Metal deforming – With means to handle work or product – Including means to permit maneuvering of work or product at...
Patent
1996-01-23
1998-06-09
Larson, Lowell A.
Metal deforming
With means to handle work or product
Including means to permit maneuvering of work or product at...
72422, B21J 1310
Patent
active
057619514
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to a mechanical hand for moving plates according to the preamble of claim 1.
The document EP-A-0 482 702 (=U.S. Pat. No. 5,180,049) discloses a mechanical hand for the movement of metal sheets with respect to a punching machine and/or shearing machine in which the support and sliding zone of the slab in the working plane comprises, as retractable members, a plurality of parallel rows of upwardly directed bristles and the upper ends of which lie in the working plane. A handling gripper comprises a lower jaw situated below the working plane or in a position in which it interferes with the bristles. When the manipulating gripper travels through the bristle zone, the bristles bend elastically under the thrust of the lower jaw whilst the surrounding bristles remain erect and support the metal sheet.
The solution according to the document EP-A-0 482 702 offers the advantage, with respect to the mechanical hands according to the art preceding this document, of enabling the gripper to reach positions which are very close to the tools of a machine tool. However, this is affected by a restriction of the height dimensions of the lower jaw of the gripper: it is not, in fact, possible for the bristles to be higher than 2-3 cm since, if they were higher, they would be too flexible and would bend under the weight of the metal sheet such that the latter would no longer be supported exactly in the working plane.
A restriction of the height of the lower jaw of the gripper implies a restriction of its strength which is manifested by the impossibility of handling relatively heavy metal sheets.
The document U.S. Pat. No. 4,787,282 discloses a mechanical hand for the movement of the metal sheets with respect to a punching machine in which the support and sliding zone of a sheet in the working plane comprises, as retractable members, idle balls arranged in a fixed table. To prevent the lower parts of work holders or grippers from impinging on the idle balls, the latter are lowered one row after the other, below the surface of the fixed table, by a cam projecting from a transfer table on which the grippers are mounted.
This solution is not applicable to an iron hand for a bending press arranged to produce downwardly directed folds in a sheet metal panel, because it does not provide means to lower the idle balls independently from the transfer table so as to allow the passage of the downwardly directed folds over the balls.
The object of the present invention is to provide a mechanical hand of the type in question which does not have the above said limitations, that is enable a handling gripper to be used which is provided with a lower jaw which has a relatively large height and is consequently sufficiently robust to be able to manipulate sheet metal panels, or plates of another type, of relatively great weight, whilst maintaining the advantageous possibility of moving the gripper close to the tools of the machine, for example to the blades of a bending press.
According to the present invention, this object is achieved by means of a mechanical hand of the type in question which is essentially defined in the characterizing part of claim 1.
By virtue of the claimed solution, the height of the lower jaw of the gripper can have any value and is only restricted by the extent of the upward and downward travel of the pillars which can even be approximately 10 cm.
A further advantage of the invention is provided by the possibility of associating the mechanical hand with a bending press arranged so as to produce downwardly directed folds in a sheet metal panel. In this case, the control means can be programmed such that they lower the pillars which are in correspondence with or in the vicinity of a direct downward fold such that they do not interfere with the latter whilst the other pillars are raised so as to support the panel in the working plane.
A mechanical hand having the features described in the preamble of claim 1 and retractable members in the form of an array of vertically moving pillars is describe
REFERENCES:
patent: 3181858 (1965-05-01), Daniels
patent: 4399675 (1983-08-01), Erdmann et al.
patent: 4787282 (1988-11-01), Okachi
patent: 5187958 (1993-02-01), Prunotto et al.
Amada Company Ltd.
Larson Lowell A.
Tolan Ed
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