JPH07206156A - Pallet positioning method and positioning device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a pallet positioning method and a positioning device capable of certainly positioning a pallet even if a positioning means is made compact and lengthening a span of life of a reference hole of the pallet. CONSTITUTION:A pallet is carried in the direction X which is different from the vertical direction Y while giving a first pushing-up force in the vertical direction Y to the side of a vertical type pallet P, and when the pallet P reaches a specified position PS, a second pushing-up force which is smaller than the first pushing-up force is given to the side of the pallet P in place of the first pushing-up force. The pallet P is pushed up by this second pushing-up force in the vertical direction Y and the pallet is pushed down in the vertical direction and positioned with a hole 38 of the pallet as a standard by a positioning means.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a pallet positioning method and a positioning device for positioning a pallet for containing an object, for example, a vertical pallet.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art FIG. 5 and FIG. 6 show a conventional vertical jig pallet 1 and its positioning means 2. The jig pallet 1 is a pallet that is processed or assembled with the reference hole 4 as a reference. The load supporting surface 6 of the jig pallet 1 can be moved horizontally along the conveying surface 3, but the load supporting surface 6 of the jig pallet 1 has a fixed structure in the vertical direction with respect to the conveying surface 3. is there. That is, the load support surface 6 is fixed in the vertical direction (vertical direction). In such a case, in order to absorb the dimensional error from the reference hole 4 to the transport surface 3 and position the jig pallet 1 at the correct position, the jig pallet 1 as a whole should be referenced with the reference hole 4 as a reference. The positioning pins 5 and 5 of the positioning means 2 are required to be lifted and positioned at the correct position.

[0003]

However, in order to position the jig pallet 1 by hoisting it in this way, the rigidity of the positioning means 2 must be sufficiently large, especially when the weight of the jig pallet 1 is large. If so, the jig pallet 1 cannot be positioned at the correct position. Further, since a large radial load is also applied to the reference hole 4 of the jig pallet 1, the life of the reference hole 4 is short.

Therefore, the present invention has been made in order to solve the above-mentioned problems. Even if the positioning means is made compact, the pallet can be reliably positioned and the life of the reference holes of the pallet can be extended. It is an object of the present invention to provide a positioning method and a positioning device.

[0005]

According to the present invention, the above object is to convey the pallet in a direction different from the vertical direction while applying a first vertical pushing force to the vertical pallet side. Then, when the pallet reaches a predetermined position, a second pushing force smaller than the first pushing force is applied to the pallet side in place of the first pushing force, and the pallet is moved to the second position. This is achieved by a pallet positioning method in which the pallet is pushed up in the vertical direction by a pushing-up force, and the pallet is pushed down and positioned in the vertical direction with reference to the holes of the pallet by the positioning means. In the present invention, preferably, the pallet is pressed against the stopper by the first pushing force.

In the present invention, the above-mentioned object is to guide the pallet when guiding a vertical pallet in a direction different from the vertical direction, and the vertical pallet in a direction different from the vertical direction. The first vertical lifting force is applied to the vertical pallet side in the vertical direction when the pallet is conveyed, and when the pallet reaches a predetermined position, the first vertical lifting force is used instead of the first vertical lifting force. A second lifting force, which is smaller than the force, is applied to the pallet to move the pallet to the second
Force applying means for pushing up in the vertical direction by the pushing force of the pallet, and positioning means for pushing down and positioning the pallet pushed up by the second pushing force in the vertical direction with the hole of the pallet as a reference. This is accomplished by a pallet positioning device. In the present invention, preferably, the guiding means is a pallet conveying surface, and the force applying means is a fluid pressure cylinder. Further, in the present invention, preferably, the positioning means is insertable into the hole of the pallet,
There is a member that can be withdrawn from the hole, and the central axis of this member is located below the central axis of the hole of the pallet.

[0007]

According to the above construction, the pallet is conveyed in the direction different from the vertical direction while applying the first pushing force in the vertical direction to the vertical pallet side. By this conveyance, when the pallet reaches a predetermined position, a second pushing force smaller than the first pushing force is applied to the pallet side instead of the first pushing force. The second pushing force pushes up the pallet in the vertical direction, and the positioning means pushes down and positions the pallet in the vertical direction with reference to the holes of the pallet. Thereby, the positioning means does not need to suspend and hold the heavy pallet.

[0008]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT A preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. It should be noted that the examples described below are suitable specific examples of the present invention, and therefore, various technically preferable limitations are given, but the scope of the present invention particularly limits the present invention in the following description. Unless otherwise stated, the present invention is not limited to these modes.

FIG. 1 shows a disk transport apparatus including a preferred embodiment of the pallet positioning apparatus of the present invention. In the apparatus of FIG. 1, the pallet positioning device 1
0, a disc holder 12, a disc ejection unit 14, a pole changer unit (ejection unit) 16, a pole changer unit (insertion unit) 18, a pole conveyor unit 20, a disc insertion unit 22, a disc reversal unit 24, and the like.

First, an outline of a disk carrying device will be described with reference to FIG. The disc transport device is a device for handling a disc such as a compact disc or a magneto-optical disc. Pole conveyor section 2
0 is for carrying a plurality of pole changer parts (feeding parts) 18 along the arrow R from the previous stage. A disc (not shown) is detachably fitted into the pole of the pole changer portion (feeding portion) 18.

The disk of the pole changer section (insertion section) 18 is connected to the disk inversion section 2 by the disk insertion section 22.
It is carried to the No. 4 side and held by the disc holder 12. The disc held by the disc holder 12 is accommodated in the pallet P at a predetermined position PS via the disc hand portion 28 and the chuck portion 30.

The disk accommodated in the pallet P is conveyed in the direction of the arrow X along the pallet conveying section 32, is sent to the process of the next stage, and is ejected from the pallet P. Then, the surface of each disk is processed and returned.

Then, the processed disk is taken out from the pallet P, and the processed disk is mounted on the pole of the pole changer section (ejecting section) 16 by using the disk ejecting section 14. The processed disc of the pole changer unit (ejection unit) 16 is used for the pole conveyor 2
By 0, it is sent to the next processing step along the arrow R direction.

Next, the pallet positioning device 10 will be described with reference to FIGS. The pallet P described above is arranged in the pallet positioning device 10 of FIG.
This pallet P is for accommodating one or more discs. The pallet positioning device 10
This is for positioning the pallet P at a predetermined position PS in the pallet transport unit 32.

The pallet P is conveyed by the driving means (not shown) in the pallet conveying section 32 along the arrow X direction (horizontal direction in the embodiment) or the opposite direction, and is positioned at a predetermined position PS (in the arrow X direction). (Positioning).

Please refer to FIG. 2 and FIG. 2 and 3 show the pallet positioning device 10 of FIG. 1 in more detail.
2 and 3, the pallet P is a so-called vertical pallet, and includes a disk-shaped accommodating portion 70 and a load supporting portion 72.
have. Reference holes 38, 38 are provided in the central portions of both sides of the accommodating portion 70. This pallet P is
It is, for example, a vertical heavy jig pallet that is processed or assembled with reference holes 38, 38 as a reference. .

In FIG. 3, the stopper 34 of the pallet conveying section 32 is formed along the arrow X direction in FIG. 1 (in FIG. 3, the direction perpendicular to the paper surface of FIG. 3). Figure 2
As shown in FIG. 3, inside the pallet transport unit 32,
The pallet holding mechanism section 80 is arranged at a position corresponding to the predetermined position PS.

The pallet holding mechanism 80 will be described. A plate-shaped jig pallet conveying surface 36 and a plate-shaped member 46
Are arranged in parallel vertically facing each other. On the upper surface of the jig pallet conveying surface 36, a pallet P, which is also called a jig pallet, is set to be movable in the arrow X direction via a predetermined guide member. That is, the jig pallet transport surface 36 is a guide means in the direction of arrow X of the pallet P.

The two guides 60, 60 are fixed to the member 46. The guides 60, 60 have pins 61, respectively.
have. These pins 61 are fitted in the holes of the jig pallet carrying surface 36. Further, the member 46 includes
A pneumatic cylinder 48 is arranged. The rod 48 a of the cylinder 48 abuts the lower surface of the jig pallet carrying surface 36. Therefore, this rod 48a
However, when it extends upward, the jig pallet conveying surface 36 is raised with respect to the member 46 toward the stopper 34 side in FIG.

The cylinder 48 is connected to the pneumatic circuit section 50. The pneumatic circuit section 50 has an air pressure switching valve 52 and a regulator 54 also called a pressure reducing valve. These air pressure switching valve 52 and regulator 5
4 is connected to an air pressure source 56. The pneumatic circuit section 50 and the cylinder 48 constitute a force applying means for applying a force in the vertical direction to the pallet P side.

As shown in FIGS. 3 and 1, the predetermined position PS
Positioning mechanisms 40, 40 are arranged so as to correspond to. These positioning mechanisms 40, 40 sandwich the pallet P at a predetermined position PS. As shown in FIG. 3, each positioning mechanism 40 has a positioning pin 42 and its driving cylinder 44.

The central axis L1 of the positioning pin 42 and its driving cylinder 44 shown in FIG. 3 is set at a position lower than the central axis L2 of the reference holes 38, 38. By operating the drive cylinder 44, the positioning pin 42 also called a locate pin can be inserted into the corresponding reference hole 38 along the arrow Z direction. Thus, when the pins 42, 42 are inserted into the reference holes 38, 38, respectively, the jig pallet P is pushed down in the arrow Y direction (downward) while the pallet P is moved in the vertical direction (arrow Y direction). Positioning (positioning in the direction of arrow Y) can be performed.

The position of the central axis L1 of the positioning pin 42 is
With respect to the reference dimension B (see FIG. 2) from the upper surface of the jig pallet carrying surface 36 to the central axis L2 of the reference hole 38, the jig pallet P is set to be lower by an error so that all the jig pallets P within the error range are set. , Is always pushed down at a predetermined position PS so that positioning is performed. As described above, each jig pallet P has an error whether the jig pallet P is a pallet formed by processing with the reference hole 38 as a reference,
Alternatively, it is because the pallet is assembled by using the reference hole 38 as a reference.

The air pressure setting pressure of the regulator 54 is set so that the force of pushing down the jig pallet P when the positioning pin 42 positions the jig pallet P is, for example, about several tens N. .

Next, an operation example of the above-mentioned embodiment will be described. First, the air pressure switching valve 52 of FIG. 2 is switched to the source pressure side (state of FIG. 2), and a relatively large source pressure is supplied to the cylinder 48. In this state, as shown in FIG. 3, the upper surface of the jig pallet conveying surface 36 is in a state of being pushed up by the stopper 34 with a large thrust and hit. That is, with the jig pallet conveying surface 36 pushed up against the stopper 34, the driving means (not shown)
The load supporting portion 72 is moved in the direction of the arrow X in FIG. 1 along the pallet conveying portion 32 to move the jig pallet P to a predetermined position P.
It is conveyed to S and positioned at a predetermined position PS. At this time, the pin 61 of the guide 60 of FIG. 2 is inserted into the hole of the jig pallet carrying surface 36 to perform positioning in the arrow X direction.

After the transportation and the completion of the positioning at the positioning location PS, the pneumatic pressure switching valve 52 of FIG. 2 is switched from the original pressure side to the depressurization side to lower the supporting force or thrust of the cylinder 48. That is, the jig pallet conveying surface 36 is pushed up against the stopper 34 by using a relatively small thrust as compared with the above relatively large thrust. In this state, as shown in FIG. 3, the positioning pins 42 of the positioning means 40, 40,
42 is advanced and inserted into the reference holes 38, 38 of the jig pallet P. As a result, the jig pallet P is accurately positioned in the vertical direction or the height direction Y. That is, the jig pallet P can be accurately positioned in the vertical direction or the height direction Y regardless of the assembly error or the processing error of each jig pallet P.

That is, the central axis L1 of the positioning pins 42, 42 is set lower than the central axis L2 of the reference holes 38, 38 of the jig pallet P by the amount of the dimension error of the jig pallet P. Has been done. For this reason, even if all the jig pallets P within the error range are conveyed to the predetermined position PS, the jig pallets P are moved against the force of the cylinder 48 by the positioning pins 42, 42. In the depressed state, the jig pallet P can be reliably positioned at the predetermined position PS in the arrow Y direction, that is, in the vertical direction.

The following advantages can be obtained by adopting the carrying and positioning method in the embodiment of the present invention. When the jig pallet P is transported, the cylinder 48
The supporting force by "" is set to "large", and stable conveyance is possible. On the other hand, when the jig pallet P is conveyed in the vertical direction along the arrow Y direction after being conveyed, the supporting force by the cylinder 48 is switched to "small" as compared with the supporting force by the cylinder 48 previously. . As a result, since the jig pallet (movable part) including the accommodating part 70 and the load supporting part 72 can be supported with a moderately weak force commensurate with the weight, even if the jig pallet P is a heavy object. ,
With a very weak force, as shown in FIG. 2 and FIG.
Positioning can be reliably performed on S.

Therefore, the positioning mechanism 40 can be manufactured compactly, and the service life of the reference holes 38, 38 of the jig pallet P becomes longer than in the conventional case. In this way, the transport surface 36 of the jig pallet P is
Alternatively, the weight receiving surface is structured to be movable up and down (direction of arrow Y), and its supporting force can be switched.

Next, referring to FIG. FIG. 4 shows another embodiment of the pallet positioning device of the present invention. Figure 4
This embodiment is different from the embodiments of FIGS. 2 and 3 in the following points. The regulator 54 used in FIG. 2 is not connected to the air pressure switching valve 152. That is, instead of the regulator 54 used as the pressure reducing valve, the elastic means 200 such as a spring is used as the member 146.
And a plurality of jig pallet conveying surfaces 136 are arranged between them.

In the embodiment of FIG. 4, the jig pallet conveying surface 1
When carrying 36 and positioning it at a predetermined position PS (positioning in the direction of the arrow X), the cylinder 148 presses the jig pallet carrying surface 136 against a stopper (not shown) with a large force. On the other hand, when positioning the jig pallet transport surface 136 at the predetermined position PS in the arrow Y direction, the supply of air pressure to the cylinder 148 is stopped. Then, the regulator 5 of FIG.
Instead of 4, elastic means 200, 200 such as springs
The jig pallet conveying surface 136 can be pressed against the stopper with a force smaller than the force of the cylinder 148. Other shapes of the jig pallet P are similar to those of the jig pallet P of the embodiment shown in FIGS. 2 and 3.

As described above, in the illustrated embodiment, regarding the positioning by the locate pin of the vertical heavy jig pallet processed or assembled as the hole reference, the supporting force of the load supporting portion of the jig pallet is selectively selected. It can be controlled. This makes it possible to perform highly accurate positioning while significantly suppressing the positioning force exerted on the jig pallet.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment. For example, in the above-described embodiment, the pallet positioning device is applied to the disc transport device, but the present invention is not limited to this and can be applied to devices in other areas or fields. Besides using a pneumatic cylinder, other types of actuators such as a hydraulic cylinder may be used.

[0034]

As described above, according to the present invention, even if the positioning means is made compact, the pallet can be reliably positioned and the life of the reference hole of the pallet can be extended.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a disk carrying device including a pallet positioning device of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a front view showing the pallet positioning device of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a side view showing the pallet positioning device of FIG.

FIG. 4 is a front view showing another embodiment of the pallet positioning device of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a front view showing a conventional pallet positioning device.

FIG. 6 is a side view showing a conventional pallet positioning device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 Pallet Positioning Device 32 Pallet Conveying Section 34 Stopper 36 Pallet Conveying Surface (Pallet Guide Means) 40 Vertical Positioning Mechanism (Positioning Means) 42 Positioning Pins (Locate Pins) 46 Members 48 Cylinders (Force Applying Means) 50 Air Circuit Parts (Force applying means) 60 Guide P Pallet Y Vertical direction X Horizontal direction (direction different from vertical direction)

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A vertical pallet side is provided with a first pushing force in the vertical direction, the pallet is conveyed in a direction different from the vertical direction, and when the pallet reaches a predetermined position, the first pallet is moved. Instead of the push-up force of
Is applied to the pallet side, the pallet is pushed up in the vertical direction by the second pushup force, and the pallet is pushed down in the vertical direction by the positioning means to position the pallet in the vertical direction. A pallet positioning method characterized by the above. 2. The pallet positioning method according to claim 1, wherein the pallet is pressed against a stopper by the first pushing force. 3. A pallet guide means for guiding a vertical pallet when it is conveyed in a direction different from the vertical direction, and a vertical pallet when the vertical pallet is conveyed in a direction different from the vertical direction. A vertical pushing force is applied to the pallet side, and when the pallet reaches a predetermined position, a second pushing force smaller than the first pushing force is used instead of the first pushing force. The pallet is applied to the pallet and the pallet is pushed up by the second pushing force in the vertical direction, and the pallet pushed up by the second pushing force is moved in the vertical direction with reference to the holes of the pallet. A pallet positioning device comprising: a positioning unit that presses down and positions in a direction. 4. The pallet positioning device according to claim 3, wherein the guide means is a pallet conveying surface. 5. The pallet positioning device according to claim 3, wherein the force applying means is a fluid pressure cylinder. 6. The positioning means has a member insertable into the hole of the pallet and retractable from the hole,
The pallet positioning device according to claim 3, wherein a central axis of the member is located below a central axis of the hole of the pallet.