Metal working – Plural diverse manufacturing apparatus including means for... – Binding or covering and cutting
Patent
1990-08-17
1992-06-30
Briggs, William
Metal working
Plural diverse manufacturing apparatus including means for...
Binding or covering and cutting
1988602, B23P 703, B65G 2120
Patent
active
051251400
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention relates to an installation for processing and/or assembling components, having workpiece carriers, which are provided with receptacles for holding components, and, connected thereto, a chain conveyor as a feed drive and having a guidance device disposed in housing parts with guideways for the chain conveyor.
In installations of this type, a basic distinction can be made between so-called loosely concatenated and rigidly concatenated installations. In loosely concatenated installations, the workpiece carriers are moved along the installation completely independently of one another and, in the event that a device in a single workstation breaks down, for a specific period of time this has virtually no effect on the activity of the other workstations. In rigidly concatenated installations, the workpiece carriers are interconnected in their movement so that, if faults arise in the vicinity of one workstation, all the workpiece carriers and all the workstations are blocked. Each of the two types of installation has its own range of application, the rigidly concatenated installations being used where only a few workstations are concatenated since the total utilisation rate is a product of the utilisation rates of the individual workstations. Loosely concatenated installations are generally used to concatenate a plurality of workstations, e.g. up to 40 or more, since in this case the utilisation rate is then a value compounded from the individual occurrences of faults rather than the product of the utilisation rates in the individual stations.
Many different installations with loose concatenation are already known--e.g. from DE-OS 35 02 868, DE-OS 35 02 820, DE-OS 34 11 452, DE-OS 33 04 091 and DE-PS 27 56 422 of the same applicant--which have proved successful in practice for concatenating a plurality of workstations. The workpiece carriers are in each case conveyed along lateral and vertical guideways independently of one another, and appropriate use of conveying rollers pressed against the side surfaces of the workpiece carriers ensures lateral and vertical guidance of the workpiece carriers without any play. Thus, accurate positioning of the workpiece carriers is achieved throughout the entire course of such an installation in cooperation with the drive means.
Rigidly concatenated installations are also known--from DE-OS 26 40 593--in which the individual workpiece carriers are connected by chain conveyors. Up till now, it has been difficult to series-produce such installations or to make them adaptable to varying requirements with a varying number of workstations. It was moreover difficult to install the chain on the assembly or processing devices disposed in the workstations. The further known rigidly concatenated installations for processing and assembling components are formed by rotary tables which may possibly also be concatenated by way of additional conveying devices--e.g. according to DE-OS 31 34 195. Such rigidly concatenated installations, which may be formed by rotary tables, cannot subsequently be extended by adding extra workstations and take up a great deal of room, especially when a plurality of workstations are arranged in tandem. Furthermore, access, assembly and maintenance are made very difficult by the compact arrangement of the assembly and handling devices or processing devices disposed inside the rotary table.
The aim of the present invention is to provide an installation for processing and/or assembling components which is of a simple and well-arranged construction, can easily be adapted to a varying number of workstations and can subsequently be extended at any time. Furthermore, there should be precision guidance of the workpiece carriers in such a rigidly concatenated installation.
The aim of the invention is achieved in that the housing parts are of identical construction and preferably one length of the guideway of said parts is of an identical size, and in that the housing parts are connected to one another and to a chain-guiding station for the chain conveyor by wa
REFERENCES:
patent: 3596752 (1971-08-01), Garvey
patent: 3605994 (1971-09-01), Parlette
patent: 4511031 (1985-04-01), Lachonius
patent: 4881633 (1989-11-01), Cailey et al.
patent: 4951809 (1990-08-01), Bootite
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