JPS6231607A - Endless conveyer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent relative rotation between shanks of adjacent support members during turning of a link between the shanks to obtain stable and parallel movement of carriers at all times for safe and positive carrying of parts or the like by providing a relative rotation preventing mechanism between the shanks. CONSTITUTION:When a motor M is actuated to rotate a rotary disc 5 in the clockwise direction, support members 7 for carriers C are driven in the same direction, having the shanks 14 engaged in grooves of the rotary disc 5 one by one, and along therewith a lower rotary disc 6 also rotates, engaging the shanks 14. These support members 7 are coupled by links 16, and the support members 7 are further coupled by chains 19, so that, when these support members 7 move in an arcuate track, the adjacent support members 7 never rotate relatively and move in parallel at all times. Therefore, a carrier C fixed to each of the support members 7 moves at all times in a constantly directed condition with no inclination even in an arcuate track so as to stably carry parts.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Industrial Field of Application) The present invention relates to an endless conveyor equipped with carriers on an endless track for supporting objects to be conveyed, such as nine parts of various materials.

(Prior Art) Conventionally, as the above-mentioned type of conveyor, a structure in which a carrier is directly fixed to a chain or belt, or in which the carrier is freely suspended via a suitable hanging device is known.

(Problem to be Solved by the Invention) However, the structure in which the carrier is directly fixed to the chain or belt has the disadvantage that stable conveyance cannot be performed because the direction of the carrier changes in response to turning or curved parts of the track. In particular, vertical conveyance is limited to applications such as packet elevators, where the conveyed items are received at the bottom and discharged at the top. This method cannot be applied to applications in which a plurality of carriers are attached and any carrier is moved to a predetermined position because the conveyed object will spill from the carrier when the direction is changed.

In addition, in a configuration in which the carrier is freely suspended from a chain or belt via a hanging device, the former type of change in the orientation of the carrier can be prevented when conveying in the vertical direction, and it is also possible to use it as a stocker. The carrier sways during transportation, making it extremely unstable, and in severe cases, the transported objects may spill out, which is dangerous.

(Means for Solving the Problems) In view of the above-mentioned shortcomings of the prior art, the present invention provides a method for reliably moving the carrier without causing any change in the direction of the carrier even when moving along a turning section of the track. The purpose is to provide an endless conveyor that can be supported, and is constructed as follows.

That is, the endless conveyor of the present invention includes a support member connection body in which the shaft portions of a plurality of support members for fixing carriers are endlessly connected via links so as to be rotatable relative to each other, and this support member connection body is connected to a predetermined position. It consists of a drive mechanism such as a pair of rotating discs that are driven by a motor and are equipped with a plurality of grooves that sequentially lock the shaft portions of the support members, and are driven in circulation along a track. In addition to the above-mentioned links, there is a relative rotation prevention mechanism between the shaft parts that only allows the shaft parts to rotate in the same direction and at the same angle, such as a chain stretched between sprockets fixed to the shaft parts. is provided, so that even when the links between adjacent details rotate due to the curvature of the track, no relative rotation occurs between the shaft parts, and therefore the carrier always moves in parallel even when such links rotate. It is supposed to be done.

(Embodiment) Next, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

The stocker 1 shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 is a carrier C for loading or hanging work implements such as tools by type.
-C can be arbitrarily moved up to the take-out height H according to demand.

The stocker 1 has two columns 2, 2 vertically installed on the base B.
, upper and lower rotating disks 5 and 6 supported between these supports 2 and 2, and supporting members 7 to 7 of the carrier C, which are driven in circulation by the rotating disks 5 and 6. .

The rotating disks 5 and 6 are each supported by a support plate (not shown) fixed between the columns 2 and 2.
is similarly driven to rotate by a motor M mounted on an underframe 8 fixed between columns 2.2 via sprockets 9, 10 and a chain 11 stretched between them.

Further, V-shaped grooves 12 to 12 are formed at four equal intervals on the outer periphery of the rotating disks 5 and 6, respectively.

The support members 7 to 7 each have a shaft 14 fixed at one end to the carrier C and the other end to the support plate 13, and the support plate 13 has a groove (not shown) provided in the support column 2. Two slidable levers 15.15 are mounted vertically (see FIG. 2).

Reference numerals 16 to 16 are links that are rotatably connected at both ends to the shafts 14 and 14 of the adjacent support members 7 and 7, and this link 16
~16, the supporting members 7-7 are at a constant distance from each other! (See Figure 3). This distance is set to be approximately equal to the distance between the bottoms of the adjacent grooves 12, 12 of the rotating disks 5 and 6, and the supporting members 7 to 7 are connected to the shaft 1.
4 to 14 are sequentially locked in grooves 12 to 12 of rotating disks 5 and 6, so that they can be circulated.

As shown in FIG. 3, two sprockets 17 and 18 of the same diameter are fixed to the shafts 14 to 14 of the support members 7 to 7, respectively, at positions on both sides of the link 16, and the adjacent support members 7, A chain 19 is tensioned between sprockets 17 and 17 and between sprockets 18 and 18 of No. 7, respectively, so that the shafts 14-14 of support members 7-7 are connected to each other by a chain 19 between them, as clearly shown in FIG. 19 to 19 prevent rotation relative to the adjacent shafts 14, 14, respectively, that is, only rotation in the same direction and at the same angle is permitted.

(In addition, in Fig. 4, the chain 19 located at the front
Chains 19 to 19 are shown by solid lines, and chains 19 to 19 located at the rear are shown by broken lines. ) Next, the operation of the above embodiment will be explained.

First, when the motor M is driven to rotate the rotary disk 5 clockwise in FIG. When the drive is finished, the lower rotating disk 16 also moves to the shaft portions 14 to 1.
Rotate while locking 4 in sequence.

The support members 7-7 are stiff in the straight portion of the track15.
15, it travels while being guided along the grooves of the supports 2,2.

Next, when the supporting members 7 to 7 are raised or lowered, the shaft portion 14 is completely locked by the rotating disk 5 or 6, and the supporting members 7 to 7 move in an arcuate trajectory.

Link 1 connecting support members 7 to 7 due to such movement
6 to 16 rotate in accordance with circular arcs, and the angle with respect to adjacent links changes. On the other hand, as mentioned above, the chains 19 to 19 are attached to the support members 7 to 7 alternately, and it is impossible to rotate the adjacent support members 7 and 7 independently, and the straight parts Since the support members 7 to 7 are guided by grooves, rotation as a whole is also not possible. Accordingly, the chain 19 of such an arcuate track section will move depending on its position on the track to its corresponding sprocket 17.1.
Rotation of the link 16 can be accommodated by shifting the engagement position of the link 7 or 18 or 18 by the same distance in the same direction with respect to both sprockets. In other words,
Support members 7 connected by such a chain 19
, 7 do not rotate at all with respect to each other, but always move in parallel.

For this reason, the carriers C--C fixed to the support members 7 to 7, respectively, always move in parallel without any tilting even on the circular arc trajectory.

Further, the operation of the stocker 1 as described above can be performed by a simple procedure of driving the motor M and stopping the motor M when any carrier C reaches the high-6H position.

In addition, although the above embodiments are related to a stocker that moves a desired carrier to a take-out position by moving the carrier in a vertical plane, it is also possible to place an object on the carrier and carry it vertically to a predetermined height, or to move the carrier in a horizontal plane. A similar mechanism can be applied to endless conveyors. Further, in the above embodiment, a chain was used as a mechanism for preventing rotation of the support member, but any annular linkage that does not cause slippage, such as a timing belt, may be used.

(Effects of the Invention) This invention provides a drive mechanism to drive a support member connection body in which the shaft portions of a plurality of support members for fixing a carrier are endlessly connected to each other so as to be rotatable with respect to each other via links. By making it possible to circulate and move between the shafts of adjacent support members, in addition to the above-mentioned links, by providing a connection mechanism that only allows the shafts to rotate in the same direction and at the same angle, the following effects can be achieved. play.

(a) Since the carrier always moves facing the same direction, stable conveyance can be achieved.

(b) Even when used for vertical conveyance applications such as stockers or lids, the carrier is prevented from rotating independently by the relative rotation prevention mechanism on both sides of the support member, so it can be safely and reliably carried without shaking or the like. Transport can be carried out.

(c) When one support member is rotated, the other support members are also rotated in the same direction and at the same angle, so there is no need to initialize the orientation of the carrier for each carrier. can be performed at the same time, simplifying the work.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

The figures show one embodiment of the present invention, in which Fig. 1 is a front view of the stocker, Fig. 2 is a left side view of Fig. 1, and Fig. 3 is a part of the support member connection body shown in Fig. A series of schematic diagrams showing the interrelationships between chains.
The figure is provided between the shaft portions of the support member. 1... Stocker 5, 6... Rotating disc 7~
7... Support member 14-14... Shaft portion 16-1
6...Links 17-17.18-18...Sprockets 19-19
···chain

Claims (3)

[Claims] (1) A support member connection body in which the shaft portions of a plurality of support members for fixing the carrier are endlessly connected to each other so as to be rotatable via links, and this support member connection body is circulated along a predetermined trajectory. An endless device comprising a drive mechanism for driving, and a relative rotation prevention mechanism is provided between the shaft portions of the adjacent support members to only allow rotation in the same direction and at the same angle. Conveyor. (2) The drive mechanism is a pair of rotating disks driven by a motor, and the outer periphery of these rotating disks is provided with a plurality of grooves that sequentially lock the shaft portion of the support body. An endless conveyor according to claim 1, characterized in that: (3) The relative rotation prevention mechanism is a chain stretched between sprockets fixed to each of the shaft portions of the adjacent support members.
Endless conveyor as described in section.