Material or article handling – Load-transporting type vehicle and external means... – Means serves to align wheeled vehicle and load receiving or...
Patent
1986-07-28
1988-09-27
Valenza, Joseph E.
Material or article handling
Load-transporting type vehicle and external means...
Means serves to align wheeled vehicle and load receiving or...
414396, B23Q 714, B65G 104
Patent
active
047738111
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application is a national phase application of PCT/EP85/00628 filed Nov. 19, 1985 under the Patent Cooperation Treaty and based, in turn, upon applications P No. 34 43 409.7 of Nov. 28, 1984, P No. 35 02 158 filed Jan. 23, 1985 and P No. 35 04 929.4 filed Feb. 13, 1985 in the Federal Republic of Germany under the International Convention.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to docking, that is for the accurate positioning of a carrier element or the like, placed liftably upon a transport carrier or similar transport means forming a support plane, relative to a stationary support plane, e.g. in the stand of a processing or assembly station or a storage place serving as a deposit place for the purpose of transferring objects.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The positioning of a carrier element implemented as a plate is already described in DE-OS No. 33 45 877. The carrier plate shown there has the task of forming a support plane upon the transport carriage for an object to be transported, for exemple a workpiece or a pallet upon which the work piece is already located in a certain fashion. The carrier element need not be a plate. In general it can be formed by a suitable stand or the like which has at least three support points, by which a plane is defined.
A possible can be a frame which is formed by two girders or rails connected to one another via two transverse struts, whose surface lies in a common plane and serves as a support for pallets or the like. The necessity for such accurate positioning of the carrier element and its support plane on the transport carriage arises particularly in connection with pallet transport and transfer means in automatic processing systems, as are known, by way of example, from DE-PS No. 31 01 661 or the DE-GM No. 78 35 449.
Here, the pallets with the work pieces are to be transported back and forth by the transport carriage and transferred between an assembly and a processing station, and/or a storage station. The transfer can take place by means of the drive or transport and guidance means described there. The support plane of the of the carrier element on the lifting means of the transport carriage can be brought into the position required for the transfer of the objects, e.g. workpieces or pallets, only with a limited accuracy of about plus/minus 25 mm.
In many cases this does not suffice for the attainment of the desired machining accuracy of the objects or the workpieces on the pallets. The means which have previously been developed for the adjustment of the support plane of the carrier element forming the support plane of the lifting device (DE-OS No. 33 45 877) require an additional stand ahead of the processing station, are extensive, and require additional space for the approach of the transport carriage to the station.
OBJECT OF THE INVENTION
It is the object of the invention to provide a simpler, less complex means for the adjustment by means of docking, that is for the accurate, automatic spatial positioning, of the carrier element on the lifting device with the least possible space requirement. At the same time, the possibility, so advantageous in transport carriages with lifting devices, of reaching under and lifting a pallet resting upon a stand (or conversely to deposit the pallet upon a stand by lowering) should be retained. Above all, however, by means of positioning according to the invention, should ensure that the support plane for the transfer and acceptance of pallets or other objects formed by the carrier plane, abutting the stationary machine stand of the station in question, shall come to lie in exactly the plane common to both support planes, in fact in a place within this plane fixed with respect to the stationary support plane of the stand.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This object is achieved in accordance with the invention in that, after the approach to the stationary support plane, the carrier element is lowered from a raised position and is supported on the side facing the
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Bucci David A.
Dubno Herbert
Friedrich Kessler & Co.
Valenza Joseph E.
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