JPH07320569A - Manufacture of flat cable - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a flat cable having a reed screen part improving an external shape by heating a plurality of insulated wires welded mutually with a heating plate through a heat transfer plate, thereafter cooled by separating the heating plate, and separating the heat transfer plate from the insulated wire. CONSTITUTION:Two sheets of heating plates 11, heated to about a melting point of insulating material of an insulated wire, are vertically parallelly held, and a flat cable 13, formed of a plurality of parallelly straightened insulated wires, is held between these heating plates. The heating plate 11 is brought into indirect contact with the insulated wire through a heat transfer plate 12, having an area sufficiently larger than the heating plate 11, so as to prevent it from coming into direct contact with the insulated wire, to heat an insulation coating material welded of the insulated wire, and the adjacent insulated wires are welded to form a flat cable 13. After heating for a necessary time, first the heating plate 11 is separated from the flat cable 13, to cool a welded part with the heat transfer plate 12 left as brought into contact with the flat cable 13. Next by separating the heat transfer plate 12 from the flat cable 13, the flat cable 13, having a reed screenshaped part, is obtained.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to connection of electronic equipment,
The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a flat cable used for internal wiring or the like, particularly a flat cable which is intermittently heat-sealed in the cable longitudinal direction.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In electronic devices and the like, in order to facilitate terminal work and wiring work, a plurality of core wires are arranged in parallel in a plane so that the plurality of core wires are provided over the entire length in the longitudinal direction or the length. Use a flat cable that is fixed in the direction intermittently. There are the following methods for manufacturing a flat cable fixed over the entire length. That is, 1) a method of laminating a conductor or the like with a tape-like material made of an insulating material, 2) a method of aligning the conductors and the like in parallel and then collectively covering them with an insulating material, 3) individual insulated electric wires (flat electric wire, coaxial wire) (Cables, etc.) and then chemically bonding the insulated wires together with a solvent etc. 4) Method such as physically bonding the insulated wires with heat after manufacturing individual insulated wires There is.

Further, as shown in FIG. 7, a method for producing a flat cable 4 having a portion 2 in which a plurality of insulated electric wires 1 are intermittently fixed to each other in the longitudinal direction and a comb-shaped portion 3 which is not fixed. There are the following methods. That is, 1) A method in which a flat cable fixed over the entire length is manufactured and then slits are intermittently formed. This method is excellent in productivity. However, if a manufacturing jig having slits depending on the number of cores is provided, or if a manufacturing jig is provided according to the maximum number of cores that may be needed, the parts other than the required number of cores are wasted. There is a problem. Further, when the individual insulated wires have a special structure such as a coaxial structure, it is difficult to control the pitch between conductors in manufacturing the flat cable itself. 2) Method of aligning individual insulated wires in parallel and then partially fusing or adhering this method Even if the required number of cores is changed, it is possible to easily cope with it. Moreover, even if each insulated wire has a special structure, it is possible to manufacture an avalanche flat cable with relatively simple management. However, when chemically bonding using an adhesive such as a solvent, there is a problem that there is no suitable solvent for the resin that is the insulating material, or even if there is, it may be dangerous to handle. there were.
Furthermore, when attaching a connector to a flat cable, the positioning of the processing is often done by using the boundary between the interdigital part and the adhesive part as the base line, but with the method using an adhesive, the adhesive flows between the insulated wires due to capillary phenomenon etc. However, there is a problem that the boundary between the interdigital portion and the adhesive portion becomes unclear. 3) As a means for solving the above-mentioned problems, the insulated electric wires that run in parallel while being in contact with each other are detachably sandwiched by a pair of heater blocks each having a built-in heater from both sides, and an insulating material is applied by heat. A method of fusing and adhering has been proposed (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 59-117012).

[0004]

However, in the above method 3), since only the surface in contact with the heater block is melt-fused, if the external cross section is not close to a square or a rectangle, the adjacent insulated wires Cannot be fused. As a method of solving this problem, there is a method of heating the heating plate by statically contacting the insulated wire. In this case, the amount of heat necessary for melting and fusing the insulating material to the entire insulated wire by heat conduction is sufficient, so even if the cross-sectional shape is not close to square or rectangular, the adjacent insulated wires are fused. It is possible to However, when the insulating material is heated and melts and has fluidity, the insulating material adheres to the heating plate, and it is not easy to peel the heating plate from the insulated wire, and the shape of the flat cable after fusion processing is There was a problem that it collapsed and the pitch between the conductors was disturbed.

[0005]

The present invention provides a method for manufacturing a flat cable which solves the above problems.
In a method for manufacturing a flat cable, wherein a plurality of insulated electric wires coated with a thermoplastic resin are arranged in a state of being in parallel contact with each other in a plane shape, and the coatings of the plurality of insulated electric wires are intermittently heat-sealed to each other in the longitudinal direction. , A plurality of insulated wires are heat-fused to each other with a heating plate through a heat transfer plate, the heating plate is separated and cooled, and then the heat transfer plate is separated from the insulated wire. is there.

[0006]

As described above, the portion to be fused intermittently between a plurality of insulated wires is not directly heated by the heating plate which is difficult to cool, but indirectly by the heating plate through the heat transfer plate which is easily cooled. After heating and fusing each other, the heating plate is separated and cooled, and then the heat transfer plate is peeled off from the insulated wire, so that the heat transfer plate is peeled off from the insulated wire when the insulating material is solidified. become. Then, the insulating material does not adhere to the heat transfer plate, and the heat transfer plate can be easily peeled off from the insulated wire, so that the shape of the flat cable after fusion processing does not collapse. The heat transfer plate here is preferably made of a material having the smallest possible thickness and good thermal conductivity in consideration of heating and heat dissipation.

[0007]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the embodiments shown in the drawings. FIG. 1 is a conceptual explanatory view of a method for manufacturing a flat cable according to the present invention, as viewed from the lateral direction. A flat cable 13 composed of a plurality of insulated wires in which two heating plates 11 heated to about the melting point of the insulating material of the insulated wire are held in parallel vertically and are aligned in parallel therebetween.
Is held. In addition, the heating plate 11 indirectly contacts the insulated wire via the heat transfer plate 12 having an area sufficiently larger than that of the heating plate 11 so that the heating plate 11 does not directly contact the insulated wire. The insulating coating material is heated and melted, and the adjacent insulated electric wires are fused to form the flat cable 13. After heating for the required time, first, the heating plate 11 is separated from the flat cable 13, and the fusion portion is cooled while the heat transfer plate 12 is in contact with the flat cable 13. After sufficiently cooling, the heat transfer plate 12 is attached to the flat cable 13
By further separating, the flat cable 13 having the interdigital portion can be manufactured.

(Embodiment 1) FIG. 2 is an explanatory view of a method for manufacturing a flat cable 23 having a comb-shaped portion made of a tri-lead type (3-conductor type) insulated electric wire 21. The conductor 22 of the insulated wire 21 is made of a silver-plated annealed copper wire having an outer diameter of 0.29 mm, and FEP (hexafluoropropylene copolymer), which is a fluororesin, is used in a state where these three conductors 22 are arranged in parallel. 2. Extrude and insulate all at once, width 2.
An insulated electric wire 21 having a rectangular cross section of 54 mm and a thickness of 1 mm was manufactured. 25 insulated wires 21 are arranged (however, only 4 are simply shown in FIG. 2), and the thickness is 25 μm, 15 cm.
A heat transfer plate 12 made of square copper foil is applied from above and below to a portion to be a fusion-bonded part, and contact heating is performed for 10 seconds by a 10 cm square heating plate 11 heated to 300 ° C., and the length of the flat cable in the longitudinal direction. The 10 cm portion was heated and fused. After that, the heating plate 11 was separated from the flat cable 23 with the heat transfer plate 12 being applied to the flat cable 23, and was allowed to cool naturally. After sufficiently cooling, the heat transfer plate 12 was peeled off from the fusion-bonded portion to form a flat cable having a comb-shaped portion with no disorder in the outer shape. Although FEP was used as the insulating material of the insulated wire 21 in this embodiment, PF
A (perfluoroalkyl vinyl ether copolymer), E
Similar effects can be obtained with other fluororesins such as TFE (ethylene tetrafluoroethylene copolymer) and resins such as polyethylene and polypropylene. Further, the insulated electric wire is not limited to the tri-lead type, but may be a twin-lead insulated conductor or a single-core insulated electric wire. Further, the heat transfer plate is not limited to the copper foil, and may be another metal thin plate such as an aluminum thin plate, but a plate having high heat conductivity is preferable.
Further, the thickness of the heat transfer plate is not limited to the above embodiment, and is determined in consideration of heating property, heat dissipation property and workability.

(Embodiment 2) FIG. 3 shows a flat cable 33 having an interdigital portion made of an insulated wire 31 having a coaxial structure.
FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram of a manufacturing method of. Insulated wire 31 is conductor 32
Use a silver-plated annealed copper wire with an outer diameter of 0.23 mm as
The outer side, which has been insulated with an outer diameter of 0.69 mm by EP, is
The braided shield was made of 08 mm silver-plated annealed copper wire, and a sheath of rectangular cross section having a width of 1.27 mm and a thickness of 1.3 mm was further covered with FEP resin. This insulated wire 3
When 1 is heat-sealed in the same manner as in Example 1, a flat cable having a good outer shape is formed. It should be noted that the insulated wire is not limited to the braided shield, but may be one that is horizontally wound.

(Embodiment 3) FIG. 4 shows a flat cable 43 having a comb-shaped portion made of an insulated electric wire 41 having a coaxial structure.
FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram of a manufacturing method of. The insulated wire 41 is the same as that of the second embodiment
Instead of the braided shield in, it is shielded with aluminum polyester tape. The same 0.23 mm silver-plated annealed copper wire as the center conductor is used as the grounding conductor, and the insulated wire having an outer diameter of 0.69 mm is arranged in parallel. A shield is provided by wrapping aluminum polyester tape around this. Further, as in Example 2, a sheath was made of FEP resin, and heat fusion processing was performed in the same manner as in Example 1 to obtain a good outer shape. The shield tape may be a composite tape using another metal such as a copper polyester tape or a metal foil such as a copper foil or an aluminum foil.

(Embodiment 4) FIG. 5 is an explanatory view of a method for manufacturing a flat cable 53 having a comb-shaped portion made of an insulated wire 51 having a single core and a circular cross section. Even in the case of the insulated wire 51 having such a shape, a sufficient amount of heat necessary for fusion bonding from the heating plate 11 is provided via the heat transfer plate 12, so that the outer shape is not disturbed and is intermittent as in the first embodiment. It can be heat fused. The insulated wire 51 is
The insulated wire 31 used in the second embodiment may have a circular cross section.

As a comparative example, as shown in FIG.
When fusion processing is performed without using the heat transfer plate 12 in Example 1, the FEP resin sticks to the heating plate 11 and the heating plate 11
When the resin was separated from the insulated wire 21, the resin stretched into a thread and spoiled the appearance of the fused portion.

[0012]

As described above, according to the present invention, a plurality of insulated wires covered with a thermoplastic resin are arranged in a plane so as to be in parallel contact with each other, and the insulated wires are covered in the longitudinal direction. In the method of manufacturing a flat cable in which heat is fused intermittently to each other, a plurality of insulated wires are heat-fused to each other with a heating plate via a heat transfer plate that is easy to cool, and then the heating plate is separated and cooled Since the heat transfer plate is then separated from the insulated wire, the problem that the insulating material of the insulated wire adheres to the heating plate can be avoided, and a flat cable having a good interlocking portion can be obtained. effective. In addition, if the heat transfer plate is made of a thin material having good thermal conductivity, it is easy to cool the heat transfer plate, so that it is easy to increase the manufacturing speed and improve the productivity. You can also

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a conceptual explanatory view of a method for manufacturing a flat cable according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of an example of a method for manufacturing a flat cable according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory view of another embodiment of the flat cable manufacturing method according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory view of another embodiment of the method for manufacturing a flat cable according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory view of still another embodiment of the method for manufacturing a flat cable according to the present invention.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram of a conventional flat cable manufacturing method.

FIG. 7 is a plan view of a flat cable.

[Explanation of symbols]

 11 heating plate 12 heat transfer plate 13, 23, 33, 43, 53 flat cable 21, 31, 41, 51 insulated wire 22, 32 conductor

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A flat structure in which a plurality of insulated electric wires coated with a thermoplastic resin are arranged in a plane so as to be in parallel contact with each other, and the coatings of the plurality of insulated electric wires are intermittently heat-sealed to each other in the longitudinal direction. In the method for manufacturing a cable, after heating and fusing a plurality of insulated wires to each other with a heating plate via a heat transfer plate, the heating plate is separated and cooled, and then the heat transfer plate is separated from the insulated wire. Characteristic flat cable manufacturing method.