JPH0550037B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to improvements in automatic identification technology for vehicle tires.

In the manufacturing process of vehicle tires, raw tires made by assembling various constituent materials in the molding process are sent to the vulcanization process where they are heated and pressurized to form the final shape of the tire, and then undergo the finishing and inspection process. Tires are sent to the factory where they are removed for spewing and subjected to various inspections, but tires of many different sizes are often transported between these processes, and it is necessary to sort and sort tires by size at each process. becomes. Traditionally, this sorting work has been carried out mainly by human visual inspection of the size and tread pattern of the tires, but since there are many tires that are very similar in size and tread pattern, mistakes can occur. There is a problem that there is a risk of this, and that it requires a great deal of effort. On the other hand, as a method for automatically identifying tires, a bar code is engraved on the inner surface of a vulcanization mold, and as shown in FIG. Attempts have been made to provide a barcode 3 with protrusions or concave stripes on the barcode 2, and to read and identify this using a reading device in a subsequent process. This method eliminates sorting errors and reduces the labor involved in sorting, but it requires a great deal of cost and time to process the barcode on the mold, and it is not easy to change the barcode once engraved on the mold. , it requires a special reading device that is not available on the market, it is not useful for identification during the molding or vulcanization process, and it cannot be used until after the vulcanization process, and it is not engraved on the tire surface. Barcodes have problems such as detracting from their aesthetic appearance.

The present invention has been made to solve the problems of the prior art described above, and includes printing and displaying a barcode on the surface of a base sheet, further providing a transparent protective layer on the surface, and an adhesive on the back surface. A tire identification barcode ticket with a vertical dimension of 5 to 15 mm and a horizontal dimension of 10 to 30 mm is formed in layers at the desired location on the raw tire that has been molded, i.e. from the bead edge to the rim flange height of the vulcanized tire. a step for adhering to the surface area within and covered by the rim flange after rim assembly;
A step of vulcanizing the raw tire using a mold and integrally fixing the barcode ticket to the tire surface, and a step of vulcanizing the raw tire or the vulcanized tire with the barcode ticket pasted thereon using a reading device. It consists of a step of identifying.

The present invention will be explained in detail below with reference to the drawings.

As shown in Figure 2, a barcode ticket 10
A tire identification barcode 12 is printed and displayed on the surface of a base sheet 11 made of Tetron, paper, etc., a transparent protective layer 13 made of polyester or the like is provided on the surface, and a It has a structure with an adhesive layer 14 made of polyvinyl or the like, and if a heat-resistant material is used for the base sheet 11 etc., it will be more effective in reducing the risk of deformation and discoloration under the high temperature conditions of the tire vulcanization process. can be avoided.

The size of the barcode ticket 10 is as shown in Figure 3 A, the vertical dimension B is 5 mm to 15 mm, and the horizontal dimension is 5 mm to 15 mm.
A10mm to 30mm, preferably 0.1mm or less in thickness. If the size of the barcode ticket 10 exceeds the above range, it is undesirable as it will have a negative effect on the aesthetic appearance of the tire, and if the ticket 10 shown in Figure 3 B has a width A > 30 mm, then the width A of Figure 3 A ≦ 30 mm. The angle α of the diagonal of the ticket is relatively small compared to that of
The scanning angle setting range of the barcode reader is narrow and reading errors are likely to occur.

The barcode 12 printed on the barcode ticket 10 has a width (length) of A as shown in Fig. 3A.
A unit is made up of multiple bars (for example, 4 bars) with different thicknesses in the direction, and multiple sets of this unit set each representing a specific number or character are formed in horizontal rows, and the tire size and number of plies are formed horizontally. , represents the pattern name; for example, the three-digit number 809 in the example is
Shows the identification code of 185/70HR13. Note that a in the figure indicates a start bar and a stop bar, each of which is composed of a plurality of bars (for example, four bars).

As mentioned above, since a much smaller ticket is used than usual, in order to insert a barcode with a large number of digits, the thickness of the thinner bar of the barcode is less than 0.3 mm, and the thickness of the thicker bar is less than 0.3 mm. The width is 2.5 times the thickness of the thinner bar.

As for the type of barcode to be used, NW7 (manufactured by Monarch, for example) is particularly desirable. The reason is that this code system can store more information in a small display area, has high reading accuracy, and is fully readable by existing barcode readers on the market. Incidentally, in the present invention, it is of course possible to use barcode systems other than the above-mentioned NW7.

The barcode ticket 10 of the present invention is a barcode ticket 10 of the green tire completed in the tire molding process.
As shown in FIG. can be,
Further, the ticket 10 is attached so that the long side A of the ticket 10 is directed toward the circumferential direction (arrow) of the bead portion 21. That is, in the raw tire 15, it is sufficient to apply it to a surface area within about 30 mm radially outward from the bead edge 23.
It should be noted that the sticker may be pasted on other parts than the above-mentioned pasting position, for example, on the side wall. The green tire 15 with the ticket 10 pasted thereon is integrally fixed to the tire surface through a normal vulcanization process. (Figure 5a).

The barcode ticket 10 fixed to the raw tire 15 or the vulcanized tire 17 is optically detected by a known commercially available barcode reader (for example, manufactured by Nihon Denki Seiki) and converted into an electrical signal. to decipher the tire type, etc. The reading speed (scanning speed of the laser beam) is, for example, approximately 5000
mm/sec or less is better.

As mentioned above, the present invention consists of a tire identification barcode ticket of a specific size fixed to the surface of the tire, and this barcode is read by a barcode reader to identify the tire type, which eliminates the conventional human visual identification. Disadvantages of this method (occurrence of sorting errors and increased sorting labor) and disadvantages of the method of using a mold to engrave a barcode on the tire itself and identify it with a reader (increased cost and labor of mold processing, changing the barcode) (difficulties, inability to identify before the vulcanization process, etc.) are eliminated, and not only is extremely efficient and highly accurate automatic identification possible, but in particular, the following excellent practical effects are also achieved.

●Since the size of the ticket is much smaller than normal tickets, it has little effect on the aesthetics of the tire.

- If the ticket is stuck to the tire surface within the height of the rim flange from the bead edge, the ticket will be completely hidden by the rim flange (22 in Figure 5 A) and cannot be seen after the tire is assembled on the rim, which will affect the aesthetic appearance of the tire. There is no impact on Furthermore, there is no risk of air leakage in the case of pasting in such a way that half of it is visible from the rim flange.

●The scan angle tolerance of barcode readers is wide, reducing reading errors.

●Since NW7 was selected as the barcode type, it is possible to put a lot of information into a small ticket, and the reading accuracy is high.

As mentioned above, the present invention can be used for automatically supplying green tires to the vulcanization process and automatically sorting vulcanized tires, as well as automatically setting judgment criteria such as uniformity for various tire inspection devices, and automation. The present invention enables automatic identification in tire warehouses.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Figure 1A is a perspective view of a tire with a conventional automatic identification barcode engraved on it, and Figure 1B is the X-X in Figure 1A.
FIG. 2 is a partially enlarged sectional view of the barcode ticket of the present invention, FIG. 3A is an enlarged plan view of the barcode ticket of the present invention, and FIG. FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a green tire to which the barcode ticket of the present invention is attached;
FIG. 5(a) is a partial perspective view of a vulcanized tire to which the barcode ticket of the present invention is attached, and FIG. 5(b) is an enlarged front view of the portion marked with a circle in FIG. 5(a). 10... Barcode ticket, 11... Base material sheet, 12... Barcode, 15... Raw tire,
16, 21... Bead portion, 17... Vulcanized tire, 18, 23... Bead edge, A... Horizontal dimension (long side) of barcode ticket, B... Vertical dimension of barcode ticket, 22... rim flange.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1 A barcode is printed and displayed on the surface of the base sheet, and a transparent protective layer is provided on the surface, and an adhesive layer is provided on the back surface, and the vertical dimension is 5.
~15mm, horizontal dimension 10~30mm The desired part of the raw tire that has been molded with a barcode ticket for tire identification, i.e. the surface area within the rim flange height from the bead edge of the vulcanized tire, and after the rim has been assembled. a step of affixing the barcode ticket to the area covered by the rim flange; a step of vulcanizing the green tire using a mold to integrally adhere the barcode ticket to the tire surface; and a step of affixing the barcode ticket to the tire surface. An automatic tire identification method comprising the steps of identifying raw tires or vulcanized tires using a reading device. 2 A barcode is printed and displayed on the surface of the base sheet, and a transparent protective layer is provided on the surface, and an adhesive layer is provided on the back side, and the vertical dimension is 5.
~15mm, horizontal dimension 10~30mm The desired part of the raw tire that has been molded with a barcode ticket for tire identification, i.e. the surface area within the rim flange height from the bead edge of the vulcanized tire, and after the rim has been assembled. A tire characterized in that it is pasted on the area covered by the rim flange and then vulcanized using a mold.