JPH03221390A - Finger exchanging device for work conveying device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To shorten the exchanging time by providing a mechanism which has clampers clamping and unclamping fingers at multiple positions of a bogie and allows the fingers from the upper side of the bogie and allows the release of the fingers to the lower section of the bogie when the clampers are unclamped. CONSTITUTION:Grippers 24 on the upper side and finger holding arms 25 on the lower side are provided face to face across a finger holding mechanism 12. When a clamper 17 is unclamped, a finger 13 held so far by the finger holding mechanism 12 is released on the lower side of the bogie 1, and the finger 13 is held by the finger holding arm 25. When a finger 5 held by the gripper 24 in advance is released after the finger 13 is released from the finger holding mechanism 12, a new finger is fitted to the finger holding mechanism 12 by the clamper 17.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a trolley-type workpiece conveyance device, and more specifically to a device for automatically exchanging workpiece positioning fingers attached to the top surface of the trolley depending on the type of workpiece. Regarding.

2. Description of the Related Art As a finger exchange device for this type of work transfer device, there is a structure shown in FIG. 5, for example. In this structure, a plurality of fingers 54 are removably mounted on a trolley 52 running along a guide rail 51 via guide posts 53, and these fingers 54 are used to hold a workpiece (not shown) such as an automobile body. It is designed to be positioned and transported.

The finger exchange stainless steel S has multiple types of fingers 55°, 56.57°, and
A storage device 59 in which the fingers 54 are arranged in advance, and a handling robot 60 for replacing fingers are installed. finger 5
4 with the hand 62 at the tip of the robot arm 61 and sequentially return them to the storage device 59 side, while new fingers 55, 56, 57, .
58 are taken out from the storage device 59 and installed on the guide posts 53 on the trolley 52 one after another.

Problems to be Solved by the Invention In the conventional structure, for example, when replacing the fingers 548 and 55A, the fingers 54
Two operations are required: grasping the finger 55A with the hand 62 and returning it to the vacant storage area of the storage device 59, and grasping the new finger 55A with the hand 62 and returning it to the guide post 53 again. As a result, it takes a long time to complete the replacement of all the fingers on the trolley 52, which cannot be achieved unless the number of handling robots 60 is increased, especially when shortening the takt time of the production line is required. It disappears.

The present invention was made in view of the above problems.
The purpose of this is to reduce the time required for finger replacement by performing the action of removing the finger from the trolley and the action of attaching a new finger to the trolley at the same time when replacing the finger as described above. The objective is to provide a device that can significantly shorten the time.

Means for Solving the Problems The present invention provides finger clamps at multiple locations on a truck.
The device has a clamper that controls unclamping, and a finger holding mechanism that allows the fingers to be attached from the top side of the truck and allows the fingers to be removed downward from the truck during the unclamping operation of the clamper. On the other hand, there is a gripper that grips the finger to be attached to the finger holding mechanism, and a gripper that is arranged opposite to the gripper, and that when the finger gripped by the gripper is faced to the finger holding mechanism from the top side of the cart, A hand of the handling robot is formed by a finger holding arm that is located on the lower surface side and receives a finger detached from the finger holding mechanism toward the lower surface side of the cart.

Function According to the above structure, when the finger holding mechanism on the trolley side is held, the gripper is placed on the top side of the finger holding mechanism, and the finger holding arm is placed on the bottom side of the finger holding arm, and the clamper is unclamped. The finger that was being held is released to the bottom side of the cart, and the finger is held by the finger holding arm.

Then, after waiting for the finger to detach from the finger holding mechanism as described above, the finger previously gripped by the gripper is released, and the new finger is attached to the finger holding mechanism by the clamper.

Embodiment FIG. 1 is an explanatory view of the overall configuration of an embodiment of the present invention, in which I is a cart that can run along a guide rail 2;
is provided at the finger exchange station S, and the fingers 5.6, 7.8 of a plurality of types having different shapes of the receiving surfaces 4 are provided.
9 is a handling robot having a hand 1.1 at the tip of a robot arm 10.

The truck 1 is provided with a plurality of finger holding mechanisms 12 whose upper and lower surfaces are open, and fingers 13 corresponding to the type of work to be transported are attached to these finger holding mechanisms 12.

As shown in FIG. 1, the trolley 1 is equipped with a stationary power supply and
A connector unit 15 that fits into the connector part of the air supply device 14 is provided, and when these two fit together, the truck l
The necessary electrical energy or air pressure is supplied to the side.

The finger holding mechanism 12 is attached to the trolley l as shown in FIG.
It consists of a rectangular cylindrical holder 16 fixed to the holder 16, and clampers 17 arranged on both sides of the holder 16. A clamp piece 20 is attached to the tip of the piston rod 19 of the clamp cylinder 18, which is the center of the clamper 17. installed.

When the clamper 17 is in a clamped state, that is, when the clamp piece 20 is in the forward position as shown by the imaginary line in FIG.
The finger 13 is clamped when the shoulder portion 2I of the holder 1 is caught on the clamp piece 20, and on the other hand, when the clamper 17 performs an unclamping operation (when the clamp piece 20 is retreated as shown in FIG. 2), the holder 1
6 to allow the finger 13 to be removed from the trolley l downward.

As shown in FIG. 3, the hand II includes a two-finger parallel type gripper 24 attached to the upper end of the frame 22 via an armper 23, and an arm-A gripper attached to the lower end of the frame 22 to face the gripper 24. /''-23 and a finger holding arm 25 provided in parallel, and the gripper 24 is configured to be able to rotate around a vertical axis by the action of a motor 26.

The finger holding arm 25 has a finger holding mechanism 2 consisting of a holder 16 and a clamper 17 as shown in FIG.
7 is provided, and as shown in FIG.
When the gripper 24 is positioned directly above the finger holding mechanism 1'2 in order to insert the finger 5 held by the finger 5 into the finger holding mechanism 12 on the trolley l side, the finger holding mechanism 27 on the finger holding arm 25 side is located directly below the finger holding mechanism 12.

The power supply/air supply device 14 includes a power supply connector 28 and an air supply connector 2 on the connector unit 15 side, as shown in FIG.
9 and connectors 30 and 3I that can be fitted with the guide pin 33 and the guide bar by the extension movement of the cylinder 32.
Since the housing 34 is fitted, the connectors 28.29 and 30.31 are thereby fitted together. 35 and 36 are air supply hoses.

In the finger exchange device configured in this way,
For example, assuming that the trolley l shown in FIG.
After conveying the seed workpiece, the finger exchange stage 3S stops. When the trolley 1 stops, the power supply/air supply device 14 is activated and the connectors 30 and 31 shown in FIG. and air pressure can be supplied.

On the other hand, upon receiving the type signal of the work of type B, the handling robot 9, which had been waiting at the origin position, operates.
The hand 11 grips the fingers 5 for type B workpieces arranged in the storage device 3 with the gripper 24, and then moves to the cart 1 side.

Then, as shown in FIG. 3, the hand 11 grips the cart l and positions the gripper 24 and the finger holding arm 25 above and below it, and in more detail, the finger holding mechanism 1
A gripper is placed directly above the finger 13 attached to the
While positioning the finger 5 supported by 24,
A finger holding mechanism 27 of a finger holding arm 25 is positioned directly below the finger 13.

When the hand 11 is positioned in this way, the finger 1
The clamper 17 shown in FIG. 2 that is clamping the clamp piece 3 performs an unclamping operation, thereby causing the clamp piece 20 to retreat. As a result, the finger 13 that had been supported by the finger holding mechanism 12 until then is detached from the bottom of the truck 1 due to its own weight, and the detached finger 13 is transferred to the finger of the finger holding arm 25 that is waiting under the truck 1. It is received by the holding mechanism 27.

As described above, from the finger holding mechanism 12 to the finger 1
3 is released, the clamper 17 of the finger holding mechanism l2 immediately returns to the clamped state, while the gripper
24 performs an opening operation. As a result, gripper 2
The finger 5 for the type B workpiece held by the finger 4 is inserted into the finger holding mechanism 12 and clamped.

When the replacement of one finger 5 for the B type work is completed in this way, the handling robot 9 operates to move the hunt river 1 to the storage device 3 side, and the clamper 17 of the fin car holding mechanism 27 on the finger holding arm 25 side A was recovered from trolley 1 by unclamping the
The finger 13 for the seed work is returned to the predetermined area of the storage device 3. Then, using the gripper 24,
The finger 5 for the type work is gripped and moved to the trolley 1 side again, and thereafter the finger 13 for the type A work and the finger 5 for the type B work are replaced by the same operation as described above.

Once all the fingers on the trolley 1 have been replaced with those for type B workpieces as described above, the trolley 1 is uncoupled from the power supply/air supply device 14 and runs along the guide rail 2. Meanwhile, the handling robot 9 returns to the origin position and waits.

Advantages of the Invention According to the present invention, when fingers are exchanged between a trolley and a storage device using a handling robot, the removal of the finger from the trolley and the attachment of a new finger are substantially eliminated. Since this can be done at the same time, the number of times the handling robot moves back and forth between the trolley and the storage device is reduced. As a result, the time required to replace fingers can be significantly shortened without increasing the number of handling robots as in the past, and in particular, it can fully cope with the increase in speed of the transfer line due to shortening of takt time.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is an explanatory view of the entire configuration showing one embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a cross-sectional view of the finger holding mechanism on the trolley side, Fig. 3 is an enlarged perspective view of the main parts of the hand, and Fig. 4 is a power supply and FIG. 5 is an explanatory enlarged plan view of the air supply device, and is a configuration explanatory diagram showing an example of a conventional finger exchanging device. 1 ・Dolly, 3...Storage device, 5.6,7゜8
．． 13...Finger, 9...No\ndling Robo Soto, 11...Hand, 12...Finger holding mechanism,
17... Clamper, 24 ・Gripper-125...
-Finger retention arm.

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) Equipped with a workpiece transporting trolley that is removably equipped with multiple fingers for positioning the workpiece on its upper surface, and a storage device in which multiple types of fingers are arranged according to the type of workpiece. In the device, the fingers are exchanged between the trolley and the storage device by a handling robot according to the type of work to be done, and the trolley has clampers for clamping and unclamping the fingers at multiple locations, and A finger holding mechanism is provided that allows the fingers to be attached from the top side while allowing the fingers to be removed downward from the cart when the clamper is unclamped, and the hand of the handling robot should be attached to the finger holding mechanism. a gripper that grips the fingers; A finger exchange device for a work transfer device, comprising: a finger holding arm that receives a finger that is detached to the side;