JPH05175394A - Apparatus and method for processing long article - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To make it possible to process an article correctly aligned with a metal mold without the use of locating pins; to render the metal mold useful for general purposes; and to improve a processing efficiency. CONSTITUTION:A processing apparatus successively processes an article by pitchwise feeding in such a manner that a long article 10 to be processed is correctly located at a processing position. The processing machine is provided with a feeding mechanism 14 for pitchwise feeding the article 10, a displacement detecting section 20 for detecting displacements between the position of the fed article and a normal processing position when the article is fed by the feeding mechanism, and a control section 28 for controlling the feeding mechanism by correcting a displacement detected by the displacement detecting section as a feeding rate to the next pitchwise feeding of the article.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a processing apparatus and a processing method.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a product such as a lead frame in which a large number of pieces are formed in a repetitive pattern, a long work piece is processed while being conveyed at a predetermined pitch. Although there are various kinds of processing contents to be applied to these workpieces, lead bending processing, lead cutting and the like are performed by a processing device using a die. In processing using these processing devices, it is necessary to accurately align the workpiece with the processing position of the mold when the workpiece is conveyed by a predetermined pitch and processed. This is because in a product such as a lead frame that is subjected to microfabrication and commercialized, even a slight displacement from the regular processing position causes the lead pattern to collapse or the lead to deform, resulting in defects.

Therefore, in a processing apparatus such as a lead frame, in order to accurately position a work piece at a working position of a die, a guide hole for positioning is provided on the work piece, and a die is used when working with the die. The positioning pin provided on the die is inserted into the guide hole to accurately position the die and the workpiece. Even with conventional processing equipment, the mold and the work piece may be misaligned due to the feed error of the work piece, but the positioning pin is usually formed in a tapered shape, and when the tip of the positioning pin is inserted into the guide hole, the positioning pin becomes The guide holes are aligned and the positional deviation is corrected.

[0004]

As described above, in a lead frame processing apparatus or the like, a method of using a guide hole and a positioning pin has been generally used as a method of aligning a workpiece with a processing position of a mold. Has been done.
However, in the case of the method of aligning using the guide hole and the positioning pin in this way, the position of the guide hole and the positioning pin differs depending on the product, and therefore, the positioning pin must be installed for each product, and various products are required. In the case of production, it goes without saying that the dies and punches should be replaced for each product, but the positioning pins also had to be individually prepared and reset. Therefore, the present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to accurately position and process a workpiece and a mold without using positioning pins. It is intended to provide a processing apparatus and a processing method that can make a metal mold more versatile and improve the processing efficiency.

[0005]

The present invention has the following constitution in order to achieve the above object. That is, in a processing device for performing continuous processing by pitch-feeding a long workpiece to be aligned with a processing position, a feed mechanism for pitch-feeding the workpiece and the workpiece being processed by the feed mechanism. A displacement detection unit that detects the displacement between the feed position of the workpiece and the regular processing position when the product is moved, and the amount of displacement detected by the displacement detection unit, the next pitch feed of the workpiece. A control unit for controlling the feed mechanism by correcting the feed amount at the time of is provided. Further, in a processing method of intermittently transferring a work piece of a long body by a predetermined pitch, and processing a long body by performing processing for each transfer operation, when the work piece is transferred by a predetermined pitch, Each time the workpiece is transferred, it is detected by detecting the amount of deviation between the workpiece position and the regular processing position, and correcting this amount of deviation for the next time the workpiece is transferred. It is characterized in that the amount is corrected and processed.

[0006]

The elongated body is pitch-fed at a predetermined pitch by the feeding mechanism, and the required processing is performed according to the feeding operation.
When the workpiece is transferred to the processing position, the shift detection unit detects the shift amount between the regular processing position and the workpiece. The control unit corrects the pitch feed amount of the next work piece based on this deviation amount, and the work piece is fed next time by the corrected pitch feed dimension. By adding the detection result of the previous shift amount to the next feed amount as a correction, correction is performed so that the shift of the workpiece is not accumulated, and the workpiece is processed while being transferred.

[0007]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT A preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 shows an apparatus for processing a lead frame as an embodiment of the processing apparatus according to the present invention.
In the figure, 10 is a lead frame to be processed, and the lead frame 10 is processed while being conveyed from right to left in the figure. Reference numeral 12 denotes a press working portion for performing a predetermined working, in which a working die and a punch are set. In this apparatus, the lead frame 10 is a roll feeder 14 as a feeding mechanism.
It is configured to be accurately aligned with the machining position of the mold by conveying the molds by a predetermined pitch, and the press working section 12 is not provided with positioning pins.

The roll feeder 14 for pitch-feeding the lead frame 10 is set at the unloading side position of the press working section 12, and the lead frame 10 is transferred so as to be pulled out to the unloading side. As shown in the figure, the roll feeder 14 has a pair of rollers for sandwiching and supporting the upper and lower surfaces of the lead frame 10 and a drive controller for rotationally driving the rollers by a predetermined number of rotations in accordance with the pitch feed distance. Reference numeral 16 denotes a seam feed roller which is arranged at the carry-out side position side by side with the roll feeder 14. The seam feed roller 16 also has a pair of rollers that sandwich the lead frame from above and below. The seam feed roller 16 is for passing the seam portion of the lead frame formed in the elongated body into the press working portion 12 without performing a working operation on the press working portion 12.
The seam feed roller 16 is in an open state during processing by normal pitch feed.

Reference numeral 18 denotes a sensor section for monitoring the feed position of the lead frame 10 and detecting the amount of deviation between the regular machining position and the feed position of the lead frame 10. In the embodiment, as the sensor unit 18, a CCD camera is set downward above the exit position of the press working unit 12. This CCD
The camera is for recognizing a specific position of the lead frame, for example, a guide hole position. Reference numeral 20 denotes a deviation detection unit that analyzes and detects the deviation amount of the lead frame 10 from the regular feed position based on the data from the sensor unit 18, and reference numeral 22 denotes a monitor unit.

Reference numeral 24 is a seam detection section arranged at the position of the press-in section 12 on the carry-in side. The seam detection unit 24 includes a seam detection roller 2 that presses the lead frame 10 from above and below.
6 and a sensor that detects the seam because the roller interval of the seam detection roller 26 changes when the thickness of the lead frame changes at the seam portion. The sensor is constructed by, for example, activating a limit switch when the roller gap is opened at the seam. The output signal of the sensor is input to the control unit 28.

Next, a processing method for processing the lead frame by the apparatus of this embodiment will be described. The feed pitch of the lead frame 10 is input to the control unit 28 in advance, and the feed roller 14 is driven based on this set value to feed the lead frame 10 by pitch. The lead frame 10 is conveyed and moved at a predetermined pitch, and a predetermined processing is performed by the press processing unit 12 at the processing position. In the normal feed processing of the lead frame 10, the lead frame 10 is pitch-fed in this manner, and a predetermined processing is performed by the press processing portion 12 to continuously process the long body.

When the joint portion of the lead frame enters the press working portion 12, the joint detecting portion 24 detects the joint portion, and the control portion 28 converts the pitch feeding operation into the lead frame joint feeding operation. .. That is, the control unit 28 stops the operation of the press working unit 12, and stops the pitch feed drive by the feed roller 14. The lead frame 10 is clamped and supported by the joint feed roller 16, and the clamp pressure of the feed roller 14 is released. The seam feed roller 16 is driven, and the seam portion of the lead frame is sequentially fed until it passes through the press working portion 12. At the seam portion, the number of feeds passing through the seam is calculated by the feed pitch amount input to the input unit that sets the feed pitch amount of the lead frame provided in the control unit 28, whereby the seam feeding operation is performed by the pitch by the feed roller 14. Converted to feed operation.

At the time of conversion into pitch feed, the feed roller 14 first supports the lead frame 10 with a clamping force, and then the joint feed roller 16 releases the clamping pressure. The image of the lead frame position is recognized by the sensor portion 18 before the processing is started, and the lead frame position is finely adjusted by the feed roller 14, and then the processing by the normal pitch feed is started. Since there is a feed error due to the pitch feed mechanism and an error due to the manufacturing tolerance of the work piece during the pitch feed at such a fixed size, it is likely that there is a constant error between the product and the set value of the pitch feed. In this case, the accumulated error is too large, and it appears as a large error in the case of processing a continuous body as in the embodiment apparatus. Therefore, in the apparatus of the present embodiment, in order to correct an error relating to the feed error or the like, when the lead frame 10 is pitch-fed, the feed position of the lead frame is monitored by the sensor unit 18, and the error from the regular feed position is checked once. It detects and adds the feed correction.

The deviation detection unit 20 analyzes the positional deviation at the feed position of the lead frame 10 and transfers the deviation amount data to the control unit 28. The control unit 28 controls the feed by the feed roller 14 as an amount for correcting this positional deviation with respect to the constant feed pitch amount P in the next feed operation of the lead frame 10. For example, when the lead frame 10 is pitch-fed, and the lead frame is advanced from the normal position by .DELTA.X to the carry-out side, the pitch feed dimension P is subtracted from the pitch feed dimension P by .DELTA.X.
The lead frame is transferred with ΔX as the feed amount. Further, when the lead frame is at the position retracted from the normal position by ΔX, the lead frame is transferred next time with the feed amount as P + ΔX.

The feed correction method by the control unit 28 is a normal position correction in that the position of the processed portion is not corrected when the lead frame is moved to the processing position, and the correction is applied in the next feeding operation. Different from the method. When performing position correction, it is normal to correct the work piece to the proper position at the processing position, but for products with the same pattern that appears repeatedly, such as a long lead frame, use the above procedure. Error can be sufficiently corrected by various correction methods, and accurate processing becomes possible. Figure 2
Shows a result of an experiment of an actual amount of positional deviation when the positional deviation of the lead frame is corrected and processed by the apparatus of the above embodiment. The vertical axis represents the positional deviation amount, and the horizontal axis represents the lead frame feed number. It can be seen that the deviation amount from the normal position appears relatively large at the initial stage when the lead frame is started to be fed, whereas the deviation amount is corrected as the pitch feeding is increased, and the deviation gradually decreases. Finally, the amount of deviation from the normal position is corrected to about ± 0.03 mm by the deviation correction. In the case of the conventional positioning method using the positioning pin and the guide hole, the displacement amount is about ± 0.08 mm, and it is confirmed that the method of the present embodiment can perform sufficiently accurate positioning in comparison with this. It was

Further, when the deviation amount at the time of the pitch feed is corrected by the next feed of the lead frame as described above, the machining efficiency of the apparatus is improved as compared with the case where the position is corrected at the feed position each time. Is effective in that it can greatly improve. In the case of the present embodiment, since the deviation amount is analyzed and utilized next time during press working with the feed, high speed processing can be easily performed even if the deviation amount is detected every time. When the positional deviation is analyzed at each feed by the apparatus of the above embodiment and the positional deviation is corrected and the processing is performed, the processing speed is 80 SPM (the number of stamps / minute), while the processing is performed by the next correction as described above. If you do, it will be 170 SPM,
The processing efficiency has improved more than twice.

If the long lead frame is processed by pitch-feeding while correcting the position using the roll feeder as described above, the accumulated error is eliminated even in the case of a long workpiece. Can be accurately aligned and processed,
There is no need to install positioning pins on the processing die. As a result, when exchanging products, it is only necessary to exchange and set the die and punch without exchanging the die, and it is possible to simplify the type exchanging work such as die exchange. Further, in the apparatus of the above-described embodiment, the pitch feed amount of the work piece may be appropriately set in the control unit 28 according to the product, and there is an advantage that the versatility can be improved even in the case of multi-product production. .. Although the apparatus of the above embodiment is an apparatus for performing press working on a lead frame, this processing method can be similarly used for a processing apparatus for a long body other than the lead frame. Is not limited to press working, and can be applied to various workings.

[0018]

As described above, according to the processing apparatus and the processing method of the present invention, it is possible to perform accurate processing without using positioning pins for aligning workpieces, and Can facilitate the work of replacing the mold. Further, since the positioning pin is not used, the mold structure can be simplified and the mold can be easily manufactured. Further, by performing the positional deviation correction as the next feed correction of the workpiece, it is possible to perform highly accurate machining as continuous machining of a long body, and to achieve high-speed machining.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment of a processing apparatus.

FIG. 2 is a graph showing an experimental result of an amount of deviation due to position correction of a work piece.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 Lead Frame 12 Press Processing Section 14 Roll Feeder 16 Seam Feed Roller 18 Sensor Section 20 Displacement Detection Section 22 Monitor Section 24 Seam Detection Section 26 Seam Detection Roller 28 Control Section

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁵ Identification code Internal reference number FI technical display location B21D 43/09 F 8509-4E

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A processing apparatus for performing continuous processing by pitch-feeding a long workpiece to align it with a processing position, wherein a feed mechanism for pitch-feeding the workpiece and a feed mechanism for feeding the workpiece. When the work piece is fed and moved,
A deviation detection unit that detects a positional deviation between the feed position of the work piece and the regular machining position, and a deviation amount detected by the deviation detection unit is corrected as a feed amount for the next pitch feed of the work piece. And a control unit for controlling the feeding mechanism. 2. A method for processing a long object by intermittently transferring a long object to be processed at a predetermined pitch and performing a process for each transfer operation to process a long object, wherein the work is transferred at a predetermined pitch. Each time, the deviation amount between the work piece position and the regular machining position is detected, and the deviation amount is corrected with respect to the transfer amount when the work piece is transferred next time. A method for processing a long body, characterized in that the transfer amount is corrected every time the processing is performed.