JPS5950572B2 - Akyumu Rating Conveyor - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention allows continuously supplied articles to be accumulated sequentially from the front in the direction of movement of the conveyor, or when the leading edge of the stopped articles is started, the following articles remaining in the conveyor are The present invention relates to an accumulating conveyor that starts intermittently in sequence.

In particular, in the present invention, when the first article is stopped, the drive of the conveyance roller located behind the article is stopped accordingly, and the conveyance of the following articles is stopped, and the conveyance rollers located at the rear of the article are stopped. This allows for a small gap to be maintained and the product to be reliably stopped without colliding with the next product.

Conventionally, various types of accumulating conveyors have been known, and these generally have the following structures.

That is, a conveyance line is set up by laying out conveyance rollers for articles, a pressure roller is placed opposite to the lower stage of the conveyance line, a driving belt is run between both rollers, and both rollers are configured to be able to move toward and away from each other. Therefore, when conveying an article, both rollers are brought close to each other so that the drive belt and the conveyance roller are pressed against each other, and rotational force is applied to the conveyance roller to convey the article, while the article is stopped by a stopper or the like. In this case, the distance between the two rollers opens in response to the movement, and the contact between the drive belt and the conveyance roller is released, so that the conveyance roller does not rotate.

Now, as one of such accumulating conveyors, the applicant proposed an apparatus having a structure as shown in FIG. 12 in Japanese Patent Publication No. 52-27912.

That is, in this type of device, a plurality of pressure rollers b are arranged on a fixed base a, and a drive belt C running in a direction opposite to the conveyance direction of the article is stretched over the pressure rollers b. A recess e having an inclined surface d is formed on the upper surface of the fixed base a, and a movable unit g equipped with a transport roller f is placed on the fixed base a, and the wheels of the movable unit g are mounted on the fixed base a. By fitting into the recess e, the conveying roller f and the drive belt C are brought into pressure contact.

In this type of device, when the traveling of the article M is restrained by the stopper S or by hand, the conveying roller f attached to the movable unit g is stopped by the article M, and the driving belt C that is traveling is stopped. The frictional force with the lower surface of the roller f generates a force that causes the movable unit g to retreat in the direction of movement of the belt.

As a result, the wheels of this movable unit g climb up the slope d.

Therefore, the movable unit g floats on the fixed base a,
The contact between the drive belt C and the conveyance roller f is released, the conveyance roller f is stopped, and the conveyance of the article M is stopped.

As described above, in this type of device, when the article M hits the stopper S, the movable unit g is raised by the line pressure of the article and the propulsive force in the belt traveling direction, and the conveyor roller f
Since the drive of the movable unit g is stopped, a force that tends to lower the movable unit g due to gravity is always exerted, and the belt and roller are always in contact with each other.

Therefore, there is a drawback that the line pressure applied to the stopper S becomes large.

In particular, when a large number of articles are stopped on the conveyor, the line pressure of each subsequent article is cumulatively applied to the leading article and the stopper S.

As a result, there is a risk that the leading article cannot be held down by the stopper S or manually, or that articles that have already stopped may be thrown off the conveyor by the line pressure of the following articles.

In addition, in order to push up the movable unit g and stop the conveyance port roller f, it is necessary that the driving force of the conveyance roller f by the belt C and the line pressure are properly adjusted. Since the value increases in proportion to the weight and is not always a constant value, the driving force must be adjusted appropriately according to changes in line pressure, which is inconvenient and makes operation of the device troublesome. .

Furthermore, in reality, it is difficult to make perfect adjustments, causing variations in the driving force, and especially when a lightweight article that has been stopped on the conveyor is restarted, the driving force becomes excessive and the article This also has the drawback of causing unnecessary impact to the product, causing damage to the product and making the conveyance state unstable.

The present invention was made to solve the above-mentioned drawbacks of the conventional accumulating conveyor, and includes a plurality of movable units disposed on a fixed base, and each movable unit has a roller sensor for sensing articles. At the same time as installing the
A pressing device such as a bellows, which is activated by a roller sensor attached to the unit in front of each unit, is installed between the fixed base and each movable unit, and the movable unit is moved back and forth using this pressing device and fixed. It is an object of the present invention to provide an accumulating conveyor which is floated on a base, thereby releasing the pressure contact between a drive belt and a conveyance roller.

That is, the present invention does not move the movable unit using the line pressure of the article and the propulsion force in the belt traveling direction, but moves the conveying roller by a pressing device that operates based on a command from a roller sensor that senses the article. Since the driving force between the belt and the belt is completely cut off, the article can be stopped and restarted stably regardless of line pressure or driving force.

Moving forward, the present invention will be explained in detail based on the illustrated embodiment. The present device can be roughly divided into a movable unit having a fixed base 1 installed on the floor of a factory, etc., and a conveyor roller placed on the upper part of the fixed base 1. It consists of 2.

First, the fixed base 1 is constructed by constructing two parallel frames 3 in a ladder shape with members perpendicular to the frames 3 at appropriate locations, and further providing legs as necessary to this, and as described above. Pressure rollers 4 are disposed at predetermined intervals between the frames 3, 3, and a drive belt 5 is stretched so as to sandwich the pressure rollers 4 from above and below.

The drive belt 5 runs using a motor 6 provided under the frame 3 as a drive source, and its running trajectory is set by a drive pulley 7, a turn pulley 8, and a snap pulley 9, respectively.

Further, on the upper surface of the frame body 3, for example, concave portions 10 are formed by punching it out with a press at a predetermined pitch, that is, a pitch corresponding to a movable unit to be described later.

This recessed portion 10 forms an inclined surface 11 so as to gradually rise in the direction opposite to the conveying direction of the conveyor, and furthermore, the recessed portion 10
A stopper 12 is provided protrudingly in front in the conveyance direction.

On the other hand, the movable unit 2 has a large number of transfer rollers 22 arranged between frames 21° 21 made of two parallel angle members arranged somewhat narrower than the width of the frame 3 of the base 1. In this embodiment, the length of the unit in the conveying direction is about 1 m, and about 10 conveying rollers 22 are provided between them.

Further, wheels 23 are provided on both front and rear sides of the frame 21.21 of the movable unit 2, and the wheels 23 fit into the recesses 10 in the fixed base 1, thereby making the movable unit 2 movable with respect to the fixed base 1. A combination with unit 2 is made.

In this combination, the pressure roller 4 and the conveyance roller 22 are positioned in a staggered manner with respect to each other, and the drive belt 5 held between both rollers is pressed against them, so that the conveyance roller 22 in particular is securely moved. It is designed to be driven by a belt 5.

Now, each movable unit 2 having the above-mentioned configuration has
Except for the movable unit at the rear end of the conveyor, roller sensor 2
Install 4.

This roller sensor 24 is fixed in front from the rear end of the movable unit 2 to approximately the same length l as the length l of the article M, and after the rear end of the article M is transferred onto the movable unit 2, The tip is brought into contact with a roller sensor 24 fixed to the movable unit 2.

The roller sensor 24 is disposed between the conveyance rollers 22 and fixed to the movable unit 2 so as not to touch the drive belt 5 running below the movable unit 2.

Hereinafter, this roller sensor 24 will be explained in detail based on FIGS. 8 and 9.

That is, the reference numeral 25 in the figure is a horizontal frame that connects the left and right frames 21 and 21 of the movable unit 2, and this horizontal frame 25 is parallel to the conveyance roller 22 attached to the movable unit 2, and does not come into contact with the front and rear rollers. Fix it like this.

This horizontal frame 25 has a mounting bracket 26 for the roller sensor.
A bearing 27 is mounted on this bracket 26, and a support shaft 28 is rotatably mounted on this bearing 27.

Sensing roller support arms 29 are provided at both ends of the support shaft 28.
The support arm 29 is fixed in an upward direction, and the tip of the support arm 29 is configured to protrude from between the front and rear conveyance rollers 22 when the arm 29 stands upright.

A sensing roller 30 is disposed between the left and right support arms 29, and the sensing roller 30 is rotatably supported by the support arm 29 via shafts provided at both ends thereof.

On the other hand, a mechanical valve 31 is fixed to the center of the bracket 26.
transfers air supplied from a compressed air source to the roller sensor 2.
According to the operation of step 4, it is appropriately fed to a pressing device such as a bellows.

That is, this mechanical valve 31 is a three-port switching valve that has an inlet port 32 and an air supply port 33 on the left and right sides of the valve body, and an exhaust port at the bottom.
When the protrusion 34 is pressed by the operation of the roller sensor 24, the air vent 32 and the air supply port 33 are brought into communication.

Therefore, a popular branch pipe P' branched for each movable unit from the main air supply pipe P extending from the compressed air source is connected to the popular port 32, and a bellows attached to the subsequent movable unit is connected to the air supply port 33. An air supply pipe 35 extending to a pressing device such as the like is connected.

Further, a slide piece 36 is disposed below the valve projection 34 and moves up and down along the bracket 26 to press the valve projection 34.

This slide piece 36 is made of an inverted-shaped member with a horizontal top, and the top comes into contact with the valve protrusion 34, and a part of the inner corner of the slide piece 36 is in contact with the support shaft 28 of the roller sensor. The provided pressing protrusion 37 is engaged.

Incidentally, as a source of compressed air, a rotary blower having the flow rate and pressure necessary to reduce the line pressure on a conveyor with a machine length of about 20 m is installed near the drive section of the conveyor, and the V The driving force of the blower is extracted using a belt, etc.
In addition, factory air, a mini compressor, a diaphragm compressor, etc. can be used to reduce the pressure.

In addition to the roller sensor described above, an air sensor can be used as the article sensing means, and as the switching valve, a solenoid valve, various mechanical valves, etc. that can send and exhaust compressed air to and from the pressing device can be used. You can also do that.

Next, the pressing devices attached to each movable unit will be explained (see FIGS. 10 and 11).

In this embodiment, this pressing device uses soft polyethylene,
It uses bellows made of blow molded plastic material such as vinyl acetate.

That is, each movable unit 2 arranged on the fixed base 1 has
Except for the most advanced movable unit of the conveyor, each bellows 3
8 will be added.

The bellows 38 has its operating end face fixed to a bracket 29 fixed to the frame of the movable unit 2, and its intake/exhaust end face is fixed to a bracket 40 fixed to the fixed base 1. There is.

Therefore, the intake/exhaust port 41 in this bellows 38 has
An air supply pipe 35 extending from an air supply port 33 of a mechanical valve 31 fixed to a movable unit at the front stage of the movable unit is connected.

The accumulating conveyor of the present invention has the structure shown in the above embodiment, and its operation will be described below.

First, after confirming that the fixed base 1 and movable unit 2 are combined as described above, the motor 6 is activated by an appropriate switching operation.

Then, the drive belt 5 runs in the opposite direction to the conveyance direction of the article, rotating the conveyance roller 22 that is pressed against it from above.

Therefore, if the article M is supplied onto the conveyance roller 22, the article M will be conveyed according to the rotation of the roller.

Now, in this state, when the leading article M1 reaches the position of the roller sensor 24 provided in the movable unit 2, the article M1
1 contacts the sensing roller 30 and this support arm 2
Let 9 fall forward.

Then, the support shaft 28 to which the support arm 29 is fixed rotates, and the pressing protrusion 37 provided thereon causes the slide piece 36 to rise along the bracket 26.

Since the apex of the slide piece 36 is in contact with the valve protrusion 34 of the mechanical valve 31, the valve protrusion 34 is pushed up as the slide piece 36 rises, and as a result, the compressed air flow is directed to the popular port 32 of the valve 31. The compressed air is then switched to the air supply port 33 side, and compressed air is supplied to the bellows 38 attached to the subsequent movable unit.

The bellows 38 expanded by this compressed air acts to push the movable unit 2 backward, and as the movable unit 2 moves, the wheels 23 climb up the slope 11 of the recess 10. The entire movable unit 2 is floated above the fixed base 1.

In this case, since the conveyance roller 22 and the pressure roller 4 are separated, the frictional connection between the drive belt 5 and the conveyance roller 22 is released, and the article M2 in the subsequent movable unit is released.
transport is stopped.

In this manner, in the accumulating conveyor of the present invention, when the leading article M1 reaches the roller sensor 24 in the movable unit 2 at the front stage, the conveyance rollers of the movable unit at the rear stage stop, so that the subsequent article M2 It stops on the unit and does not collide with the article M1 that is stopped on the preceding movable unit.

The conveyance roller 22 of the movable unit on which the first article M1 is placed is, since there is no article on the front movable unit,
is in the driven state and thus the article M1 is on the roller sensor 24
Move forward without stopping at the top.

Then, when the article M1 passes over the roller sensor 24,
The force pressing the roller sensor 24 is released, the valve protrusion 34 is pushed down by the return spring built into the mechanical valve 31, and as a result, the roller sensor 24 returns to its old upright state.

On the other hand, with the return of the valve protrusion 34, the compressed air flow that had been supplied to the mechanical valve 31 is stopped at the air intake port 32 side, and at the same time, the air inside the bellows 38 flows through the air supply pipe 35 due to the contraction of the bellows 38. It flows backwards and is discharged from the exhaust port of the mechanical valve 31.

In this way, when the bellows 38 contracts, the rear stage movable unit 2 descends on the fixed base 1, and this conveyance roller 22 contacts the drive belt 5 and is given a driving force, so that the rear stage movable unit 2 is lowered on the fixed base 1. Article M2 on the unit starts moving forward.

In this way, on the accumulating conveyor of the present invention, the stopping and re-starting of the articles are repeated in sequence for each movable unit, and the articles are intermittently transferred at constant intervals.

When the article M1 at the tip reaches the stopper S provided at the tip of the conveyor (it is also possible to stop the article manually), the article M1 continues to stop on the movable unit of the stopper part, Since the roller sensor 24 continues to be pressed, the subsequent movable unit also remains stopped from conveying the article M2.

Therefore, since the articles supplied on the conveyor stop themselves and at the same time stop the conveyance of the following articles, the stoppage of the conveyor rollers 24 in each movable unit 2 spreads sequentially from the unit in front, and as a result, the conveyor The entire drive force is released and line pressure is completely lost.

Now, as described above, when the stopper S is opened and the first article M1 is transferred with each article accumulated on the conveyor, the roller sensor 24 that was being pressed by the article M1 returns to its original position, and the next stage The transport roller 22 of the movable unit receives driving force and sends out the article M2.

Thereafter, subsequent articles sequentially receive driving force in the same way, and are smoothly started and conveyed at constant intervals due to the so-called singulation effect.

As described above, the accumulating conveyor of the present invention is configured such that when an article is present on the preceding movable unit, the conveyance roller of the succeeding movable unit is stopped, and the subsequent article is stopped on the succeeding movable unit. Therefore, there is no risk that the conveyed articles will collide with each other due to line pressure and be damaged or fall off the conveyor.

In addition, when lifting the movable unit from the fixed base, a pressing device operated by air pressure is used instead of using line pressure, so the movable unit is moved according to the line pressure, which varies depending on the weight of the item. This has the advantage that the movable unit is reliably lifted and the conveyance roller is stopped without adjusting the force.

Therefore, according to the present invention, it is possible to always set the driving force of the conveyor constant, which eliminates the need for troublesome adjustment work, and enables stable conveyance and restart of articles.

In particular, in the present invention, since the re-launched articles are intermittently conveyed one by one due to the singulation effect, the effect of improved versatility can be achieved by using in combination with other conveyance line devices. have

Furthermore, in the conventional type, even when the movable unit is in the floating state, the drive belt runs while lightly touching the conveyor roller, which has the disadvantage of producing intense driving noise such as scraping noise. In the present invention, the movable unit is completely lifted and the drive belt and the conveyance roller do not come into contact with each other, so the above-mentioned disadvantages do not occur.

Furthermore, since a bellows is used as the pressing device, the sliding resistance is small and operation can be performed with a low air pressure of about 0.35 to 0.5 kg/cm2, which reduces the cost of the air source and makes it inexpensive as a switching valve. You can use small ones.

Furthermore, as a result of the possibility of using small valves, it is also possible to obtain an article sensing means that operates even with a light weight (of the order of 0.03 kg).

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a perspective view showing one embodiment of the accumulating conveyor according to the present invention, Fig. 2 is a top side view of the same, Fig. 3 is a sectional view taken along line III-III in Fig. 2, and Fig. 4 is a fixed base and FIG. 5 is a side view showing the fitting part of the movable unit in an enlarged manner, FIG. 5 is a view taken along the line V-V in FIG. , FIG. 8 is an enlarged side view of the roller sensor portion, FIG. 9 is a front view of the same as above, FIG. 10 is an enlarged side view of the bellows portion, FIG. 11 is a front view of the same as above, and FIGS. FIG. 3 is a side view showing the operating state. 1: Fixed base, 2: Movable unit, 4: Pressure roller, 5
: Drive belt, 10: Concave part, 11: Inclined surface, 22: Conveyance roller, 23: Wheel, 24: Roller sensor (sensing means), 26: Mounting bracket, 27: Bearing, 28: Support shaft,
29: Support arm, 30: Sensing roller, 31: Mechanical valve (switching valve), 34: Valve protrusion, 3
6: Slide piece, 37: Pressing protrusion, 38: Bellows (pressing device).

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A large number of movable units 2 with conveyor roller groups horizontally mounted are placed on the fixed base 1 of the conveyor, and when the wheels 23 provided at the bottom of each movable unit 2 fit into the recesses 10 of the fixed base, the drive is started. When the conveyance roller 22 is rotationally driven by pressure contact with the belt 5 and the wheels 23 are rolled along the inclined surface 11 of the concave portion 10 to levitate the movable unit 2, the drive belt 5
In a belt-driven roller conveyor that accumulates articles by releasing the pressure contact with the conveyor roller 22 and stopping the conveying roller 22, each movable unit 2 has a sensing means 24 for sensing the entry of an article.
In addition, a switching valve 31 operated by a sensing means is provided, and on the fixed base 1 corresponding to the mounting position of the rear stage movable unit 2, a switching valve 31 of the front stage movable unit is installed.
An accumulating conveyor characterized in that a bellows 38 is attached that presses the movable unit 2 in a direction to release the pressure contact of the conveying roller 22 against the drive belt by compressed air sent when switching.