KR101534118B1 - Device for discharging liquid material, and device and method for application thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

In the present invention, the re-sucking operation during the coating operation is minimized without lowering the discharge accuracy. A plurality of weighing units 32 and 33 in which a liquid material storage unit 40 and a plunger 30 · 31 are inserted, a plunger drive unit 20, and a weighing unit 32 · 33, And a plurality of nozzles (55 · 56) corresponding to each other in a one-to-one relationship, and discharging the liquid material filled in the metering section (32 · 33) a plurality of times, wherein the plunger drive device 20 constitute a plunger drive device for simultaneously moving all the plungers 30, 31 forward and backward.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention [0001] The present invention relates to a liquid material dispensing apparatus, a dispensing apparatus,

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a discharging apparatus and discharging method for discharging a liquid material with a good precision with dropping or dispensing the discharging liquid and more specifically, To a minimum, without deteriorating the performance of the apparatus.

As a conventional apparatus for discharging a liquid material in a small amount with good precision dropping or dispensing, there is, for example, an apparatus disclosed in Patent Documents 1 to 4 developed by the applicant.

The above-described conventional discharge device is a discharge method in which droplets are ejected uncontrollably every forward operation by a plurality of intermittent advancing operations of the plunger in which the liquid material sucked by the metering portion is arranged in a watertight manner.

Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-190871

Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-160314

Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-160276

Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-40770

The discharge method in the conventional apparatus has a limitation in the amount of sucking to the measuring pipe (metering tube), and there is a case that the required amount of liquid material can not be sucked in the entire workpiece. In this case, it is necessary to perform the aspiration operation in the middle of the coating operation, and the productivity is lowered.

Here, increasing the size of the metering tube has the following problems.

In other words, when the diameter of the metering tube is increased to increase the suction amount of the liquid material, it is necessary to increase the diameter of the plunger. Therefore, a large amount of liquid material is dropped by the movement of the plunger, .

On the other hand, if the length of the metering tube is made long, there is a problem that it is difficult to improve the ejection accuracy in addition to the size of the apparatus.

An object of the present invention is to provide a discharging device and a discharging method which make it possible to minimize the re-sucking operation during the coating operation without lowering the discharging accuracy.

The apparatus of the present invention is constituted as follows. In other words,

A first aspect of the present invention is directed to a liquid container comprising a liquid reservoir, a plurality of metering portions into which the plunger is inserted, a plunger drive device, and a plurality of nozzles corresponding to each metering portion on a one- Wherein the plunger driving device is a plunger driving device that simultaneously moves all the plungers forward and backward, wherein the plunger driving device is a plunger driving device that moves all plungers simultaneously .

A second invention is characterized in that, in the first invention, all of the metering units have the same capacity.

According to a third aspect of the invention, in the first invention or the second invention, a switch valve is provided for each of the metering sections, the switch valve having a first position for communicating the metering section and the nozzle and a second position for communicating the metering section and the storage section And one valve driving device for simultaneously switching the positions of the respective switching valves.

A fourth invention is characterized in that, in the third invention, the plunger drive device and the valve drive device are arranged in a vertical direction with respect to a plurality of the metering sections.

In a fifth aspect of the present invention, in the third invention or the fourth invention, a block provided with the above-mentioned switching valve is provided, and a flow path (flow path) for introducing the liquid material from the above- ) Is provided.

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, in the fifth aspect, the metering section is formed by a metering tube mountable to the block, and is disposed adjacent to each other.

According to a seventh aspect of the present invention, in the fifth aspect, the metering section is formed in the block.

An eighth invention is characterized in that, in the seventh invention, a storage section is formed in the block.

According to a ninth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a frame comprising a table provided with a table, a frame stretched on the table and movable in one direction, And a discharging device.

The method of the present invention is configured as follows. In other words,

A tenth aspect of the invention is directed to a liquid material dispensing method for discharging a liquid material in the metering section a plurality of times by charging a liquid material into a metering section through which a plunger is inserted from a reservoir section and repeating advancement and advancement and stop of the plunger The liquid material in all the metering units is discharged at the same time by providing a plurality of metering units and a plurality of nozzles corresponding to each metering unit one by one and simultaneously moving the plurality of plungers by one plunger driving device In the liquid material.

In the eleventh invention, in the tenth invention, each of the metering sections is provided with a switch valve having a first position for communicating the metering section and the nozzle, and a second position for connecting the metering section and the storage section, The liquid material is discharged while simultaneously switching the liquid material by the single driving device.

According to the present invention, a very small amount of liquid material can be dripped from a plurality of nozzles with good precision.

Further, the apparatus can be constituted by two driving sources, and the apparatus can be slimly arranged by vertically arranging the apparatus.

Further, since the supplied liquid material can be branched in the apparatus and introduced into the plurality of metering sections, the amount of the liquid material remaining in the storage section can be reduced, and the liquid material can be used without waste.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a front view of a loading device according to a first embodiment. FIG.
2 is a side external view of the apparatus shown in Fig.
3 is a front sectional view of the position of the broken line in Fig.
Fig. 4 is a side sectional view of the position shown by the broken line in Fig. 1;
5 is a perspective view of a coating device equipped with the loading device shown in Fig.
6 is a front view of the loading device according to the second embodiment.
7 is a side external view of the apparatus shown in Fig.
8 is a front sectional view of the position of the broken line in Fig.

The present invention in its best form is, for example, a liquid material dispensing apparatus having a plurality of metering portions disposed adjacent to each other, wherein the metering portion includes a plunger and a nozzle, And a device for discharging the liquid material.

The metering section is a space in which the liquid material discharged from the nozzle by the advance movement of the plunger is temporarily stored, and has a size suitable for discharging a liquid material having a small volume with good precision. The reason why a plurality of metering portions are provided is to increase the volume of the entire metering portion without increasing the volume of one metering portion. As the configuration of the metering section, for example, a plurality of metering sections are mounted on a valve block, and the valve block includes a flow path in which a liquid material is branched into the metering tubes from the storage container and flows in. . As another configuration of the metering section, a metering block is provided with a plurality of metering tanks and a flow path for branching and flowing the liquid material from each tank to each metering trough. In any of these aspects, the position of the tip of the nozzle in the horizontal direction is arranged in an aligned manner.

The arrangement in which the metering section and the nozzles correspond to each other in a one-to-one manner means that in the case of branching and dropping from two metering sections to two nozzles, a subtle fluid This is because the liquid may not flow uniformly to both the nozzles due to the balance. In this regard, if each weighing section is provided with a nozzle, it is possible to make all of the flow paths from the respective metering sections to the outlet of the nozzle be of the same closed shape (however, a switching valve may be interposed) It is possible to perform the discharge.

When the capacity of the plunger is equal to the capacity of the switching valve at the time of filling the liquid material, the plunger slidingly moves in the metering portion is simultaneously discharged to perform the same operation. Ratio. All of the metering portions may have the same capacity and the same amount of liquid material may be simultaneously discharged from all of the nozzles.

Further, if a sealing portion (a protrusion having a large diameter) is formed at the distal end portion of the plunger with a wider width than the rod, the slide moving area becomes small, and the plunger can be moved at a high speed. At this time, it is preferable to configure the flow path for communicating the metering section and the nozzle to be substantially straight.

Preferably, the metering section is provided with a switching valve, and a driving device for simultaneously switching the switching valves. The switching valve may be a slide type, a one-directional rotation type, or a reciprocating-movement type rotation type.

Hereinafter, the details of the present invention will be described by way of examples, but the present invention is not limited to these examples.

[Example 1]

"Whole structure"

The apparatus of the first embodiment will be described with reference to Figs. 1 to 4. Fig. 4, there is a plunger A 30 on the back surface of the plunger B 31, a nozzle A 55 on the back surface of the nozzle B 56, and a valve A 57, and a valve boss hole A (61) is provided on the back surface of the valve boss hole B (62).

The ejection apparatus of the first embodiment has a structure in which a plate A 11, a plate B 12 and a plate C 13 are mounted on a base 10 to constitute a frame, and the frame is provided with [1] a plunger drive section, 2] plunger, [3] liquid transfer, and [4] valve.

[1] The plunger drive unit is composed of a motor A (20), a slide base (21), and a slider (22).

The plunger drive unit is configured such that the slider 22 is moved in the direction of the axis of the slide base 21 fixed to the base 10 by the rotation of the motor A 20 fixed to the plate B 12, As shown in Fig. Each element of the plunger driving portion is arranged in line symmetry with respect to the central axis of the base 10. [

[2] The plunger section is composed of a plunger A 30, a plunger B 31, a metering tube A 32 and a metering tube B 33.

The plunger portion 30 and the plunger portion B 31 are fixed to the slider 22 of the plunger drive portion by the screw A 34 and the screw B 35, respectively. The plunger A 30 is inserted into the inner wall surface of the metering tube A 32 so as to be slidably moved so that the plunger B 31 is inserted into the metering tube B 33 in close contact with the inner wall surface of the metering tube B 33 to slide.

The metering tube A 32 and the metering tube B 33 are mounted and fixed in holes drilled on the upper surface of the valve block 50. The plunger A 30 and the plunger B (31) are brought into close contact with the inner wall surfaces of the measuring pipe (32) and the measuring pipe (B) (33) and slide.

Here, the metering pipe-side ends of the plunger A 30 and the plunger B 31 are each configured to have a diameter larger than the diameter of the plunger body portion (that is, a sealing portion is provided) It is possible.

The metering tube A 32 and the metering tube B 33 are arranged in line symmetry with respect to the central axis of the base 10 and in proximity to each other. As described above, in the first embodiment, a plurality of discharge tubes are provided without increasing the length of one metering tube or increasing the diameter, thereby avoiding enlargement of the discharge device.

The apparatus according to the first embodiment is configured such that the plunger A 30 and the plunger B 31 move forward or backward simultaneously in the metering tube by the rotation operation of the motor A 20. That is, when the plunger A 30 advances in the metering tube A 32, the plunger B 31 also moves forward in the metering tube B 33 and the plunger A 30 moves forward in the metering tube 32 , The plunger B (31) also moves backward in the metering tube B (33).

[3] The liquid transfer section is composed of the storage container 40 and the liquid transfer tube 41.

More specifically, the liquid transfer section comprises a storage container 40 in which the liquid material is stored, and a liquid transfer tube 41 that communicates the storage container 40 and the valve block 50.

The liquid transfer tube 41 communicates with the liquid transfer pipe 43 extending to the bottom of the storage container 40 and is pneumatically supplied from the pressure supply pipe 42 leading to the upper portion of the storage container 40. [ The liquid material stored in the storage container 40 is sent to the valve block 50 by pressure. The storage container 40 is mounted with an inclination on the plate B 12, and is mounted and detachably fixed by the plate A 11 supporting the body part.

[4] The valve unit includes a valve block 50, a motor B 51, a gear set 52, a shaft A 53, a shaft B 54, a nozzle A 55, a nozzle B 56, And a mechanism (70).

The valve portion is configured to rotate the two shafts, that is, the shaft A 53 and the shaft B 54, which are arranged in parallel through the gear set 52, by rotating the motor B 51 supported by the base 10 Valve A 57 and valve B 58 provided in the valve insertion hole A 61 and valve insertion hole B 62 of the valve block 50 fixed to the plate C 13, As shown in FIG. Each of the valves has a through-hole communicating each metering pipe and each nozzle, and a groove extending in the longitudinal direction (horizontal direction) of the valve on a peripheral surface perpendicular to the through-hole, And constitutes a flow path for communicating each metering pipe with the storage container 40 in cooperation with the wall surface.

The rotation detecting mechanism 70 is composed of a sensor 71 and a detecting plate 72. The detection plate 72 is a disc formed with a cutout portion and rotates in accordance with the rotation of the motor B51. And the detection plate 72 is positioned in the recess of the sensor 71, which is a photo sensor formed in a " C " shape. The sensor 71 has a light emitting portion at the upper portion of the recess and a light receiving portion at the lower portion of the recessed portion so that the light emitted from the light emitting portion can be light- . Thus, the rotational position of the valve B (58) is controlled based on the light-shielding start position of the light from the light-emitting portion of the sensor 71 or the light-emitting start position.

At the bottom of the valve block 50, a nozzle A 55 and a nozzle B 56 are mounted and detachably mounted.

A metering tube A and a metering tube B are mounted and fixed to the holes formed in the upper surface of the valve block 50. It is of course possible to constitute the hole itself perforated on the upper surface of the valve block 50 as a metering pipe.

The valve block 50 is provided with a branch path for feeding the liquid material supplied from the liquid material supply port 59 communicating with the liquid transfer tube 41 to each of the valve A 57 and the valve B 58 . In this way, since it is configured to branch off from the supplied valve block 50 and to flow into the metering tube A and the metering tube B, it is not necessary to provide a plurality of storage vessels.

Shaft A 53 is configured to be mounted and detachably connected to valve A 57 (and in Figures 2 and 4, shaft A 53 is located on the back of shaft B 54). The valve A 57 is connected to the first position for connecting the metering tube A 32 and the liquid transfer tube 41 to each other by a rotation operation of the shaft A 53 and a second position for connecting the metering tube A 32 and the nozzle A 55 In the second position.

Shaft B (54) is configured to be mounted and detachably connected to valve B (58). The valve B 58 is rotated by the rotation of the shaft B 54 to move the metering tube B 33 to the first position for communicating the metering tube B 33 with the liquid transfer tube 41, In the second position.

The valve A 57 and the valve B 58 are configured to be switched to the respective first and second positions simultaneously by the rotating operation of the motor B 51.

The motor A 20 and the motor B 51 are connected to the control device 60 and operate according to a command from the control device 60.

As described above, the apparatus of the first embodiment includes two motors. Then, a plurality of plungers are simultaneously moved by one motor, and a plurality of valves are simultaneously operated by the other motor. In such a configuration, the motor A 20 and the motor B 51 are arranged vertically through the slider. With this arrangement, the apparatus can be configured slim. The motor A (20) and the motor B (51) are preferably arranged on the same axis as the center or near the center of the base (10).

In a case where a plurality of loading devices are mounted on the mobile robot moving in the X and Y directions, it is preferable to use such a slim configuration because the number of loading devices can be increased.

In addition, since all the plungers and all the valves can be operated by the two motors, the apparatus can be made light in weight. In the coating apparatus on which the loading apparatus is mounted, when the loading apparatus is moved in the X direction or the Y direction .

"Liquid material discharge operation"

The valve A 57 and the valve B 58 are set to the first position and the metering tube A 32 and the metering tube B 33 are filled with liquid And communicates with the transfer tube 41.

Next, the motor A 20 is rotated to move the plunger A 30 and the plunger B 31 backward, and the liquid material is sucked into the metering tube A 32 and the metering tube B 33 as necessary do.

Subsequently, the motor B (51) is operated so that the valve A (57) and the valve B (58) are brought to the second position, and the metering pipe and the nozzle communicate with each other. That is, the metering tube A 32 and the nozzle A 55 communicate with each other, and the metering tube B 33 and the nozzle B 56 communicate with each other.

The motor A 20 is rotated and the plunger A 30 and the plunger B 31 are moved forward by a predetermined amount to eject the desired amount of liquid material. And discharges the liquid material.

At this time, by rapidly stopping the plunger A 30 and the plunger B 31 following the rapid advancement, a small amount of liquid material can be dripped from the nozzle with good precision. The liquid material can be continuously dropped by continuously performing the sudden stop operation following rapid advancing.

It goes without saying that it is necessary to suck the required amount in advance if the liquid material is continuously dropped.

Here, by abrupt stop following the rapid advancement of the plunger, a small amount of liquid material is dropped from the nozzle with good precision. For example, there is provided a method of adjusting a droplet amount of a liquid droplet to be discharged from a discharge port communicating with the metering tube by advancing and stopping the plunger in close contact with an inner wall surface of a metering tube to slide, Wherein the plunger is moved backward to adjust the moving speed of the plunger from the start of deceleration to the stop of the plunger so that the amount of droplet discharged from the metering tube The liquid material is sucked from the storage container and the plunger is advanced and stopped repeatedly so that the liquid material in the metering tube is discharged a plurality of times. With regard to this ejection method, the applicant has already disclosed in Patent Document 4.

After the desired number of dropping operations are performed, the motor B 51 is rotated again to set the valve A 57 and the valve B 58 to the first position, and the above-described operation is repeated to perform the discharge operation Can be continuously performed.

Fig. 5 shows a coating device 5 having a plurality of loading devices 1 of the first embodiment mounted thereon.

The application device 5 is supported by a support 7 having a table 6 on which a workpiece is mounted and a pair of support members fixed on the support 1, X direction), and a movable frame B (82) that traverses the X-direction of the base 1 in the same manner. A plurality of dropping apparatuses 1 are movably mounted on the side surfaces of the movable frame A 81 and the movable frame B 82 via a movable element in the X direction. The dropping device (1) is constituted by a Z-direction drive device which allows the discharge device and the discharge device to move in the vertical direction (Z direction). The table 6 is configured to be movable in the X direction by an X guide rail, and is movable in the Y direction by a Y slider and a Y guide rail provided with an X guide rail. The table 6 may be provided with a ? Rotation means for moving the work in the ? -Axis direction and positioning the work by a predetermined angle. The guide rail in the X direction and the Y direction includes a magnet for a linear motor and a linear motion guide. However, the present invention is not limited to this configuration. For example, And a nut that moves linearly in association with the rotation of the ball screw on the slider.

What is important in the first embodiment is that it is not a branch which is branched into two nozzles from one metering tube. That is, the nozzle, the metering tube, and the plunger are constituted as one set, and the set includes a plurality of the discharging apparatuses.

There is a case in which the liquid does not flow uniformly to both nozzles due to the subtle fluid balance of the liquid material pressurized by the plunger in the metering tube in the case of branching and dropping from two metering pipes to two nozzles, By making the same configuration as that of Embodiment 1, it becomes possible to reliably drop the liquid material.

In the first embodiment, the configuration of the discharge device in which two nozzles are arranged is exemplified. However, it goes without saying that the technical idea of the first embodiment includes a discharge device in which two or more nozzles are arranged.

Further, since the nozzle, the metering tube, and the plunger are one set, it is needless to say that the same number of metering tubes and plungers as the number of the nozzles is required.

[Example 2]

"Whole structure"

The apparatus of the second embodiment will be described with reference to Figs. 6 to 8. Fig. 8, there is a plunger A 30 on the back surface of the plunger B 31, a nozzle A 55 on the back surface of the nozzle B 56, and a valve A The valve insertion hole A (61) is provided on the rear surface of the valve insertion hole B (62), and the metering hole A (64) is provided on the back surface of the metering hole B (65).

The discharging apparatus of the second embodiment includes a weighing block 36 in which valve sprocket holes A 61 and B 62, a storage section 63, a weighing hole A 64 and a weighing hole B 65 are formed Which is different from the discharge device of the first embodiment.

The weighing block 36 is fixed to the plate C 13 and has an upper surface formed with a hole into which the plunger A 31 and the plunger B 31 are inserted and a side surface communicating with the liquid transfer tube 41 A liquid material supply port 59 is provided. The liquid material supplied from the liquid material supply port 59 is temporarily stored in the storage portion 63 formed inside the weighing block 36. The liquid material stored in the storage portion 63 is sent to the weighing hole A 64 and the weighing hole B 65 through the grooves formed in the peripheral surfaces of the valve A 57 and the valve B 58. The procedure of liquid sucking in the present discharging apparatus is the same as that in the first embodiment and the reservoir 63 and the weighing hole A 64 and the weighing hole B 65 are brought into a communicated state, The plunger A 30 and the plunger B 31 are retracted simultaneously.

The procedure of liquid ejection in the ejection apparatus is also the same as in the first embodiment. The shaft A 53 and the shaft B 54 are rotated through the gear set 52 by the rotation of the motor B 51 supported on the base 10 So that the metering holes and the respective nozzles are communicated by the through holes formed in the respective valves. Then, the plunger A 30 and the plunger B 31 are abruptly advanced by the motor A 20 at the same time, and a small amount of the liquid material is dripped from the nozzle with a good precision by the following abrupt stop. This operation is repeatedly performed a plurality of times until the liquid material sucked into the weighing hole A 64 and the weighing hole B 65 disappears.

In the discharging apparatus of the second embodiment, it is also possible to arrange two or more metering holes, a plunger, and a nozzle. It is of course possible to mount the discharging device of the second embodiment in the coating device 5 of the first embodiment.

[Industrial Availability]

The present invention is preferable in fields such as a liquid crystal dropping step in a flat panel display manufacturing step, for example, a liquid crystal panel manufacturing step.

The present invention relates to a slider for slidably moving a slider in a slider and a slider for slidably moving the slider in the slider base, A measuring tube A, a measuring tube B, a measuring tube B, a screw A, a screw B, a measuring block, a measuring container, a storage container, a liquid transfer tube, A pressure supply pipe 43 a liquid transfer pipe 44 liquid material 50 valve block 51 motor B 52 gear set 53 shaft A 54 shaft B 55 nozzle A 56 nozzle B, And a valve for controlling the flow rate of the liquid to be supplied to the valve is provided in the valve body. 71: sensor, 72: detection plate, 81: movable frame A, 82: movable frame B

Claims (11)

A plurality of weighing parts in which a plunger is inserted, a plunger driving device, a plurality of nozzles corresponding to each of the metering parts on a one-to-one basis, And a second position for communicating the metering section and the reservoir section, the number of which is the same as the number of metering sections provided for each metering section, and valve drive A liquid material dispensing apparatus provided with a device and provided on a frame drawn on a table of a coating device,
Wherein the plunger driving device is a plunger driving device for simultaneously moving all the plungers forward and backward and the valve driving device is a valve driving device for simultaneously switching the positions of all the switching valves, And the valve driving device is arranged in a vertical direction with respect to the plurality of metering portions, whereby the discharging device is configured to have a narrow width. The method according to claim 1,
And the metering section are all configured to have the same capacity. 3. The method according to claim 1 or 2,
Wherein a block provided with the switching valve is provided, and a flow path is formed in the block for flowing the liquid material from the storage container to each of the switching valves. The method of claim 3,
Wherein the metering section is constituted by a metering pipe (metering tube) capable of being mounted on the block, The method of claim 3,
And the metering section is formed in the block. 6. The method of claim 5,
And a second storage section for temporarily storing the liquid material from the storage section is formed in the block. The method of claim 3,
Wherein the reservoir portion of the liquid material is arranged in a vertical direction with respect to the plurality of metering portions and the reservoir portion of the liquid material and the block are connected by a liquid transfer tube. A dispensing apparatus for a liquid material, comprising a table and a frame stretched on the table, wherein the dispensing apparatus according to claim 1 or 2 is provided in the frame. 9. The method of claim 8,
Wherein a plurality of said discharging devices are provided. A coating method of a liquid material, which applies coating to a workpiece mounted on a table, using the coating apparatus according to claim 8. 11. The method of claim 10,
Wherein the liquid material is liquid crystal.

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