Metal working – Plural diverse manufacturing apparatus including means for... – Separate tool stations for selective or successive operation...
Patent
1990-12-17
1992-09-08
Briggs, William
Metal working
Plural diverse manufacturing apparatus including means for...
Separate tool stations for selective or successive operation...
29755, H05K 1306
Patent
active
051447339
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
An apparatus is described for bonding and laying conductors by means of a multi-axial positioning unit, wherein the cable is guided in a laying tube and is advanced by a feed unit.
For some considerable time, no appropriate apparatus has been known for automatic bonding and laying of conductors with so-called crimped contacts. Only pilot installations have become known in some isolated instances but they have not become established in industrial practice.
In the case of the pilot installations of Messrs. UNIMATION AND VEKTRONICS, problems occur particularly in the storage of the cable with the attached crimped contact and in handling the cable which is flexurally slack.
Practical solutions have only become known from applications filed by these Applicants and then only for the manufacture of laced wiring loops with `cut-and-clamp connectors`, using cable drums.
The invention is based on the problem of indicating a practical apparatus for bonding and laying conductors by means of a multi-axial positioning unit in which there are no limitations of any kind with regard to the cable contacts, i.e. an apparatus which makes it possible not only to produce laced wiring harnesses with so-called cut-and-clamp connectors but also to manufacture wiring harnesses for example with so-called crimped contacts. According to the invention, a solution to this problem, together with its further developments, is characterised in the Patent Claims.
Surprisingly, this problem is successfully resolved in that the premise adopted is an apparatus such as that described in applications by the same Applicants, in which the manufacture of cable harnesses using the cut-and-clamp technique stand to the fore and in that this generic apparatus is further developed by the combination of the following features: extending in the plane of the jaws, recesses which form the laying tube; contact as the cable is drawn into the laying tube.
Further developments of the invention are characterized in the sub-claims:
For example, according to claim 2, the laying tube may comprise a widened-open portion which serves to store the random cable. This widened portion is preferably "pear-shaped".
Furthermore, according to claim 4, there are on both sides of the widened portion a respective feed unit.
Furthermore, according to claim 5, there is upstream of the laying tube in the direction of feed of the cable a further unit with a further feed unit and a unit for reducing the cable to lengths, and in that the jaw gripper is pivotable in respect to the further unit (claim 5).
According to claim 6, this further unit may in addition comprise a cable clamping unit.
Furthermore, the feed unit may comprise a friction wheel and a driven wheel which can be applied in the direction of the friction wheel by means of a pressure-applying unit.
The invention will be described in greater detail hereinafter with reference to examples of embodiment and with no limitation of the general index underlying the invention, reference being made to the drawings, in which:
FIGS. 1a and 1b are different views of a first example of embodiment of the invention and
FIGS. 2a and 2b show different views of a second example of embodiment.
Both examples of embodiment have in common a tool changing flange 1 and a parallel jaw gripper 5.
In per se known manner, the tool changing flange 1 is the interface between a handling or positioning arrangement, for example an industrial robot, and the actual tool and it ensures transmission of the (electrical, pneumatic and/or hydraulic) energy and the transfer of the various control signals from the control arrangement to the tool or of the sensor signals from the tool to the control arrangement.
The parallel jaw gripper 5 comprises two gripper jaws 5' and 5" which are articulated on an intermediate flange 51. Each gripper jaw comprises, extending at a right-angle to the direction of movement of the jaws, a recess 52' or 52" which form a laying tube 520, the diameter of which is greater than the diameter of the largest cable which is to be laid.
In t
REFERENCES:
patent: 4399842 (1983-08-01), Gibbons
patent: 4440053 (1984-04-01), Suzuki et al.
patent: 4593452 (1986-06-01), Keahey et al.
patent: 4607430 (1986-08-01), Young
patent: 4653159 (1987-03-01), Henderson
patent: 4677734 (1987-07-01), Bloch et al.
patent: 4715100 (1987-12-01), Cross
patent: 4860427 (1989-08-01), Kanaguchi
Briggs William
MERZ Metall-und Kunstatoffverarbeitunge
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