Coating apparatus – Projection or spray type – Moving projector
Reexamination Certificate
2001-03-13
2003-03-18
Crispino, Richard (Department: 1734)
Coating apparatus
Projection or spray type
Moving projector
C239S223000, C239S305000, C239S750000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06533861
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention relates to an automatic coating apparatus which is suitable for use, for example, in coating objects such as vehicle bodies and the like.
BACKGROUND ART
Generally, coating objects like automotive vehicle bodies (hereinafter referred to simply as, “vehicle bodies” for brevity) are coated by an automatic coating apparatus which is installed within a coating booth. The automatic coating apparatus of this sort is largely constituted by a working mechanism which is put in action in relation with coating objects which are delivered to the coating booth by a conveyer, and a coater or sprayer unit which is mounted on the working mechanism and arranged to spray paint toward the delivered coating objects.
In this connection, as a working mechanism, it has been the general practice to employ a coating robot which is provided with a plural number of joints to carry out a coating operation on vehicle bodies according to contents of teaching, or a reciprocator which is arranged to reciprocate across a certain range in coating vehicle bodies. In order to follow the movement of vehicle bodies on a conveyer in the course of a coating operation, the working mechanism is usually mounted on a tracking mechanism and thereby moved along the conveyer.
Further, resorted to as a sprayer in most cases are bell-shape sprayers which are arranged to atomize paint mainly by means of a bell-shaped cup which is put in high speed rotation. There have been a diversity of bell-shape sprayers which differ from each other in diametrical size of the bell cup as well as in spurting direction and feed rate of shaping air which forms a spray pattern. A suitable bell-shape sprayer for a coating robot is selected depending upon various conditions such as the shape of an object to be coated, the type and color of paint to be used and coat finishing conditions. Therefore, for coating exterior panels of a vehicle body, for example, it is the general practice to use a bell-shape sprayer with a bell cup of a large diameter, which is suitable for coating broad surface areas and can produce satisfactory coatings in finish quality. On the other hand, for coating interior surfaces of vehicle bodies, a bell-shape sprayer with a bell cup of a small diameter is generally employed because it is more suited for spotwise coating operations.
In the case of a prior art automatic coating apparatus of this sort, different types of sprayers are employed as mentioned above, depending upon the shape of coating objects as well as upon the type and color of paint to be used. In use, each sprayer needs to be integrally mounted on a working mechanism like a coating robot, so that it has been necessary to provide a plural number of automatic coating apparatus along a vehicle body coating line to cope with different coating conditions, despite increases in equipments cost of the production line and in machine installation space, which necessitate to provide a coating booth of an extremely large size.
On the other hand, in order to solve these problems, various attempts have thus far been made to replace the sprayer each time when changing the paint color or conditions of a coating operation, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. S60-122071 and H4-83549.
However, the prior art automatic coating apparatus, which are arranged to replace a sprayer as a whole by a different type, require to provide a plural number of diverse sprayers for each paint color, that is to say, to provide a vast number of sprayers. In addition, the prior art automatic coating apparatus has a drawback that a great deal of labor and time is required in replacing the entire sprayer each time.
Further, in this regard, there have been known in the art cartridge-type coating apparatus which are arranged to mount a sprayer fixedly on a coating robot, while setting a paint cartridge of a selected color replaceably on the sprayer in order to obviate the troublesome job of replacing the entire sprayer (e.g., as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. S63-175662 and H8-229446).
In the case of an automatic coating apparatus which is disclosed in the above-mentioned Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. S63-175662, a paint cartridge which is selected from an assortment of paint cartridges is replaceably loaded on a coating machine before starting a coating operation. At the time of cartridge replacement, by way of a hose which is connected to the sprayer, a wash fluid is supplied to wash away a previous color which has deposited on the sprayer.
On the other hand, an automatic coating apparatus which is disclosed in the other Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. H8-229446 is provided with a plural number of paint cartridges which are replaceably set on a bell-shape sprayer.
However, in the case of these prior art automatic coating apparatus, it is necessary to provide a hose along a robot arm to supply therethrough a wash fluid for washing the sprayer, despite the difficulties of routing the hose to and along the robot arm in a tidy way. In addition, the wash fluid supply hose which droops down between the robot arm and the sprayer may cause a flaw or damage to a coating object by contacting the hose during operation, or may suffer from damages or frictional wear by contacting other component parts of the apparatus.
Furthermore, in the case of a bell-shape sprayer as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. H8-229446, the sprayer with a bell-shape cup which is fixedly mounted on a coating robot in a fixed state requires a long washing time for cleaning the bell cup, and suffers from low productivity because a coating operation is interrupted for a long time while the bell cup is being washed.
DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION
In view of the above-described problems with the prior art, it is an object of the present invention to provide an automatic coating apparatus which is arranged to attach a diversity of bell-shape heads replaceably to a common assembly body which is mounted on a single working mechanism, thereby permitting considerable reductions in cost and apparatus installation space.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an automatic coating apparatus which permits to replace bell-shape heads in a facilitated manner and as a result to enhance the productivity of the apparatus.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide an automatic coating apparatus which permits to carry out and continue a coating operation by the use of one bell-shape head while washing another bell-shape head which was used in a previous coating operation, thus ensuring improved productivity of the apparatus.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an automatic coating apparatus which can facilitate washing operations on bell-shape heads to a significant degree particularly in case the bell-shape heads are of a cartridge-type sprayer which is arranged to be replaceably loaded with a plural number of paint cartridges of different colors.
In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, according to the present invention, three is provided an automatic coating apparatus, which comprises: a working mechanism to be put in predetermined coating actions relative to a coating object; a common main assembly body fixedly mounted on the working mechanism to serve as a main assembly body for a number of sprayers; a number of bell-shape heads each displaceably connectable to the common main assembly body to form a bell-shape sprayers and adapted to spray supplied paint in a finely atomized form by means of a bell-shaped cup rotating at high speed; and a head changer provided within a working area of the working mechanism and adapted to hold a grip on and off the bell-shape heads at the time of replacing a bell-shape head on the common main assembly body.
With the arrangements just described, the head changer is located within a working area of the working mechanism, so that, at the time of replacing the bell-shape head which is replaceably attached to the common main assembly body, the bell-shape head can be automatically replaced by moving s
Abe Yoshiyuki
Arichi Akihiko
Hosoda Toshio
Matsuda Hidetsugu
Yoshida Osamu
ABB K.K.
Crispino Richard
Lazor Michelle A.
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