US3410406A - Method of and apparatus for automatically feeding cops of spun yarn - Google Patents

Description

NOV. l2, 1968 NOBUYUKl TSUDA ET AL 3,410,406

METHOD OF AND APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATICALLY v FEEDING OOPS OF SPUN YARN Filed March 17, i967 6 Sheets-Sheet 1 ATTORNEY Nov. 12, 1968 NOBUYUKI TSUDA ET Al. 3,410,406

METHOD oF AND APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATICALLY FEEDING coPs oF sPUN YARN Filed March 17, 1967 6 Sheets-Sheet 2 I N VENT ORS BY @M ATTORNEY Nov. 12, 1968 NOBUYUKI TSUDA ET A| 3,410,406

` METHOD OF AND APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATICALLY FEEDING COPS OF SPUN YARN Filed March 17, 1967 e Sheets-Sheet 3 ATTORNEY Nov. 12, 1968 NOBUYUKI T DA ET Ax. 3,410,406

METHOD oF AND APPARAT FOR AUTOMATICALLY FEEDING cops oF sFuN YARN Filed March l?, 19,67 e Sheets-Sheet 4 ATTORNEY NOV. 12, 1968 NQBUYUKl TSUDA ET AL. 3,410,406 l METHOD 0F AND APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATIGALLY FEEDING COPS OF SPUN YARN Filed March 17, i967 6 Sheets-Sheet b aci INVENTORS NoBuYam ua Kava/ELL /fuo wn MIT/TMI hmka/ maqma /mymmrn ATTORNEY Nov. l2, 1968 NOBUYUKI TSUDA ET AL. 3,410,406

METHOD OF AND APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATICALLY FEEDING COPS OF SPUN YARN Filed March 17, 1967 6 Sheets-Sheet 6 BY Q4 @#7191 United States Paterit 3,410,406 METHOD OF AND APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATI- CALLY FEEDING COPS OF SPUN YARN Nobuyuki Tsuda, Neyagawa-shi, Kiyoharu Kurokawa, Anjo-shi, Mititoshi Murai, Marugame-shi, and Masaaki Miyamoto, Kagawa-ken, Japan, assignors to Kurashiki Spinning Co., Ltd., Kurashiki-shi, Japan, a corporation of Japan Filed Mar. 17, 1967, Ser. No. 624,054 Claims priority, application Japan, Apr. 4, 1966, 41/21,324; Apr. 5, 1966, 41/21,620; Apr. 6, 1966, 41/21,900; Apr. 8, 1966, 11/22,345

7 Claims. (Cl. 209-121) ABSTRACT 0F THE DISCLOSURE A method of and apparatus for automatically feeding cops to an automatic Winder from a spinning frame successively, which method comprises suspending the cops from a conveyor, travelling around the spinning frame by means of magnets, dropping said cops into respective cylindrical hollow holders being carried on a conveyor arranged therebelow, discriminating said cops in terms of Weight as they are held in said holders, feeding only those cops having a prescribed Weight to the Winder upon segregating the underweight cops, and returning the resulting empty holders to their original positions.

The present invention relates to a method of and apparatus for automatically feeding cops of spun yarn to an automatic Winder from a spinning frame.

In the spinning industry, automatic spinning techniques have been developed one after another in an attempt of improving the operational efficiency, curtailing the labor and maintaining the quality of the products, and some of them have been carried into practical use. With conventional apparatus of the type described, it has been customary to place doffed cops from a spinning frame in a box before they are transported by a conveyor or to place the doied cops alone on a conveyor to be fed into a successive automatic Winder for Winding. These methods, therefore, had the following drawbacks. Namely;

(a) Since the box must be carried manually, it is impossible to automatize the process intermediate between the spinning frame and the Winding machine.

(b) The arrangement of the cops is disordered due to entanglement of the cut ends of the yarns, resulting in jamming of the cops in their passage.

(c) A considerable labor is required for the discrimination of underweight cops.

Because of the foregoing drawbacks, no apparatus has ever been made available wherein a spinning frame and an automatic Winder are connected in a completely automatized fashion, and these drawbacks have been a bottleneck which has prevented the materialization of a fullautomatic continuous spinning operation.

It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a method of `and an apparatus for fully automatizing the steps between the spinning operation and the winding operation, whereby the cops from the spinning frame are fed into the automatic Winder Without requiring labor.

Another object of this invention is to provide a method of and an apparatus for Weighing the individual cops automatically at a point intermediate the process of automatic feeding of the cops from the spinning frame to the automatic Winder so as to discriminate and segregate underweight cops.

According to an aspect of the present invention, the cops being delivered from the spinning frame are sus- 3,410,406 Patented Nov. 12, 1968 ICC pended from a conveyor travelling around said spinning frame (hereinafter referred to as spinning frame conveyor), by means of the attractive force of magnets provided on said conveyor; automatically detached from said conveyor at a predetermined point in the path of the conveyor to drop them into respective cylindrical hollow holders being carried on another conveyor; transported onto an accumulation conveyor successively as they are held in said holders; taken out from said accumulation conveyor as required; and dropped from the holders to be fed in the automatic Winder, the resulting empty holders being recirculated to the original positions for receiving new cops dropped from said spinning frame conveyor.

According to another aspect of this invention, the cops, in the aforementioned series of operation, are caused to pass through a Weight discriminator for segregation in terms of Weight, before being transported onto the accumulation conveyor, and the cops having a prescribed Weight are dropped downwardly to be fied into the Winder and the resulting empty holders are recirculated for the next cycle of operation, Whereas the underweight cops are chuted down into an underweight cop accumulation box at a predetermined point and the holders emptied by said cops are similarly returned to the positions Where new cops are dropped therein from the spinning frame conveyor.

In order that the present invention may be more clearly understood and readily carried into effect, reference may now be had to the accompanying drawings in which the invention is illustrated by Way of example, and in which:

FIG. 1 is a plan view of an apparatus embodying the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a side elevation of a device by which the cops suspended from a spinning frame conveyor by means of magnets are dropped into respective holders;

FIG. 3 is a cross section of the holder;

FIG. 4 is a plan View illustrating means for conveying the holders;

FIG. 5 is a diagrammatical plan View of the spinning frame conveyor provided with magnets;

FIG. 6 is a plan View, in enlargement, of a critical portion of the apparatus, shown at the lower right portion of FIG. 1;

FIG. 7 is a side elevation as viewed in the direction of the arrow A in FIG. 6;

FIG. 8 is a fragmentary side elevation as viewed in the direction of the arrow B in FIG. 6;

FIG. 9 is a schematic side elevation showing the arrangement of a chain conveyor;

FIG. 10 is a plan view of a Weight discriminator;

FIG. 11 is a side elevation of the weight discriminator shown in FIG. 10;

FIG. l2 is a fragmentary plan View showing an accumulation conveyor;

FIG. 13 is a side elevation of the critical portion of the accumulation conveyor shown in FIG. 12; and

FIG. 14 is a plan view illustratingmeans for feeding cops into an automatic Winder.

Referring first to FIG. 1, blocks 1 encircled by one-dot chain lines respectively represent spinning frames in the preceding step. The cops fully Wound in each spinning frame are doffed by catchers mounted on an endless chain of an auto-dolfer (not shown), said endless chain travelling along a circular path and are attracted by magnets carried on an endless conveyor 2 to be suspended from said conveyor by Ibeing guided through a guide pipe, said endless conveyor being `arranged to move around said spinning frame. In more detail, the cops 3, as shown in FIG. 2, are each provided with a magnetic element 4 at their top ends and the magnetic element 4 is attracted by the equally spaced magnets 5 carried on the endless con- 3 veyor 2, so that the cops are transported by said endless conveyor in a predetermined direction while being suspended therefrom vertically downwardly. A stopper 6 is provided at a xed position at one end of the spinning frame across the travelling path of the suspended cops 3. Thus, it will be understood that, when the cop 3 hits the stopper 6, it is Stopped by said stopper and the magnetic element 4 at the top end thereof is disengaged from the magnet 5 on the endless conveyor which is continuously travelling in the direction of the arrow. Consequently, the cop 3 drops down under the gravity. In this case, the position of the dropping cop 3 is corrected by a stationary guide 7 so as for the -cop to be chuted right into one of cop holders 9 which are carried successively on a belt conveyor 8 travelling beneath the oor. Each holder 9, as shown in FIG. 3, is composed of a synthetic resin-made cylinder 11 and an iron ring 10 tted on the lower portion thereof. The iron ring serves to lower the center of gravity of the holder as a whole enabling said holder to carry the cop therein in an upstraight position and also to make the holder .adaptable for use with a chain conveyor under the attractive force of magnets provided on said chain. An error in weight of the entire holder is suppressed to fall within an allowable tolerance, so that the subsequent discrimination of the cops in terms of weight as will be described later may not be inuenced by the weight error.

As can 'be seen in FIG. 4, the holders 9 are temporarily accumulated on the belt conveyor 8 below the oor in a suitable number by means of a stop lever 12 which is pivotally mounted in a xed position relative to said belt conveyor. In FIG. 5, there is shown a sensing device 13 consisting of a combination of a light source and a photoelectric tube. This sensing device 13 operates in a manner such that, when the magnet 5, with the cop 3 suspended therefrom, intercepts the light from the light source illuminating the photoelectric tube, solenoids 14 and 14', operatively connected to the respective stop levers 12 and 12 as shown in FIG. 4, are electrically energized by the sensing device, thus causing -said stop levers to make a pivotal movement towards the conveyor 8 for engagement with the holders 9. The holders 9, therefore, are held stationary ou the travelling conveyor 8, during which period the cop 3 is chuted into the holder 9 through the ixed guide 7. When the magnet 5 clears the sensing device 13 permitting the photoelectric tube to be illuminated again, the solenoids 14 and 14 are deenergized electrically causing the stop levers 12 and 12 to return to the nonengaging positions indicated by the dotted lines by means of springs 15 and 15' respectively. The holders 9, therefore, are transported by the conveyor 8 in the direction of the arrow. The sensing device 13 is actuated again by the following magnet and the cop carried by said magnet is dropped into the holder, which is held stationary therebelow by the stop lever. This operation is repeated as the magnets pass through the sensing device and thus the cops are dropped into the respective holders one after another in a successive manner.

In this case, since the holder is held stationary by the stop lever 12 only for a short period of time corresponding to the time in which the magnet 5 passes through the sensing device, it is preferable, in order to preclude falling down or inadequate chuting of the cop as a result of variation in relative position of the holder in contact with the stop lever, to accumulate a plurality of holders in adjoining Vrelation before the stop lever 12, so as to enable the holder to be brought into the cop-receiving position in a short period of time. For this purpose, a light interceptin g plate 16 of a length equivalent to the length of several magnets 5 is attached to the endless belt 2 at a point which will arrive at the sensing device 13 in advance of the cops, as shown in FIG. 5. By so doing, the -contacting time between the stop lever 12 and the holder 9 is prolonged as a result of the sensing device being held in an actuated state for a longer time. Thus, it is possible to accumulate a plurality of holders 9 rearwardly of the stop lever 12. The stop lever 12' shown in FIGS. 1 and 4, which is disposed at the rear end of the str-aight path of the belt conveyor 8, is arranged such that it is operatively connected with electric control means in a control box shown at 17 in FIG. 1 when the endless conveyors 2 are held stationary, but said stop levers 12 and 12 are operatively connected with the sensing devices 13 when said sensing devices 13 are actuated by the respective light intercepting 'plates 16 being carried by the endless conveyors 2. Said operative connections between said stop lever 12 and said electric control means, and between said stop levers 12, 12' and said sensing devices 13 are `automatically switched from one to the other by means of said electric means so as to deliver the holders 9 onto the belt conveyor 8 successively.

As shown in FIG. l, the holders 9 each holding a cop 3 therein (indicated by double circles in the figure), which are being transported yby the belt conveyor 8, ride on a rotating disc plate 18, by which they are turned and moved onto another belt conveyor 20 while having their positions corrected by stationary guide 19. At the forward end of the belt conveyor 20 is provided means to change the proceeding direction of the cop-carrying holders horizontally and vertically. In describing this means in detail with reference to FIGS. 6 to 9, a chain 21 is mounted on a drive sprocket wheel 23 and an idle sprocket wheel 22 and is driven by driving means operatively connected to said drive sprocket wheel 23. The chain 21 is housed in a guide frame 24 defining the travelling path of said chain and carries brackets 25 fitted thereto at a suitable interval. Each bracket 25 is composed of a bottom plate 26, an upstraight guide plate 27 extending from that edge of the bottom plate which is closer to the chain and a plurality of suitably spaced blades 28 extending from the trailing edge of said guide plate 27 at right angles thereto. A stationary plate 29 is arranged in successive relation to the belt conveyor 20. This stationary plate is provided with guides 30, 31 and 32 of low height as shown, so as to confine the holders thereon. The guide 31 has a length which will not interfere with the travelling of the bracket 25 carrying the holder therein. The belt conveyor 20 is also provided with guides 33 along the side edges thereof. A leaf spring 3,4 is provided for the purpose of bringing the holder into a predetermined position which has -moved beyond the guide 31 and stopped in engagement with the guide 32. A `leaf spring 35 also serves to maintain the position of the holder. Indicated at 36 is a feeler of a microswitch which will detect the accumulation of the holders. This feeler is electrically connected with the driving means for the chain conveyor.

In operating the apparatus of the construction described above, the holders are accumulated between the tip end of the feeler 36 and the guide 32 before the operation is started and then the belt conveyor 20 is driven carrying the holders thereon. When the following holders push the tip end of the feeler 36 of the microswitch, the chain 21 begins to travel and the holders accumulated on the stationary plate 29 are caught by the blades 28 of the respective brackets 25 attached to the chain, and thus transported by said brackets one after another. In this case, as will be seen from the figures, the bottom plate 26 of the bracket passes underside of the stationary plate 29, while the blades 28 thereof pass over the guides 30 and 32. The holder rests on the bottom plate 26 upon clearing the edge of the stationary plate 29. At this time, the holder s pressed against the upstraight guide 27 of said bracket by the leaf spring 35 and thereby is prevented from tilting or dropping from the bracket.

As stated previously, the space between the free tip end of the feeler 36 and the guide 32 are always filled with the holders. This is necessary for controlling the positions of the holders and thereby to ensure positive supply of the holders into Ithe brackets 25 one after another. Since the holders on the stationary plate 29 are constantly urged forwardly by those on the belt conveyor 20, the space resulting from the removal of the foremost holder from the stationary plate by the bracket 25 is immediately filled by the holders which follow and thus the space on the stationary plate is always maintained full of the holders. Those holders are confined on the stationary plate by means of the leaf spring 34, until they are carried away by the blades 28. The chain 21 stops its operation when the area in front of the feeler 36 of the microswitch is vacated by the holders. The chain 21 is guided by the guide 24 such that it travels horizontally at a portion where it is confronted by the stationary plate 29 and also at a portion where the holders are discharged from the respective brackets after they are brought to an elevated point by the chain together with the brackets. The intermediate portion of the guide 24 between said two horizontal portions is suitably inclined as required. In order to remove the holders from lthe respective brackets at the elevated end of the chain 21, a comb-shaped stationary guide 37 is provided which, as shown in FIG. 8, is adapted to remove the holder from the bracket without contacting the blades 28 of the bracket. The holder thus removed from the bracket is then moved onto another belt conveyor 39 by `being guided by the holder guide 38. It will be obvious that the holders are carried along the aforementioned horizontal and sloping paths irrespective of whether they have cops therein or not.

Now, referring back to FIG. l, it will be seen that 0 a weight discriminator 40 for the cops is provided at the forward end of the belt conveyor 39. This weight discriminator is adapted to measure the weight of the cops in the holders individually successively and segregate them into those having a prescribed weight and those having an underweight. Now, the operation of the weight discriminator will be explained in detail hereinafter with reference to FIGS. and l1. The cop being held upstraght in the holder 9 is moved onto a weighing pan 42 together with said holder by means of a rotary cam 41 which has a notch 43 formed in the periphery thereof. The rotary cam 41 is driven by driving means X operatively associated with a feeler 44 of a limit switch. Reference numeral 45 designates a stationary plate, 46 a weighing fulcrum, 47 a balance beam, 48 photoelectric tube means and 49 a conveyor for delivering weighed cop and holder. A guide plate 50 is fixedly mounted on the conveyor 49 and has a blade-like selector 51 pivotally connected to an end thereof facing the weighing pan. When the feeler 44 of the limit switch is actuated by a holder 9 being carried by the conveyor 39, under such state wherein the preceding cop-carrying holders are accumulated in the space between the cam 41 and a point immediately forwardly of the feeler 44 and are urged against the outer periphery of the cam by means of the travelling conveyor 39, the driving means X for the cam 41 is set in operation causing the cam 41 to revolve in the direction of the arrow. The foremost holder, therefore` is fitted in the notch 43 in the cam and pushed forward by a pushing roll 52 to move from the stationary plate 45 onto the Weighing pan 42, said pushing roll being connected to the cam. The preceding holder resting on the weighing pan is, therefore, forced out from said weighing pan and placed on the conveyor 49 to be carried away thereon. Thus, it will be understood that the copcarrying holder mounted on the weighing pan is independent from both of the preceding and following holders. Then, a lock 53 for the balance beam 47 is removed by the action of a magnet which is energized synchronously with the revolution of the cam 41. The Weighing pan 42 is permitted to move downwardly for Weight measuring. Upon completion of the weighing, the lock 53 is returned to the engaging position by the action of the magnet and the weighing pan is brought back to its original position for receiving the following holder. As a result of weighing, if the total weight of the cop and the holder therefor is at or greater than a prescribed value, the light which is emitted by electric means only for the period of weighing to illuminate the photoelectric tube means 48 is intercepted by the balance beam, and no signal is produced at all. However, where the weight is lighter than the prescribed value, the balance beam does not intercept the light, permitting it to illuminate the photoelectric tube means, and an electric Signal is given to driving means Y for the selector 51 to cause said selector to make a swinging motion. In the former case wherein the total weight of the cop and the holder is at or greater than the prescribed value, the selec-tor 51 remains in the position indicated by solid lines in FIG. l0, guiding the holder to move onto the conveyor 49 as in the ordinary case. In the latter case, however, wherein the weight is below the prescribed value, the selector 51 is swung to the dotted line position shown in the figure and leads the underweight cop and holder into a path separate from the normal path. It is thus possible to discriminate the underweight cops from those having a regular Weight automatically easily and yet in a positive manner.

The conveyor 49 is associated at its forward end with an accumulation conveyor 54. This accumulation conveyor, like the conveyor 49, has a guide plate 55 fixedly mounted thereon so as to separate the holder passage into a right-hand passage section R and a left-hand passage section L as viewed in the proceeding direction of the holders. The conveyor 54 is driven continuously to convey the holders from the conveyor 49 with a cop therein. Where the automatic winder 56 does not call for a cop, the cop-carrying holders in the L-passage section, that is the section for the regular-weight cops, is blocked by a stopper 57 and the holders being conveyed successively are accumulated in that section of the conveyor 54 and a stationary plate 59 which is arranged successively to said conveyor 54, as shown in FIG. l. On the other hand, where the automatic Winder 56 needs cops, the stopper 57 is opened by electric means operatively connecting said stopper with said automatic Winder. The holders accumulated on the conveyor 54, therefore, are allowed to advance onto the stationary plate 59 while being arranged in a single row with the aid of a guide 58 and being pushed by the following holders, and fed into the automatic Winder through means as will be described later.

In displacing a number of cylindrical bodies, alike the holders as employed in the present invention, which have been accumulated on a conveyor randomly in a plurality of rows, for the purpose of delivering them into the following step singly in a successive and orderly manner, use of a fixed guide or rotating rollers has heretofore been known. Such conventional methods, however, had the drawback that a large number of cylindrical bodies are jammed in front of the delivery control point and bounded -by each other due to friction therebetween, thus making it either impossible or difficult to deliver smoothly these cylindrical bodies one by one to the succeeding step. This drawback has been a barrier to the materialization of an automatized continuous process. According to this invention, however, such a conventional drawback has been eliminated by employing a unique guide 58 which is adapted to deliver the holders singly smoothly. The construction of the guide 58 will be explained hereunder with reference to FIGS. 12 and 13. The guide 58 consists of a leaf spring and is mounted in such a manner that a portion thereof may be brought into contact with the holders, and is adapted to deflect elastically, inwardly as well as outwardly. The guide 58 is Xedly supported at a point by a support member 60 and defines a holder passageway together with a liXed guide 61. As shown in FIG. 13, the guide 58 is arranged so as to be brought into contact with the side wall of the synthetic resinmade cylinders 11 of the holders 9. The iron rings 10 fitted on the lower portion of the cylinder serves to lower the center of gravity of the entire holder as stated previously. In the initial stage of contact with the guide 58, the holder 9 is carried forward while urging the deflective portion of the guide S outwardly with its side wall but, as the holder 9 approaches the fixed guide 61, the holder is tilted by the guide 58 in the way shown in FIG. 13, because that portion of the guide 58 is held in a non-deflective state by being supported by the support member 60. The resulting change in position of the iron ring 10, together With the change in deflective state of the guide 58, causes relaxation and unbalance of the force with which the holders are bound by each other. As a result, the holders are released from jamming and are permitted to proceed one after another in an orderly manner upon removal of the stopper 57. Such a guiding method of the present invention has been developed only after a lengthy experiment and, because of the unique arrangement as described, it is possible to eliminate the drawback possessed by the conventional methods and thereby to delivery the holders one after another highly smoothly.

Referring again to FIG. 1, the cop-carrying holders having been advanced onto the stationary plate 59 are conveyed towards the automatic Winder 56 by means of a chain conveyor 62 which holds the holders by the attractive force acting between the iron rings of the holders and magnets mounted on said chain conveyor. Then, the copcarrying holders are automatically carried by rotating cop feed means 63 one after another successively and only the cops are dropped through an aperture 64 formed in the xed position of the feed means 63 to be lfed into the automatic Winder.

The cop feed means 63 is shown in FIG. 14 in enlargement. When the automatic Winder 56 needs to be fed with cops, a notched rotary disc 65, operatively connected with the automatic Winder, is revolved intermittently by a quarter of its full turn at each time and thus advance the cop-carrying holders one after another in cooperation with a guide plate 66. When the cop-carrying holder reaches the aperatu-re 64, the cop only drops through the aperture into the automatic Winder and the emptied holder is hooked away by an empty-holder guide 67 upon another one-quarter revolution of the notched disc 65. The empty holder thus disengaged `from the notched disc 65 is returned to the conveyor 8, travelling below the floor, by being carried on a sloped conveyor 68 (FIG. 1) along the guide 67. A feeler 69 of a microswitch, shown in FIG. 1, is electrically connected with the stopper 57, so that, when the cop-carrying holders clear said feeler to move into the cop feed means 63, the feeler is actuated to retract the stopper 57 and, when the holders, thus permitted to proceed onto the stationary plate S9 from the `L-passage section on the accumulation conveyor 54, come in contact with the feeler, the feeler is deactivated and the stopper S7 is returned to its original position.

On the other hand, the underweight cop-carrying holders and/or empty holders directed into the R-passage section on the accumulation conveyor are accumulated in said passage section by being blocked by a stopper 71 under the same state as those in the L-passage section due to the function of a `guide 70 which has the same construction as that of the guide 58. As the number of the holders on the conveyor 68 decreases, the photoelectric tube means 72 is illuminated, whereby the stopper 71 electrically connected thereto is retracted. The holders, therefore, are carried by a chain conveyor 73, which, similar to the chain conveyor 62, is provided with magnets, and sent onto the sloped conveyor 68. The stationary plate 59 is formed with an aperture 74 of a size just enough to allow only the cop to pass therethrough. Therefore, as the holders are carried by the chain conveyor 73, the underweight cops drop through the aperture into a cop-receiving box provided beneath the stationary plate. In FIG. 1, reference symbol M designates a drive motor `for each means described hereinabove. A feeler 75 of a microswitch provided in a xed position with respect to the conveyor 54 operates such that, when the lholders are accumulated on the conveyor 59 to a certain amount, the microswitch is actuated, whereupon electric control means in the control box is actuated to stop another cycle of operation of the endless conveyors 2. The control means in the control box 17 has the order of the spinning frames for dofling operation previously memorized therein, so as to drive the conveyors 2 of the spinning frames in that order as required.

As will be apparent from the foregoing description, according to the present invention, the spun yarn cops suspended from the spinning frame conveyors are automatically detached from said conveyors at a predetermined point and received by the Irespective cylindrical hollow holders arranged therebelow, and conveyed towards the automatic Winder while having their proceeding direction automatically changed horizontally as Well as vertically, during which period they are automatically segregated into those of regular weight and those of underweight as they are held in the holders and are accumulated on the accumulation conveyor separately, the regular-weight cops held in the holders being taken out from the accumulation conveyor smoothly as required by the automatic Winder and removed from the holders only at the location of the automatic Winder to be fed therein, the resultant empty holders being reci'rculated for reuse, the holders on the accumulation conveyor having the underweight or unacceptable cops therein being taken out from the accumulation conveyor as empty holders are demanded by the operation of the inventive apparatus and, after dropping only the cops therefrom at a predetermined point, recirculated for reuse. The series of operation described above is performed entirely continuously and automatically, requiring no labor at all. Moreover, by the use of the holders, the present invention is totally free from the drawbacks possessed by the conventional apparatus, such as entanglement of the cut ends of spun yarn and others. The present invention has materialized for the rst time complete automatization of the process required between spinning frames and automatic winder and, therefore, is of remarkable advance in the art of continuous automatic spinning.

What is claimed is:

1. A method of automatically feeding cops of spun yarn from a spinning frame to an automatic winder, comprising suspending the cops from a conveyor travelling about the spinning frame by the magnetic force of mag'- nets provided on said conveyor, automatically detaching said cops from said conveyor to drop them into respective cylindrical hollow holders carried on another conveyor, conveying said cops successively to an accumulation conveyor as they are held in the holders, taking out said copcarrying holders from said accumulation conveyor as required, feeding said cops into the automatic Winder by dropping them from the holders and recirculating the resulting empty holders to the original cop-receiving position for receiving cops from the spinning frame.

2. A method of automatically feeding cops of spun yarn from a spinning frame to an automatic Winder according to claim l, in which said method further comprises discriminating said cops in the holders into those having a prescribed Weight and those having an underweight before they are admitted onto the accumulation conveyor, dropping said regular-weight cops to be fed in the Winder, recirculating the resulting empty holders to the original cop-receiving position for receiving cops from the spinning frame, dropping said underweight cops into an underweight cop-accumulation box and recirculating the resulting empty holders to the original cop-receiving position for receiving cops from the spinning frame, said series of operations being performed automatically.

3. An apparatus for automatically feeding cops of spun yarn from a spinning frame to an automatic Winder, which comprises a conveyor travelling about the spinning frame and provided with a number of magnets thereon for holding the cops in a suspended state therefrom 'by the magnetic force thereof, a conveyor for carryingcylindrical hollow holders arranged below said first conveyor in partially overlapping relation, cop detaching means provided across the path of the cops suspended from said first conveyor at a predetermined point in that portion of the path of the first conveyor Which overlaps the path of said second conveyor, photoelectric tube means provided adjacent said cop detaching means across the path of the magnets carried on said lirst conveyor, holder stopping means provided in the path of said second conveyor in register with said cop detaching means and operatively connected to said photoelectric tube means, a conveyor for successively transporting the cops received in said holders, an accumulation conveyor for accumulating the cop-carrying holders before the automatic Winder, means for taking out the accumulated cop-carrying holders as required and dropping only the cops from the respective holders to be fed in said automatic Winder, and means for recirculating the resulting empty holders onto said second conveyor.

4. An apparatus for automatically feeding cops of spun yarn from a spinning frame to an automatic Winder according to claim 3, in Which said apparatus further comprises cop weight discriminator provided before said accumulation conveyor and adapted to produce an electric signal, a separation guide mounted on said accumulation conveyor and provided with a selector which is adapted to operate in response to said electric signal, and means for taking out the underweight cop-carrying holders from the accumulation conveyor and, after dropping said cops 10 from said holders, recirculating the resulting empty holders onto said second conveyor.

5. An apparatus for automatically feeding cops of spun yarn from a spinning frame to an automatic Winder according to claim 3, in Which said apparatus further comprises horizontally joggled and vertically inclined chain conveyor provided at the forward end of said third conveyor and having brackets fitted thereto, each of said 'brackets having blades for engagement with the holder.

6. An apparatus for automatically feeding cops of spun yarn from a spinning frame to an automatic Winder according to claim 3, in which said appartus further comprises stopper means provided at the forward end of said accumulation conveyor for controlling the passage of said holders, a leaf spring guide arranged before said stopper means so as to define a tapered passageway and a member adapted to fixedly support said leaf spring guide at a portion approximating to said stopper means.

7. An apparatus for automatically feeding cops of spun yarn from a spinning frame to anrautomatic Winder according to claim 3, in Which said holder is composed of a synthetic resin-made cylinder and an iron ring fitted 0n the lower portion thereof.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 9/1962 Bahnson 57-52 2/1968 Livingston 242-35.5

M. HENSON WOOD, J R., Primary Examiner. R. A. SCHACHER, Assistant Examiner.

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