JPH06270922A - Bagging automation apparatus for powder and grain material - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To automate bagging of powder such as calcium carbonate and cement to largely reduce personnel expenses and also reduce influence of dust to operators. CONSTITUTION:A robot hand 10 is attached to an arm of a industrial robot body having an arm performing three-dimensional motion, while the robot hand 10 comprises a bag sucking suction pad 13 supported by an operating lever 12 and connected to a vacuum system and a bag opening suction pad 18 supported by a lever body 14 and connected to the vacuum system. Further a bag lifter for holding stacked bags vertically movably and a powder filling machine having a powder ejecting nozzle are placed, wherein the bag sucking suction pad 13 sucks the uppermost bag of the bags held by the bag lifter, and at least a part of a mouth of the bag is opened by the bag opening suction pad 18. Then the bag is set on the filling machine so that the bag mouth thus opened is interposed in a nozzle of the powder filling machine due to movement of the robot body and/or the arm, and the bag is filled with the powder.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an automatic bagging apparatus for powder and granular substances such as tankar and cement.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, powders such as tankar and cement are
Packed in paper or plastic bags. In the bag filling operation, an employee manually attaches these bags to a filling machine and fills them with tongue and cement. During this filling work, there is a powder leak, which causes waste, and inevitable deterioration of the work environment due to dust generation.

When using a paper bag, the powder can be packed in a paper bag standing on the floor with a nozzle of a filling machine. However, since a plastic bag is not self-supporting like a paper bag, it is manually placed on the floor. It is held upright and filled with powder by the nozzle of the filling machine. In either case, the filling work is performed manually, and particularly in the case of mass production, it takes a lot of workers and working time, and it has not been possible to sufficiently meet the demands for labor cost saving and energy saving.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to eliminate the above-mentioned inconvenience in the conventional bagging work of powder or the like and automate the bagging work.

[0005]

According to the present invention, the above object is to attach a robot hand to the arm of an industrial robot main body having an arm for performing three-dimensional movement, and the robot hand is supported by a work rod. A bag suction suction pad connected to the vacuum system, and a bag mouth opening suction pad supported by the rod and connected to the vacuum system, and a bag lifter that holds the stacked bag bundle so that it can move up and down. A powder filling machine equipped with a powder ejection nozzle is arranged, and the bag suction suction pad sucks the uppermost bag of the bag bundle held by the bag lifter, and at least one of the mouth portions of the bag is disposed. The bag is opened by a suction pad for opening the bag mouth, and the bag having the bag mouth opened is set in the powder filling machine by the movement of the robot body and / or the arm, and then the powder is passed through the nozzle to It is solved by filling the inside.

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention is such that the work rod can rotate 90 ° about its central axis, and the rod supporting the suction opening for opening the bag mouth sucks the bag suction. It is proposed that the work rod that supports the pad can be separated from the work rod.

Further, according to the present invention, in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, a plurality of table portions in which the bag lifter is united to form one loading table and the height position of each table portion are individually adjusted. It is proposed to have a position adjusting mechanism for doing so and a plurality of detecting devices for detecting the uppermost side surface of the bag bundle placed on the table in each range of the table portion.

[0008]

[Operation] When a worker puts a bundle of paper bags or vinyl bags on the table portion of the bag lifter and then activates the bag lifter, the bag bundle is raised to the suction level of the robot, and the limit switch switches the bag bundle The position of the uppermost side surface is detected, and it is checked whether or not the uppermost side surface is at the same height position. When the uppermost side surface is not at the same height position, each screw shaft is rotated by driving the drive motor to adjust the height position of the uppermost side surface of the bag bundle in each table part range, and the entire uppermost surface of the bag bundle. Should be on the same horizontal plane.

Next, when the robot main body is activated, the robot main body moves so that the robot hand comes to the bag suction position of the bag lifter, and the bag suction suction pad is placed on the uppermost side surface of the bag stack placed on the bag lifter. Press down. By opening the valve of the vacuum system, the adsorption pad adsorbs the uppermost one bag. The suction pad that adsorbs the bag moves to a position where it is not obstructed by the bag lifter, where the work rod rotates 90 ° about its own central axis, whereby the suction pad for adsorbing the bag moves the adsorbed bag vertically. Will be held. At this time, the bag mouth opening suction pad is close to the bag on the side opposite to the suction position of the bag suction suction pad, and the vacuum system valve to the bag mouth opening suction pad is opened to open the bag mouth. The suction pad for suction adheres to the opposite side of the bag, and then is slightly separated from the suction pad for suction of the bag to open the filling port of the bag. Next, the bag is set in the filling machine so that the arm of the robot body moves appropriately so that the designated ejection nozzle is inserted into the filling port of the bag. The filling machine fills the bag with the powder, and the bag is automatically supplied to the conveyor.

When it is confirmed that the bag is set in the above-mentioned filling machine, the robot body moves the robot hand away from the nozzle to the bag suction position of the bag lifter and moves to the next bag for filling the next bag. Repeat the same process.

[0011]

Embodiments of the present invention shown in the drawings will be described below.

In FIG. 1, an arm 2 of an industrial robot main body 1 has a rotary motion about a central axis 1a of the robot main body 1, a vertical swing motion about an axis 3a of a support shaft 3 of the arm 2, and an arm. It is possible to carry out a rotation movement around the axis line 2a of the self. A mounting member 4 is fixed to the free end of the arm 2.

As shown in FIG. 1, a bag lifter 5 and a powder filling machine 6 to be described later are provided around the industrial robot body 1.
And are arranged. Reference numeral 7 is a powder ejection nozzle provided in the powder filling machine 6, and 8 is a conveyor for the filled bags.

In FIG. 2, the robot hand 10 to be mounted on the mounting member 4 has a mounting surface 11 on the mounting member 4.
It comprises a hand head 11 having a, a work rod 12 carrying a plurality of suction pads 13, and a bag mouth opening rod 14 attached to the hand head 11 so as to extend parallel to the work rod. The work rod 12 is connected to a cylinder 15 arranged in the hand head 11, and is rotated by 90 ° about its own central axis by the cylinder. Further, the rod 14 is moved by the sliding shaft 14a so that the rod 14 is moved toward and away from the work rod 12 while maintaining a parallel relationship with the work rod 12.
It is slidably mounted on.

Since the hand head 11 is fixedly attached to the attachment member 4 of the arm 2 of the robot body 1 by the attachment surface 11a thereof, the robot hand 10 includes the arm 2
The above-described rotation movement, vertical rotation movement, and rotation movement are performed together with the arm 2, and the work rod 1 of the robot hand 10 is further used.
2 is able to rotate 90 ° about its own central axis as described above.

Each suction pad 13 has a conduit 15
, And these conduits 15 are attached to the work rod 12 via a support piece 16. The rod 14 for opening the bag mouth
An adsorption pad 18 is attached to the pipe via a conduit 17. The conduits 15 and 17 are flexible conduits 15a,
It is also connected to a vacuum source (not shown) via 17a and via a valve (not shown).

The bag lifter 5 shown in FIG. 3 has bearings 21 having upper and lower ends at four corners of the casing 20.
Four screw shafts 21 supported by a and 21b are vertically provided. Further, a drive motor 22 is arranged near the lower end of each screw shaft 21, and the drive shaft is a bevel gear train 2
It is connected to each screw shaft 21 through 3. Thereby, each screw shaft 21 can be individually rotated by the attached drive motor 22.

A flange nut 24 is screwed onto each screw shaft 21, and bag mounting table portions 25a, 25b, 25c, 25d are fixed to each flange nut 24 so that they are positioned horizontally. . The four table portions 25a, 25b, 25c, 25d form one table when they are located on the same horizontal plane, and the table area is a size suitable for mounting a filling bag such as tankar or cement. And these table parts 25
The a, 25b, 25c, and 25d can be adjusted to different height positions by individually controlling and driving the respective drive motors 22. 26a, 26
b, 26c, and 26d are limit switches for detecting the height position of the uppermost side surface of the bag bundle placed on the table within the range of each table portion.

The operation of the above-mentioned device according to the present invention will be described below.

First, an operator places a bundle of paper bags or vinyl bags on the bag placing table portions 25a, 25b, 25c and 25d of the bag lifter 5 located on substantially the same horizontal plane. When the lifter 5 is automatically activated, the bag bundle is raised to the robot suction level. At this time, the limit switches 26a, 26b, 26c, 26d detect the position of the uppermost side surface of the bag bundle in the range of each table portion,
Check if this top side is at the same height. The fact that the uppermost side surface of the bag bundle is on the same horizontal plane greatly affects the effective suction of the bag by the suction pad 13 in the next step.

Since the bag has a folded piece or the like that functions as a lid attached to its opening, when a large number of bags are stacked as a bundle, the attachment portion swells so that the uppermost side surface of the bag bundle has the same height. Often not in position. When the uppermost side surface is not at the same height position, each drive motor 22 is driven to rotate each screw shaft 21, and each table portion 25a, 25b, 25 while checking with each limit switch.
The height positions of c and 25d are adjusted so that the uppermost side surface of the bag bundle is in substantially the same horizontal plane.

Then, the robot body 1 is automatically started. The robot body 1 moves so that the robot hand 10 comes to the bag suction position of the bag lifter 5, and presses each suction pad 13 against the uppermost side surface of the bag bundle as shown in FIG.
By opening the valve of the vacuum system leading to the conduit 15, a suction action due to a negative pressure is generated in the suction pad 13, and the suction pad 1
3 adsorbs the uppermost one bag. By the appropriate movement of the arm 2, the suction pad 13 that has suctioned the bag is moved to the bag lifter 5.
The work rod 12 makes a 90 ° rotation about its central axis, whereby the suction pad 13 holds the suctioned bag vertically, as shown in FIG. It will be. At this time, the rod 1 for opening the bag mouth
The suction pad 18 provided in 4 is close to the bag on the side opposite to the suction position of the suction pad 13, and the valve of the vacuum system to the suction pad 18 is opened, so that the suction pad 18 is operated under negative pressure. By suctioning the opposite side of the bag, and as shown in FIG. 6, the rod 14 is slightly separated from the work rod 12, the suction pad 18 is separated from the suction pad 13, thereby opening the filling port of the bag.

Subsequently, the bag is set in the filling machine 6 so that the arm 2 of the robot body 1 is appropriately moved to insert the designated ejection nozzle 7 (FIG. 1) into the filling port of the bag. The filling machine 6 fills a bag with, for example, tongue, and when the weight is measured to be 30 kg, the bag is automatically supplied to the conveyor 8.

As described above, when it is confirmed that the bag has been set in the filling machine 6, the robot body 1 moves to the robot hand 10.
Is moved from the position of the nozzle 7 to the bag suction position of the bag lifter 5, and the same process as described above is repeated to fill the next bag.

Since a plurality of nozzles 7 are provided as shown in FIG. 1, it is possible to fill a plurality of bags at the same time in the same process.

[0026]

As described above, the method for automating bagging according to the present invention automatically packs powder such as tankar and cement, so that labor cost is greatly reduced and dust is not generated to workers. The influence of can be reduced.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a plan view showing an arrangement of a robot main body, a powder filling machine, and a bag lifter in an apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a robot hand.

FIG. 3 is a schematic perspective view for explaining the structure of a bag lifter.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory view showing a suction process of a bag by a robot hand.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory view showing an initial step of opening a bag mouth by a robot hand.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory view showing a final step of opening the bag mouth.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Robot Main Body 2 Arm 5 Bag Lifter 6 Powder Filling Machine 7 Ejection Nozzle 10 Robot Hand 12 Work Rod 13 Bag Suction Suction Pad 18 Bag Suction Opening Suction Pad 21 Screw Rod 22 Drive Motor 25a-25d Bag Loading Table Part 26a-26d Limit switch

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A robot hand is attached to the arm of an industrial robot main body having an arm that performs three-dimensional movement, and the robot hand is a bag suction suction pad supported by a work rod and connected to a vacuum system. A bag lifter supported by a rod and connected to a vacuum system for opening a bag mouth, and a bag lifter for holding a stacked bag bundle so as to be vertically movable; and a powder filling machine equipped with a powder ejection nozzle. And the suction pad for suctioning the bag sucks the uppermost bag of the bag bundle held by the bag lifter, and at least a part of the mouth of the bag is opened by the suction pad for opening the bag and opened. A bag having a closed bag mouth and / or a robot body
An automatic bagging apparatus for powder and granular substances, characterized in that the bag is set in the powder filling machine by moving the arm, and then the powder is filled into the bag through a nozzle. 2. The work rod has 90 degrees around its central axis.
2. The automatic bag filling according to claim 1, wherein the bag body is rotatable, and the rod supporting the suction pad for opening the bag mouth can be brought close to or separated from the work rod supporting the suction pad for bag suction. apparatus. 3. A plurality of table portions in which the bag lifter is united to form one mounting table, a position adjusting mechanism for individually adjusting a height position of each table portion, and a table adjusting device on the table. 3. The bagging automation device according to claim 1, further comprising a plurality of detection devices for detecting the uppermost side surface of the placed bag bundle in each range of the table portion.