WO1997016261A2

WO1997016261A2 - Brush body cleaning device

Info

Publication number: WO1997016261A2
Application number: PCT/DE1996/002100
Authority: WO
Inventors: Albert Buss
Original assignee: W. Steinhauser Gmbh & Co. Kg Maschinenfabrik
Priority date: 1995-11-04
Filing date: 1996-10-31
Publication date: 1997-05-09
Also published as: WO1997016261A3; EP0858371A2; DE19541162A1

Abstract

In a device for cleaning brush bodies (3), the brush bodies are held stationary in a spread-out position at the deflecting point of an endless conveyor belt (5) and U-shaped nozzle elements laterally surround the brush bodies. The brush bodies are cleaned by compressed air applied by the nozzle elements.

Description

"Device for cleaning brush bodies"

The invention relates to a device for cleaning brush bodies according to the preamble of claim 1.

State of the art:

From DE 33 09 944 C2 a cutting device for slack flat material and in particular for fabric layers has become known, in which the flat material is transported on an endlessly rotating conveyor belt and processed with a cutting tool that can be moved relative to the flat material. In order to fix the flat material in position on the conveyor belt, it is designed as an endless brush conveyor belt with a multiplicity of block-shaped brush bodies. Under the support surface for the material to be cut there is a vacuum holding-down device through which the air-permeable brush bodies are subjected to vacuum. To build up the vacuum, the material to be cut is covered with an air-impermeable film so that it is sucked onto the brush conveyor belt. A similar cutting device is shown in DE 41 18 194 C2. Here, the brush bodies are attached to a brush holder, which in turn are connected by an encircling chain. 3 of this DE 41 18 194 C2 shows the spreading of each individual brush body in the region of the end-side deflection of the endless conveyor belt.

DE 30 17 649 C2 describes the problem of contamination of such brush bodies. In particular, it is stated there that during the operation of such a device for cutting layers of fabric, small pieces of fabric, pieces of thread or yarn, fibers, lint, dust and other waste during the cutting process tend to settle between the bristles of such a bristle bed and to collect there . Due to the negative pressure applied to the bed, these undesirable foreign bodies are sucked firmly between the bristles and held there. The accumulation of such foreign bodies inside the bristle bed considerably reduces the effectiveness of the negative pressure and leads to a greatly increased energy consumption.

The publication mentioned therefore refers to the need to clean the individual brush bodies which form the bristle bed overall. It is pointed out that this has hitherto been done in such a way that the brush bodies of the bristle beds have been blown with air in order to free them of the accumulated waste material which has settled between the bristles. This cleaning process took place in that the entire brush body was removed from the machine for cleaning, which was associated with considerable time and technical effort. For this reason, the brush bodies were only cleaned when they were relatively full of foreign bodies. With such a heavily soiled body, however, it is no longer guaranteed that the individual bristles are still vertical, which is a problem increases the risk of cutting or damaging the individual bristles with the cutting knife. Such badly damaged brushes can then no longer be used.

Object and advantages of the invention:

The invention has for its object to avoid these disadvantages in the previously usual cleaning of the bristle bed of a flat material cutting device and to achieve a gentle treatment of the brush body. The brush bodies should be cleaned at an early stage so that the life of the bristle bed is greatly increased.

This object is solved by the features of claim 1. Advantageous and expedient further developments of the device specified in the main claim are listed in the subclaims.

The basic idea of the invention is that regular cleaning of the brush bodies is facilitated in particular when they no longer have to be removed from the machine for this purpose. Regular cleaning of these parts can significantly increase the service life. Furthermore, the maintenance itself can also be carried out more effectively, since the foreign bodies do not compact so deeply in the base of the bristles, but are removed from the base of the brush at a much earlier point in time.

The invention therefore provides a cleaning device which is directly assigned to the flat material cutting device or integrated in it, with which a fully automatic cleaning can be carried out as required, for example daily during work breaks. As a result, the bristle bed is constantly all in one kept clean, so that an effective work with negative pressure and a problem-free penetration of the cutting knife can take place without damaging the bristles.

According to the invention, the brush bodies are kept so narrow that they open so far at the deflection points of the conveyor belt that a nozzle element can move in between the spread brush bodies in order to pressurize the side wall with compressed air. In particular, by using a U-shaped nozzle element, each brush body, which is generally held stationary during the cleaning process, is laterally enclosed and pressurized with compressed air. As a result, the brush body can be effectively cleaned of foreign bodies.

Further details of the invention can be found in the drawing, to which express reference is hereby made. In the following description of an exemplary embodiment, these are explained in more detail with the specification of further advantages.

Show it

Fig. 1 is a side view of the circumferential

Bristle bed with individual brush body and attached cleaning device,

2 shows a longitudinal section through the cleaning device,

3a, 3b is a side view of the

Cleaning device from viewing direction A in Fig. 1 in different positions of the nozzle elements and Fig. 4 is a side view of the

Cleaning device with folded nozzle elements.

Description of the invention:

1 shows a section of the flat material cutting device 1 according to the invention, as its basic structure is explained in more detail in the publications mentioned at the beginning. In particular, reference is made to DE 30 17 649 C2 with more detailed references.

Such a cutting device consists, as shown in FIG. 1, of a bristle bed 2 for forming a material support surface or a cutting table and in particular for forming a support surface for a fabric package as a cutting base. The bristle bed 2 consists of a multiplicity of individual brush bodies 3, 3 ′, 3 ″, which are fastened on a brush holder 4. The brush holder 4 is in turn connected to a conveyor device 5, which in the exemplary embodiment is designed as an endless chain with individual chain links 6. The endlessly rotating conveyor chain 5 runs at both ends of the cutting device via an upper sprocket 7 and a lower sprocket 8.

The width of the brush bodies 3 is kept relatively narrow, where b £ _? Can be 30 mm wide. The height of the brush body 3 is, for example, h fe 40 mm. The length of such a brush body protruding into the plane of the page in FIG. 1 extends over the entire table width B of the cutting table, which can be, for example, B 1 = 1.50 m to 2 m (see FIG. 3a). The entire table length can be, for example, greater than 4 m. The two sprockets 7, 8 have a relatively small chain radius r ^Ä 50 un, with a distance between the two central axes 9, 10 of approximately a ^ ft £ 250 mm. Because of the width of the brush body, which is kept narrow, they can be attached to a commercially available chain link 6, for example a 1/2 inch chain. As a result, these can be guided over a small chain radius r at the lower 11 and the upper deflection point 12. The result of this is that the brush bodies 3 open in the region of the deflection curve of the two chain wheels 7, 8 with a gap 13 to such an extent that a U-shaped nozzle element 14 can move into the gap 13 on both sides of a brush body 3. This is shown in FIG. 1 in the area of the lower deflection point 11 on the brush body 3 ″ shown there. As soon as a brush body 3 is guided over the lower sprocket 8, the bristle bed 2 is expanded, so that the gap 13 with an expansion angle α ft = 20 ° to 40 ° results.

As shown in FIGS. 1 to 4, the cleaning device 15 consists of a bracket 16 on which two guide rods 17, 18 are mounted. 3 and 4, these guide rods 17, 18 extend over the entire length of the holding bracket 16, which in turn extends over the entire table width B of the cutting table.

The guide rods 17, 18 can again have a support 36 in the middle in the case of very large table widths, in order to prevent deflection.

On the guide rods 17, 18, a slider 19 is fastened in a longitudinally displaceable manner and is connected to a tube 20 for fastening a plurality of nozzle elements. Moving the tube 20 with the nozzle element 14 located thereon is thus possible transversely to the cutting table. On the tube 20 there are several U-shaped nozzle elements, each with an upper nozzle leg 21 and a lower nozzle leg 22, on each of which there is an air outlet opening 23, 24 on the side facing the cutting table. These air outlet openings are designed in such a way that the air exiting there strikes the side walls of the brush body 3 at an oblique angle α and thus blow the foreign bodies located in the inner region out of the brush body. As can be seen from FIG. 2, the angle β is of the order of magnitude between β «= ■ 60 ° to 90 °. The nozzle can be designed so that the angle β and thus the air outlet jet changes constantly in order to reach all parts of the bristle body.

As can be seen from FIG. 2, the nozzle elements 14 consisting of the two nozzle legs 21, 22 are pivotably or pivotably articulated on the tube 20. For this purpose, the tube 20 with a quadrilateral cross section at a suitable position has bores 37, 38 in which the legs 21, 22 of the nozzle element 14 are clipped in and pivotably fastened. An actuator 25 can perform a rotary movement of the U-shaped nozzle element 14 from its working position according to FIGS. 1 and 2 in order to pivot it by 90 °, as shown in FIG. 4. This pivoting movement is shown symbolically in FIG. 3a with arrow 26. The parallel arranged nozzle elements 14/1 to 14/4 shown in FIGS. 3a, 3b in the working position can accordingly be pivoted into the folded position shown in FIG. 4. 1 and 2, the nozzle element 14 consequently folds out of the sheet plane by 90 °. In the folded state, the brush body 3 which is stationary during the cleaning process can be moved by one position, that is to say into the cleaning position. The tube 20 consequently serves as a rotary bearing for the nozzle element 14 and at the same time as a supply element for compressed air. For this, the pipe is closed at both ends. The compressed air introduced into the tube 20 is introduced into all the nozzle elements 14 and in particular into the two nozzle legs 21, 22. At the extreme tip of the nozzle legs are the two nozzle outlets 23, 24, from which the compressed air is conducted into the brush body to be cleaned in each case. These foreign bodies removed from the brush body can be suctioned off with a suction device, which is located behind the cleaning device 15.

The normal cutting operation of the cutting device takes place when the cleaning device is in a position with the nozzle elements 14 folded down as shown in FIG. 4. This enables the brush body of the cutting table to circulate freely. The position of the parallel arranged nozzle elements 14 shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 are shown in the views 3a, 3b, the nozzle elements being pivoted forward by 90 ° and thus completely enclosing the brush body laterally as shown in FIG. 1. The folding process therefore serves to transfer the nozzle elements into and out of the working position.

As shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, four nozzle elements 14 arranged next to one another are provided over the entire width B of a cutting table, not shown, which are designated by 14/1 to 14/4. The same distance between the elements is designated a2. The overall width of table B is shown in Fig. 3a.

Starting from the view according to FIG. 3b, the first nozzle element 14/1 is located on the left edge of a cutting table, not shown. The nozzle element 14/4 shown on the extreme right in FIG. 3b is in a Distance sl from the right edge 28 of the cutting table, this "sliding path Sl" corresponds approximately to the distance a2, that is to say the distance between the nozzle elements. 3a, 3b, the pipe 20, on which the individual nozzle elements 14 are located, is now shifted to the right by the distance sl indicated by "sliding path" during the cleaning process of a brush body 3, so that the nozzle moves 14/4 is now on the right edge 28 of the cutting table. For this purpose, an actuator 29 is provided for carrying out the longitudinal movement, consisting of a piston-cylinder unit which acts at point 30 on the fastening tube 20 for the nozzle elements. The nozzle elements can thus run across the entire width of the cutting table. During this movement, the tube 20 is pressurized with compressed air, which emerges at high pressure and high speed via the nozzle ends of the nozzle elements 14 and thereby tears out the foreign bodies located in the brush bodies 3. The entire width of the cutting table in the length of a complete brush body 3 can thus be cleaned of foreign bodies. This process can be carried out by moving the nozzle element back and forth several times with the brush body stationary.

Once this cleaning process has been completed, the nozzle elements are pivoted back by 90 ° as shown in FIGS. 3b and 4. For this purpose, an actuator 32 is provided for performing the rotating or swiveling movement. Corresponding push rods connect the individual nozzle elements 14/1 to 14/4 in order to carry out a common pivoting movement into the position according to FIG. 4. During this pivoting movement, the two nozzle legs 21, 22 according to FIG. 2 fold 90 ° out of the image plane according to FIG. 2 by rotating the tube 20. After the nozzle elements are swiveled back by 90 °, the cutting table can be clocked further by a brush body, after which the nozzle elements are swiveled outward again in order to clean the brush body that follows. This process is repeated until the entire cutting table with all of its brush bodies arranged one behind the other has passed through the cleaning device.

The invention is not restricted to the exemplary embodiment shown and described. Rather, it also encompasses all professional modifications within the framework of property rights claims.

For example, the width of the nozzle element 14 can also extend across the entire width of the cutting table or of the brush element or parts thereof, thereby eliminating the need for lateral displacement. The cleaning device 15 with the nozzle elements 14 can also perform a linear retraction movement to the brush element instead of a pivoting movement, the movement also being possible during the cleaning process in order to wipe off the side walls 33, 34 in terms of compressed air.

Claims

Expectations:

1. Apparatus for cleaning brush bodies, in particular the bristle bed of a flat material cutting device, the brush bodies (3) circulating as an endless conveyor belt (5) and being spread apart in the end-side deflection area, characterized in that for cleaning the brush bodies (3) each one are held substantially stationary in the deflection area of the conveyor belt (5) and at least one nozzle element (14) acts on a side wall (33, 34) of the brush body (3) with compressed air.

2. Device according to claim 1, characterized in that the nozzle element (14) has a nozzle leg (21, 22) which has at its outer end a nozzle outlet opening (23, 24), the air outlet direction of which is preferably at an oblique angle α & 60 ° to 90 ° towards the surface (35) of the brush body (3) is directed.

3. Apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the nozzle element (14) has U-shaped nozzle legs (21, 22) which enclose the side walls (33, 34) of the brush body (3).

4. Apparatus according to claim 1, 2 or 3, characterized in that the width b of the brush body is kept so small that a complete air flow on the part of the nozzle element (14) can take place.

5. Device according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that a plurality of nozzle elements (14/1 to 14/4) over the entire length of a brush body (3) to be cleaned are arranged on longitudinal guides, wherein longitudinal displaceability allows a complete sweep of the brush body (3).

6. The device according to claim 5, characterized in that four nozzle elements (14/1 to 14/4) on a guide device (17, 18) are arranged longitudinally displaceably, wherein a piston-cylinder unit (29) a longitudinal displacement of a mounting tube (20) for the Causes nozzle elements.

7. Device according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the nozzle elements (14/1 to 14/4) on a mounting tube (20) are hinged by 90 ° or pivoted, an actuator (32) a common folding of all nozzle elements causes.

8. Device according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the nozzle element extends over the entire width B of the brush body (3) or the cutting table.

9. Device according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the nozzle element (14) for the cleaning process along the side wall (33, 34) can be moved up and down.