JPH05172697A - Apparatus for inspecting flaw of gear - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain the title apparatus having high inspection accuracy and excellent in inspection efficiency. CONSTITUTION:A feed means 1 for feeding a gear G to be inspected to an inspection position, a rotary mechanism 2 for allowing the gear G fed to the inspection position to make one revolution at the inspection position and a flaw detection means 3 for detecting the flaw of the gear G are provided. Further, a sorting means 20 sorting the gear G whose flaw is detected by the flaw detection means 3 from the gear G free from a flaw is provided.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a defect inspection device for inspecting gears for defects which are obtained by sintering powder metal.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, as a method of manufacturing a gear widely used as a part of a machine tool or the like, a desired powder metal is filled in a sintering die and sintered by hot pressing,
A method is known in which the gear is taken out to obtain a gear having a desired size, shape, and size. The gear thus manufactured needs to be inspected for defects. Conventionally, an inspector has judged the presence or absence of defects by visually inspecting the gears sent from the sintering step.

[0003]

However, the conventional method of visually inspecting a gear by an inspector has problems such as inability to objectively inspect and poor inspecting efficiency. That is, when an operator visually inspects a gear visually, there is room for subjective judgment of the operator, and because there is a difference in the inspection ability of each operator, the inspection accuracy may vary, Moreover, there was a possibility that an objective judgment could not be made. Further, the visual inspection by the operator has a very poor inspection efficiency, and there is a possibility that it is not possible to appropriately deal with gears that are successively sent.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a gear defect inspection device having high inspection accuracy and excellent inspection efficiency.

[0005]

Therefore, in the gear defect inspection apparatus of the present invention, the conveying means for conveying the gear to be inspected to the inspection position and the gear conveyed to the inspection position are rotated around the entire circumference at the inspection position. The problem to be solved is to have an inspecting object rotating mechanism and a detecting means for detecting a defect from a gear that rotates all around the inspection position. In addition, it is desirable to include a selecting unit that selects a gear whose defect is detected by the detecting unit and a gear whose defect is not detected. Also,
The inspection object rotating mechanism is composed of a pair of upper and lower encoders that rotate a gear at an inspection position while holding it from above and below, and a lower encoder moves up and down a vertical axis for holding the gear from below. Is desirable to add.

[0006]

In the gear defect inspection apparatus of the present invention, the gear to be inspected is conveyed to the inspection position by the conveying means, and the gear conveyed to the inspection position is rotated around the entire circumference by the inspection object rotating mechanism at the inspection position. The defect detecting means detects a defect on the entire circumference of the gear that is rotated at the inspection position. This results in the detection of defects over the entire outer surface of the gear. Then, the gear that has been inspected is sorted by the sorting means into a gear in which a defect is detected and a gear in which no defect is detected.

[0007]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 is a conveying means, reference numeral 2 is an inspecting object rotating mechanism, and reference numeral 3 is a defect detecting means. The gear defect inspecting apparatus according to the present invention is mainly constituted by these reference numerals 1 to 3. It is configured.

The carrying means 1 is a means for carrying the gear G manufactured in the manufacturing process to an inspection position. Gear G
Is manufactured by a known means, for example, sinter molding of powder metal. In the conveying means 1 of this embodiment, the conveying path 4 is arranged from the manufacturing process to the inspection position, the gear G is placed on the groove 4a formed on the conveying path 4, and the upstream side cylinder or the like is used. By pushing the rear end of the gear G in the transport direction, the gear G is transported to the inspection position located at the tip of the transport path 4.

The inspection object rotating mechanism 2 is composed of an encoder 5 arranged immediately below the inspection position and an encoder 6 arranged above the inspection position. The encoder 5 includes a vertical shaft 7 having the same axis as the axis passing through the center of the inspection position, and the vertical shaft 7 is rotatably held by a bearing 8 and further connected to the rear end of the vertical shaft 7. The vertical shaft 7 is rotationally driven by the drive device 9. In the encoder 5, as shown in FIG. 2, the upper end portion 7a of the vertical shaft 7 can be retracted through the through hole 4b penetrating in the plate thickness direction at the inspection position of the transport path 4, and the upper end 7a of the vertical shaft 7 can be retracted. The upper end 7a of the vertical shaft 7 is fitted from below into the central through hole 10 of the gear G projecting above the transport path 4 and positioned at the inspection position, and the gear G is brought into contact with the step 7b of the upper end 7a. It is designed to hold.

An elevating mechanism 12 for elevating the vertical shaft 7 is installed on the upper surface of the bed 11. The elevating mechanism 12 includes a device body 13 and a cylinder 14 that extends and contracts in the vertical direction from the device body 13. The upper end of the cylinder 14 is connected to the bearing 8 of the encoder 5 via a connecting member 15. That is, when the cylinder 14 is extended, the vertical shaft 7 moves upward via the bearing 8 to move the conveying path 4
The upper end 7a of the vertical shaft 7 is fitted into the through hole 10 of the gear G immediately above via the through hole 4b. Since the upper end 7a of the vertical shaft 7 has a tapered tip,
The gear G is easily fitted into the through hole 10 and the gear G is easily held.

On the other hand, the encoder 6 arranged immediately above the inspection position has the same structure as the encoder 5,
The position of the central axis of the vertical axis 7 of the encoder 6 is the same as the axis passing through the center of the inspection position. The lower end 7c of the vertical shaft 7 has a tapered tip, and the lower end 7c of the vertical shaft 7 is
Is fitted into the center through hole 10 of the gear G from above and holds the gear G from above. That is, the gear G in the inspection position moves upward together with the vertical shaft 7 while being held by the upper end 7a of the vertical shaft 7 of the encoder 5, and contacts the step portion 7d of the lower end 7c of the vertical shaft 7 of the encoder 6. ,
As a result, the upper and lower vertical shafts 7 are fixed so as to be sandwiched between them.

The defect detecting means 3 is, as shown in FIG. 4, an upper detector 16 for detecting a defect in the upper range of the gear G.
And a central part detector 17 for detecting a defect in the central part of the gear G.
And a lower detector 18 for detecting defects in the lower range of the gear G.
And an upper detector 16 and a middle detector 1
7. The lower detector 18 can detect defects in the entire appearance of the gear G. For the upper detector 16, the middle detector 17, and the lower detector 18, for example, CCD cameras, video sensors, etc. are used.
The image data of the defect detected by the CCD camera or the like is subjected to a normal image processing process to determine the presence or absence of the defect.

Further, a shooter 21 for moving the inspected gear G to the selecting means 20 is arranged on the downstream side of the conveying path 4. The gear G that has been inspected by the shooter 21 is sent from the inspection position to the selecting means 20. The sorting means 20 uses the gear G in which no defect is detected.
The gear G in which the defect is detected is automatically selected, and a part 21a of the shooter 21 can stand up independently of the shooter 21. Part 21 of this shooter 21
Reference character a is interlocked with the rotation lever 22 so as to press the piston 23 and rotate the rotation lever 22 in the direction in which the part 21a of the shooter 21 stands up. And
Since the part 21a of the shooter 21 is erected, the gear G in which the defect is detected is dropped through the opening formed in the part 21a of the shooter 21.
That is, the operation of the piston 23 is controlled by the control signal from the defect detection means 3, and no defect is detected in the gear G.
Is conveyed as it is to the upstream of the shooter 21 and stocked in a stock section or the like, and the gear G in which a defect is detected erects a part 21a of the shooter 21 and drops it into the defect storage section or the like.

Next, the operation of the gear defect inspection apparatus of this embodiment will be described.

Gear G conveyed from the manufacturing process to the inspection process
Is transported to the inspection position on the transport path 4 by the transport means 1. With respect to the gear G conveyed to the inspection position, the vertical shaft 7 of the encoder 5 immediately below rises via the elevating mechanism 12, the tip 7a of the vertical shaft 7 is fitted into the through hole 7b, and the gear G is held. The gear G is fixed by the lower end 7c of the vertical shaft 7 of the encoder 6 directly above. In this fixed state, the inspecting object rotating mechanism 2 rotates the gear G over the entire circumference, and the upper detector 16, the middle detector 17, and the lower detector 18 inspect the entire circumference of the gear for defects in the corresponding range.

The image information of the gear G obtained by the upper detector 16, the middle detector 17, and the lower detector 18 is sent to the piston 23 of the selecting means 20 as control information through a normal image processing process. That is, the image information of the gear G is taken into a computer or the like, and various features such as the area, the perimeter, and the angle of the gear G are extracted through preprocessing such as noise removal, image enhancement, and normalization. Pattern recognition is performed on the basis of the above, and whether or not there is a defect in the gear G is determined by comprehensive judgment.

When it is determined that the gear G has a defect, the information is sent as control information to the piston 23 of the selection means 20, and the piston 23 is pressed to raise the part 21a of the shooter 21. Let's have a defective gear G
Falls down. When it is determined that the gear G is not defective, the information is sent as control information to the piston 17 of the selecting means, the part 21a of the shooter 21 is tilted down, and the gear G having no defect remains in the shooter. 15 is sent to the downstream side.

According to the present embodiment, the defect of the gear G conveyed to the inspection position by the conveying means 1 is detected by the CCD camera, the video sensor or the like, so that it is compared with the conventional visual inspection by the inspector. The defect inspection accuracy can be remarkably improved and the inspection efficiency can be remarkably improved. Furthermore, since the gear G can be selected by the selecting means 14 based on the presence or absence of a defect by using the detected data as control information, the selecting operation can be performed efficiently and reliably.

[0020]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Conveying means that conveys the gear to be inspected to the inspection position, inspected object rotating mechanism that rotates the gear conveyed to the inspection position all around the inspection position, and detection that detects defects from the gear that rotates all around the inspection position Since it is configured to include the means, it is possible to significantly improve the defect inspection accuracy as compared with the conventional visual inspection by an inspector, and it is possible to significantly improve the inspection efficiency.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a side view of a gear defect inspection apparatus showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a side sectional view showing a main part of an inspecting object rotating mechanism of the gear defect inspection apparatus.

FIG. 3 is a plan view showing a main part of the gear defect inspection apparatus.

FIG. 4 is a schematic side view showing defect detection means of the gear defect inspection apparatus.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Conveying means 2 Inspecting object rotating mechanism 3 Defect detecting means 20 Sorting means

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. From a conveying means for conveying a gear to be inspected to an inspection position, an object rotating mechanism for rotating the gear conveyed to the inspection position all around at the inspection position, and a gear rotating all around at the inspection position. A gear defect inspection device comprising: a detection unit for detecting a defect. 2. The gear defect inspection apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a selecting unit that selects a gear whose defect is detected by the detecting unit and a gear whose defect is not detected. 3. The inspecting object rotating mechanism comprises a pair of upper and lower encoders for rotating a gear at an inspection position while holding it from above and below, and a lower encoder for holding the gear from below. The gear defect inspection apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising an elevating mechanism for elevating the vertical shaft.