.
4 core drop holes 30 are located.

A gear 5 is provided on the circumferential surface of the intermediate portion of the drum cartridge 44.
0 is fixed. 52 is a rotational drive device fixed to the casing of the printing head 10 and consisting of an indexing stepping motor with an encoder 54;
A part of the gear 56 fixed to the output shaft of the device 52 is slightly exposed to the outside through a window 59 formed in the casing of the printing head 10, and the drum cartridge 44 is attached to the partially exposed part of the gear 56. The gears 50 are removably engaged with each other. 58 is a cap of the drum cartridge 44. Reference numeral 60 denotes a case that is fixed to the printing head 10 and incorporates a known tailing device, and the case 60 includes:
Motor 62 with reducer controlled by controller
(See Figure 3) is permanently installed. 64 is a cylindrical lifting guide cam, and the center part of the top wall of this cam is connected to the motor 62.
is fixed to the output shaft 66 of. 68 is a plate-shaped rotating arm, and a hole formed at one end of this arm is slidably inserted into the output shaft 6. The arm 68 is located in an arm regulating groove 70 formed on the peripheral wall of the cam 64, and is pushed against the top wall of the cam 64 by the elastic force of a coil spring 72 which is compressed and fitted into the output shaft 66. It is pressed against the bottom surface.

As shown in FIG. 6, on the lower surface of the peripheral wall 64a between one end of the wall surface of the groove 70 at the same height level as the lower surface of the top wall of the cam 64 and the other end of the wall surface of the groove 70, An elevation control cam surface 74 is formed in which the amount of downward protrusion gradually increases from the starting end S, which protrudes slightly downward from the horizontal surface of the groove 70, and the amount of downward protruding reaches the maximum at the terminal end E. 6 The rotation locus of the arm 68 includes the shutter cam 32.
It is set so that one pin 4o of is located.

The arm 68 is connected to the shutter cam 3.
When engaged with one pin 40 of 2, the shutter cam 3
A recessed portion 76 is formed to open the lower part of the core dropping hole 38 corresponding to the two engaging pins 4o. Each core storage hole 48 of the drum cartridge 44 has a
One by one, the writing leads 78 are arranged so as to be freely raised and lowered, and the lower end of each writing lead 78 is in contact with the upper surface of the support base 24 due to its own weight.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be explained.

When the writing core automatic feeding operation is started from the label 1 shown in FIG. position above. Further, in decision block 2, the controller determines whether the pen holding means 1 of the drawing head 10
4 is holding the writing instrument 18 using a pen presence/absence detection sensor (not shown), and if a negative determination is made,
In block 8, an empty writing instrument 1 is inserted into the pen holding means 18 by the automatic writing instrument exchange operation or manually by the operator.
Hold 8. If you make an affirmative decision in decision block 2,
The controller determines whether the standby detection sensors 32, 34 are on. As shown in FIG. 2, when the writing lead 78 falls into the hole 30 of the support base 24 and the lower end of the writing lead 78 is locked on the upper surface of the shutter cam 32, the sensor 32
, 34 are on. When a fixed determination is made in decision block 3, this means that there is no writing lead 78 in the lead storage hole 48 of the drum cartridge 44 that matches the hole 30. The drum cartridge 44 is rotated by 1 index, and the lead storage hole 48 next to the empty lead storage hole 48 is aligned with the hole 30 of the support base 24.

If an affirmative determination is made in decision block 3, the controller drives the motor 62 to rotate the arm 68. The arm 68 has its end side surface 68a in contact with the outermost pin 40 of the shutter cam 32 and pushes it. The shutter cam 32 is rotated by the arm 8, and the lead drop hole 38 corresponding to the pin 40 that engages with the arm 68 matches the hole 30 of the support base 24, and the writing lead 78 in the hole 30 is
Hole 38 of shutter cam 32 and recess 7 of arm 68
6 and falls downward, and is inserted into the lead insertion hole 22 of the writing instrument 18. Further, when the arm 68 rotates slightly and the push-down surface 68b adjacent to the recess 76 is located directly above the writing instrument 18, a stopper 82 fixed to the case 60 is pressed.
(See Figure 6). In this state, the hole 38 for dropping the core of the shutter cam 32 does not match the hole 30 for dropping the core of the support base 24, and the rotational movement of the shutter cam 32 for one index in block 4 of FIG. Complete.

Next, the controller determines the sensor 32 .
34 is OFF, and if a negative determination is made, an error is displayed on the display section of the operation panel 80 (see FIG. 7) in block 10, and the core feeding operation is stopped (
Block 11), if judgment block 5 is affirmative,
At block 6, the process moves to tail pushing operation.

This tail-pushing operation will be explained below.

When the output shaft 66 of the motor 62 further rotates in the direction shown in FIG.
The arm 68 deviates from 0.

The arm 68 descends in the vertical direction under the guidance of the elevation control cam surface 74 of the cam 64, and the arm 68 pushes the writing lead inserted into the writing instrument 18 further into the back using its push-down surface 68a, and removes the remaining lead inside the writing instrument 18. The new lead is pushed out of the writing instrument 18, the remaining lead holder is allowed to fall into the groove 8, and the new lead is engaged with the lead chuck mechanism within the writing instrument 18. When the core pushing operation is completed, the output shaft 66 of the motor 62 is reversely rotated, the arm 68 is returned to its original position, and the core feeding operation is completed (block 7).

As is clear from the above description, the shutter cam 321
The rotating arm 68 and the motor constitute a shutter mechanism for opening and closing the lower part of the hole 30 of the support base 24. still,
Those skilled in the art may consider various configurations of this shutter mechanism, and in the present invention, the shutter mechanism is not particularly limited to the illustrated configuration.

〔effect〕

As described above, the present invention uses a drum cartridge that holds one lead at a time, so there is no possibility of the lead falling twice, and therefore, when the lead falls, the pressure of other leads is applied to the falling lead. To smoothly, reliably and efficiently supply a lead to a writing instrument without adding any additional force. Further, cores can be easily replenished by replacing the drum cartridge.

In addition, although the drawing head must be moved to a predetermined position in order to remove the remaining lead, the work of feeding the writing instrument from the drum cartridge to the writing instrument can be done even while the drawing head is moving, so the overall core feeding process is improved. Time is reduced. Furthermore, since the drum cartridge is located at an independent position regardless of whether the writing instrument is up or down, there is an advantage that the lead in the drum cartridge does not break due to the up and down movement of the writing instrument.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a sectional view, Fig. 2 is an external view, Fig. 3 is an external view, Fig. 4 is an exploded perspective view, Fig. 5 is an external view, Fig. 6 is an external view,
FIG. 7 is an external view, and FIG. 8 is a flow chart. 2... Airframe, 4... Mounting stand, 6... Moving rail,
8... Groove, 10... Drawing head, 12... Elevating drive device, 14... Pen holding means, 16... Arm,
18...writing instrument, 20...pen stocker, 22...
- Core insertion hole, 24... Support stand, 26... Bin, 28
... Screw, 30 ... Hole, 32° 34 ... Waiting detection sensor, 36 ... Shutter cam, 38 ... Hole, 40 ... Pin, 42 ... Support shaft, 44 ... Drum cartridge, 46... Mounting hole, 48... Lead storage hole, 50... Gear, 52... Rotation drive device, 54...
... Encoder, 56 ... Gear, 58 ... Cap, 60 ... Case, 62 ... Motor, 64 ... Cam, 66 ... Output shaft, 68 ... Rotating arm, 70・
...Regulation groove, 72...Coil spring, 74...
Cam surface, 76... recessed part, 78... stopper

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) In an XY plotter equipped with a drawing head that is movable in a desired direction relative to the drawing surface, a support stand 24 is disposed on the drawing head, and one A drum cartridge 44 is rotatably supported, and has a plurality of lead storage holes 48 for inserting and arranging cores in a vertically slidable manner. A hole 30 for dropping the lead is provided in the support base 24, a shutter mechanism for opening and closing the lower part of the hole 30 is provided below the hole 30 for dropping the lead, and the drum cartridge 44 is rotated by a rotation drive device. 52. An automatic writing lead supply device for an XY plotter, characterized in that it is removably engaged with a writing lead 52.