JPH0367813A - Transport device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable two dimensional transportation by providing a thrust piece for transport that projects to the top of a track surface in the natural state, and pushed down and falls below the track surface at the time of reverse movement to an endless transport body in a rectilineal transport device of metal mold, etc. CONSTITUTION:When a metal mold 6 is fed on a track and a driving pulley 21 is normally rotated, a thrust onward means 40 advances rightward together with a belt 10, and a thrust piece 41 engages with the back surface of the metal mold 6 to advance the metal mold. And, when transported to a fixed position, a limit switch operates and stops. Then, the thrust onward means 40 also moves to the left when reversely rotated. On this occasion, it abuts the front part of the metal mold 6 from the side of the tilted surface of the thrust piece 41, and the thrust piece 41 rotates rightward and enters below the track surface, therefore, the thrust onward means 40 passes in the direction to the left, and the metal mold 6 can be transported when normally rotated after passed. With this construction, the two dimensional transportation is possible.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention is a device that linearly transports a shaped object on an orbit, and a two-dimensional transport path can also be constructed by combining multiple devices. This relates to a conveying device that can be used.

[Prior Art] There are a rotary table method and a conveyor method as general methods of a device for transporting an object (object to be transported) two-dimensionally (for example, within a horizontal plane).

A rotary table is a device that transports an object by placing an object on the table and rotating the table by a predetermined angle. On the other hand, conveyors normally carry out one-dimensional (straight) conveyance, but by bending their travel path or combining multiple conveyors with different directions of travel, it is possible to carry out the same two-dimensional conveyance as described above. You can make it happen.

In the field of injection molding of plastics and the like, the typical example of a device for conveying a molding die is either a rotary table system or a conveyor system. for example,
JP-A-58-1736: The specification of Publication No. 5 (related to injection molding method) also exemplifies the rotary table method and the conveyor method as means for conveying molding molds to each station for each process. There is.

[Problems to be solved by the invention] While the rotary table method has advantages such as a simple drive mechanism and a small number of parts, a) the transport path is limited to a circle, and surrounding equipment is also arranged in a circle. However, since the inertia is large, it requires a large driving force, resulting in high costs, and it is difficult to improve stopping accuracy.

On the other hand, although conveyor systems have advantages that rotary tables do not have, such as a high degree of freedom in conveyance routes and equipment placement, and low device inertia, they also have the following problems when performing two-dimensional conveyance. be. That is, a) when bending a path, a large bending radius is required, which increases the space occupied by the device. (2) When a regular-shaped object is conveyed in a curved manner by a roller conveyor or a curved conveyor, an edge is always generated between the object and the conveyor surface at the curved portion, resulting in deviations in the conveying position and angle. c) In the method of transferring objects between conveyors, in order to transfer objects to conveyors with different conveyance directions, it is necessary to create a height difference between the conveyors or to shift the objects from one conveyor to another. Position and angle accuracy cannot be maintained.

From the above points, in order to sequentially transport fixed-shaped objects, such as injection molds, to multiple locations arranged two-dimensionally, the following methods are recommended: ■ A conveyor system that allows the transport path to be set freely and has low inertia. It has the advantages of ■[III] The radius of the edge part is small or the direction is changed to a polygonal shape to shorten the conveyance path and make the device compact;
A conveyance device is desired that meets the following conditions: (1) high accuracy in conveyance position and angle, and (2) simple structure.

The above-mentioned publication shows a conveyor-type conveyance device with a rectangular conveyance path (the radius of bending is thought to be zero) along with a drawing, but there are no concrete details on how to configure such a conveyance device. No explanation was given.

An object of the present invention is to provide a conveyance device that can linearly convey a fixed-sized object even with a single device, and that can perform two-dimensional conveyance by satisfying all of the above conditions ① to ③ when multiple devices are combined. It is to be.

[Means for Solving the Problems] The conveyance device of the present invention is a device for linearly conveying a shaped object placed on a track, and uses a winding means including a driving wheel capable of forward and reverse rotation. A belt or chain is stretched around the reciprocating position slightly below the track surface, and a pushing means having the following A) head and B) is attached to the upper surface of the belt or chain. That is, A) a projecting piece that can be retracted above the raceway surface.

B) In a natural state, the protruding piece protrudes onto the raceway surface due to the urging force of a spring or magnetic force or gravity, and the belt or chain moves in the opposite direction to the conveying direction, so that the back surface of the protruding piece comes into contact with the fixed object. A mechanism that lowers the protrusion below the raceway surface only in certain cases.

[Function] First, the case where only one transport device of the present invention is used alone will be described. The above-mentioned belt or chain (hereinafter referred to as belt, etc.) is stretched by a winding means so as to reciprocate at a height slightly below the track surface on which a fixed-sized object (transferred object) is placed, and the above-mentioned A pushing means is attached. The belt, etc. is rotated forward and backward by the drive wheel, but when rotating forward, the front side of the protruding piece of the pushing means that protrudes onto the raceway surface hits the rear of the shaped object and pushes it, causing it to be shaped on the track. Transport things. When the conveyance is finished, the belt etc. are reversed and the pushing means is returned to the position before conveyance.At this time, even if another fixed object is newly placed on the raceway surface, the above-mentioned protrusion will be When it comes into contact with the front part of the shaped object, it moves down below the raceway surface against the urging force and gravity (its own weight), so the pushing means, belt, etc. smoothly return to their original positions. Therefore, the pushing means is reciprocated by rotating the belt or the like in the normal or reverse direction (in the same way, between conveying a certain shaped object to a predetermined position, the next shaped object to be conveyed is fed onto the track). With such efficient operation, regular-sized objects can be transported one after another.

When multiple units of this conveyance device are connected together,
It is possible to sequentially transport a shaped object to a plurality of two-dimensionally arranged locations (while stopping at each location). A continuous track is formed for all conveyance devices (J, device 1
This is because a shaped object can be conveyed by repeating intermittent feeding, where the length of the table is one stroke. Furthermore, while a certain fixed-sized object is being transported by a specific transport device, the next fixed-sized object to be transported can be transported by the upstream transport device to the orbit of the specific device. The same efficient operation as in the case of a single device can be achieved here as well.

When a plurality of units are combined as in ``2'', this conveying device has the following characteristic functions and satisfies all of the conditions (1) to (2) above required for conveying a shaped object in two dimensions. In other words, unlike a rotary table, the transport path can be freely set by selecting the length of each transport device and the angle between the devices, and the rotation radius of the moving parts is small, so the inertia is small. 0
Since there is no need to take a bending radius, the entire device is constructed compactly in terms of the conveyance path. ■The direction of conveyance can be changed by passing fixed objects between each conveyance device.
At this time, unlike a conveyor, the receiver is transferred on a series of static (that is, non-displaced) tracks, and the fixed object is simply pushed linearly forward by the pushing means after the transfer. The shaped object does not shift indefinitely on the track surface 2, and therefore the accuracy of the conveyance position and angle is maintained. ■It can be constructed simply and inexpensively by simply combining commercially available products and small and simple parts such as a belt, its winding means, static track, and pushing means.

[Example] Figures 1 (a:) to (c) and Figures 2 (a) to (d) are diagrams showing a conveying device for an injection acid mold as an example of the present invention. It is.

As shown in FIG. 1(a), this conveying device 1 consists of a belt 1 that reciprocates a mold 6 placed there on a rotatably attached support ball 31 and a support roller 32 as orbits.
It is configured to be horizontally conveyed from the left to the right in the figure by pushing with a pushing means 40 attached to the top of the paper.

The belt 10 is a timing belt with teeth (see FIG. 2(b)), and the winding means (pulleys described below) also have teeth accordingly. As the winding means, in addition to a drive pulley (drive wheel) 21 connected to a motor (not shown), a rotatable conveyance pulley 22, a back pulley 23, and a tension attachment pulley 24 are arranged as shown in the figure. . Since the driving pulley 21 is rotated by the motor in both forward and reverse directions, the belt 10 rotates forward and backward, and at a position slightly below the track surface where it is passed over the pair of conveyor pulleys 22, the belt 10 rotates forward and backward. The pushing means 40 reciprocates.

The pushing means 40 includes a bearing 4 as shown in FIGS.
A bracket 44 having a substantially triangular protruding piece 41 on the shaft 42 is fixed to two sides of the belt jO between the pulleys 22 using a clamping plate 45 and a set screw 46. The protruding piece 41 can rotate about the shaft 42, but since the bottom part 41a is long toward the left side in the figure and the center of gravity is located near it, the angle at which the bottom part 41a hits the bracket 44 in the natural state is as shown in FIG. It cannot turn further to the left. In this state, the second part of the protruding piece 41 protrudes to a height above the raceway surface. On the other hand, if the back surface (slanted surface in the figure) is pushed to the right, the protrusion 41 rotates to the right around the shaft 42.

This conveying device 1 conveys the mold 6 by continuous operation.

■When the mold 6 is supplied onto the track (support ball 31) as shown in Fig. 1(a), the motor is started and the drive pulley 2
1 is rotated normally (clockwise in the figure), and the pushing means 40 is advanced to the right in the figure together with the belt 10.

■When the pulley 21 continues to be driven, the protruding piece 41 of the pushing means 4° hits the rear part of the mold 6, and as shown in FIG. Push the mold 6 to the right.

(2) When the mold 6 is conveyed to a predetermined position as shown in FIG. 2(b), a limit switch (not shown) detects this, and the motor is temporarily stopped by the signal.

■Subsequently, when the subsequent mold 6° is placed on the supply position on the track as shown in FIG. make it retreat.

■When it comes into contact with the 6° front part of the mold, the protruding piece 41 rotates to the right as described above, and its upper part is below the raceway surface height, so it moves under the mold 6° as shown in Figure 2 (d). The protruding piece 41 can pass through, and the pushing means 40 returns to its original position (see Fig. 1).
Return smoothly to position a). When the mold 6' is retracted to the left, the protruding piece 41 again protrudes above the raceway surface due to the effect of gravity (its own weight) acting on the bottom portion 41a.

(2) After stopping the motor (and thus the pushing means 40) at the original exact position by a signal from a limit switch (not shown), etc., the mold 6' is transported again in the following manner.

By repeating the above steps, the transport device 1 can efficiently transport the molds that are successively supplied onto the orbit.

FIG. 3 is a plan view of a continuous conveyance facility for injection molding molds, which is constructed by connecting four conveyance devices 1, which are the same as those described above (however, the belts 10 and the like are of the two parallel type) connected in a square shape.

In the figure, A is an insert stage for inserting the core material into a mold (not shown), B is a mold clamping/injection stage equipped with an injection nozzle 9, etc., C is a curing stage for hardening the molded product, and D is a curing stage. This is the mold opening/removal stage that takes it out. This equipment is attached to an injection molding apparatus (other than the nozzle 9 is not shown), and equipment corresponding to each process of the apparatus is installed at each stage described above.

The four transport devices + (IA, IB, 1C, ID) move gold in the direction of the arrow in the diagram between stages A and B, between stages B and C, between stages C and 0, and between stages D and A. It is arranged to convey 1 2 molds. The support balls 31 and the support rollers 32 are all arranged at the same height and form a series of horizontal orbits spanning all stages (all conveyance devices). In order to accurately transport the mold, each stage is provided with a stopper piece 33, and each transport device 1 extends from the stop position of the mold toward the stage for the next process. In addition, each drive pulley 21 (see FIG. 1(a)) of the four conveyance devices 1 has a gear (not shown, including a bevel gear) interposed between the shafts so that the drive pulleys 21 (see FIG. 1(a)) rotate at the same speed, and a common is connected to the motor.

This continuous conveyance equipment and injection molding equipment simultaneously performs the inserting, mold clamping/injection, curing, and mold opening/removal processes at the four stages A-B and C-D for four sets of molds. Efficient injection molding can be performed by transferring each mold to an adjacent stage each time one process for a set of molds is completed. The reason is,
b) This conveyance equipment is capable of sequentially circulating each mold around the injection molding apparatus with the length (conveyance distance) of the conveyance device 1 being one stroke, and stopping at each stage. While the transport device 1B is transporting the mold from stage B to stage C, the transport device IA may transport the subsequent mold to stage B, so four sets of molds can be transferred simultaneously between each stage. It must be able to be transported. The above can be achieved by simply reciprocating the belt 10 by switching the rotational direction of the motor based on the above-described function of the pushing means 40 to move in and out of the track surface.

In addition, when combining the conveying device l shown in Fig. 1,
It is not necessarily necessary to follow the example of FIG. That is, (a) the arrangement of each stage (therefore, the conveyance path) is not limited to a rectangular shape (square), and can be set according to the number of processes or the arrangement of injection molding equipment. For example, if there is no insert process, they may be arranged in a triangular shape, or if the curing process requires time, a plurality of stages may be provided for the same process. Also, if there are a total of 6 stages, a hexagonal arrangement may be used, but for example, the stages may be arranged in 3 rows horizontally and 2 rows vertically.
A rectangular arrangement with a long side ratio of 2:I may also be used. If the mold is to be replaced every time the process goes through, it is not necessary to draw a polygonal closed loop, and the conveyance path may be constructed without connecting the starting end and the ending end.

[1) As mentioned above, it is not necessary to send the bells) at the same speed by a common motor. In particular, when the lengths (transport distances) of each transport device are unequal, it is necessary to give the drive pulley's interaxial gear an appropriate tooth ratio for each pulley, or to use a separate drive source for the same pulley for each transport device. It is recommended that the transport time between each device be made the same by connecting the two devices to the same device.

c) The track surface of each transport device may be inclined to form a non-horizontal or somewhat undulating transport path.

2) Even without using balls or rollers, a simple guide rail without a rotating part is sufficient as the track.

e) In order to allow the pushing means to push the mold straight, the example in the figure uses two parallel healds (and winding means), but if the belt and pushing means have an appropriate width, one thread can be used. But it goes without saying that it's a good thing.

By the way, FIGS. 4 and 5 are drawings showing other embodiments of the conveying device of the present invention. Each of the figures shows a single device as shown in FIG. 1, and is a side view partially shown in cross section.

First, in the example shown in Figure 4, the transmission chain 1 is used instead of the heald.
5 is used, and as the pushing means 50, a protruding piece 51 is formed into a key shape, and the upper part thereof is made to protrude above the raceway surface by the biasing force of a torsion spring 52. When sending the chain 15 to the right in the figure, the protruding piece 51 can push the regular object 7 forward, but when sending the chain 15 in the opposite direction, the protruding piece 51 hits the regular object 7 with its back and rotates as shown in the imaginary line in the figure. It can move and pass under fixed objects. It goes without saying that a sprocket (not shown) is used as the winding means for the chain 15, including the drive wheel.

In the example shown in FIG. 5, a vertically movable pushing means 60 is attached to the upper surface of the belt 16. The protruding piece 61 is formed into a right-angled triangular shape, a lower support shaft 62 is inserted into the E-shaped plate 64, and a coil spring 63 is interposed between the protruding piece 61 and the mounting plate 64. Because the protruding piece 61 protrudes from the raceway surface due to the biasing force of the spring 63, the shaped object 8 can be conveyed to the right in the figure, but when moving to the left, the inclined surface comes into contact with the shaped object 8. The protruding piece 61 is then lowered below the raceway surface. Note that in this example, the spring 6
Instead of 3, it is also a good idea to attach a pair of magnet pieces so that the end faces of the same polarity face each other (that is, so that they are separated from each other).

Regarding the conveyance devices shown in FIGS. 4 and 5, two-dimensional conveyance of regular shaped objects is possible by combining a plurality of conveyance devices as described above. Furthermore, both devices and the conveying device introduced in FIGS. 1 (through 3) can be widely applied to conveying shaped objects other than injection molds.

6 [Effect of the invention] The conveying device of this invention has the following effects.

1) While the belt or chain is rotated forward and backward by a drive wheel to reciprocate the pushing means, efficient conveyance is possible, such as feeding regular objects one after another onto a track.

2) By connecting a plurality of devices, it is possible to transport a shaped object to a plurality of two-dimensionally arranged locations sequentially and efficiently as described in 1) above.

3) In the case of 2) above, (1) the conveyance route can be freely set, so the constraints of (2) the layout of the conveyance device and surrounding equipment/equipment are reduced. Furthermore, since the inertia is small, it is advantageous in terms of required driving force, etc. ■The transport path is shortened, making the entire device compact. ■In addition to the heavy inertia (see ■), there is no cause for deviation of shaped objects on the raceway surface, so the accuracy of conveyance position and angle is high. ■ Simple structure and low equipment cost - ideal two-dimensional conveyance is realized.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

1 to 5 are drawings relating to embodiments of the present invention. FIG. 1 shows the conveying device of the first embodiment, in which (a) is an overall side view, (b) is an enlarged side view of the pushing means, and (
c) is its plan view. Figure 2 (a), (b), (c)
) and (d) are side views illustrating the operating mode of the apparatus shown in FIG. 1; FIG. 3 is a plan view of a continuous conveyance facility for injection molding molds constructed by combining the apparatuses shown in FIGS. 1 and 2. FIG. Further, FIGS. 4 and 5 are side views of second and third embodiments of the present invention, respectively. 1・1A・1B・1C・ID・・・Transport device, 6・6°
・7・8・・・Standard products (6.6゛ are molds), 10.16
・Belt, 15... Chain, 21... Drive wheel (drive pulley), 40, 50, 60... Pushing means, 41
・51・61・Protrusion piece.

Claims (1)

[Claims] A device for linearly conveying a fixed object placed on a track, the device comprising a winding means including a drive wheel capable of forward and reverse rotation,
A belt or chain is stretched around the reciprocating position slightly below the raceway surface, and on the top surface of the belt or chain, A) a protrusion that can be retracted above the raceway surface, and B) a biasing force due to a spring or magnetic force or In its natural state, gravity causes the protruding piece to protrude above the raceway surface, and only when the belt or chain moves in the opposite direction to the conveying direction and the back side of the protruding piece contacts the above-mentioned fixed object, does the protruding piece protrude below the raceway surface. 1. A conveying device characterized in that a pushing means having a lowering mechanism is attached.