Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture – Surface bonding means and/or assembly means therefor – With separate heating means for work
Reexamination Certificate
1999-03-23
2001-06-05
Mayes, Curtis (Department: 1734)
Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture
Surface bonding means and/or assembly means therefor
With separate heating means for work
C156S580000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06240992
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention concerns heating plate welding machines, which are generally used to weld together respective plane or non-plane connecting surfaces of two heat-weldable material parts.
In the heating plate welding machines usually employed, such as that described in document FR-A-2 688 736, for example, a frame carries the various functional units of the machine including a heating plate, a first workpiece-holder device, and a second workpiece-holder device. First means move the heating plate along an insertion travel parallel to its plane between a welding position engaged between the first and second workpiece-holder devices and a loading position withdrawn from the first and second workpiece-holder devices. Second means move the heating plate along a welding travel perpendicular to its plane between two fixed extreme positions. The first workpiece-holder device is fixed to the frame. The second workpiece-holder device is mobile and can be moved by third means along a contact travel perpendicular to the plane of the heating plate, between the extreme positions and toward and away from the first workpiece-holder device.
The movements of the heating plate, along the insertion travel and along the welding travel, are generally linear and driven by cylinders which provide amplitudes of movement limited by the allowed overall size of the cylinders of the machine. Similarly, the second workpiece-holder device is moved along the contact travel by a cylinder providing a limited amplitude of movement.
In operation, at least one first workpiece to be welded is placed on the fixed workpiece-holder, while at least one second workpiece to be welded is fixed to the mobile second workpiece-holder, dedicated tooling providing the connection between each workpiece-holder and the corresponding workpiece to be welded. The machine is set up so that during a heating step the first face of the heating plate can be pressed onto the first workpiece to be welded on the fixed workpiece-holder, while the second workpiece to be welded is pressed against the opposite face of the heating plate by the mobile workpiece-holder. The mobile workpiece-holder is then moved away, after which the heating plate is moved away from the first workpiece to be welded carried by the fixed workpiece-holder and then withdrawn laterally from the two workpiece-holders. The mobile workpiece-holder is operated again to press the connecting surfaces of the two workpieces to be welded against each other, the plastics material being sufficiently softened or melted to assure a weld.
Document FR 2 320 839 A also describes a welding machine conforming to the preamble of claim
1
, with in particular a cylinder for moving a heating iron in a welding travel perpendicular to its plane between two fixed extreme positions.
Document GB 2 085 354 A, in the embodiment of
FIG. 5
, describes a machine in which a heating plate is suspended vertically from a carriage that is movable to adjust it. The heating plate is not held positively and so it can be moved along a particular welding travel.
Clearly, for each given machine, the various movements that are necessary limit the maximal dimensions of workpieces that can be welded.
Workpieces of different shapes can be welded on the same machine by fitting appropriate dedicated tooling, but setting up the machine is complex because the travels of the cylinders moving the heating plate and the mobile workpiece-holder device must remain compatible with the differences in the dimensions of the tooling and the workpieces to be welded.
In prior art machines, the welding travel of the heating plate is constant, the extreme positions of the heating plate being fixed. As a result the variations in the possible sizes of the workpieces to be welded are necessarily small and significantly less than the dimensions of the internal space of the machine.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The problem addressed by the present invention is that of designing improvements to machines for welding workpieces using heating plates which, without modifying the overall size of the machine, and using conventional tooling available until now, significantly increase the possible variations in the dimensions of the workpieces that the machine can weld.
The improved possibilities of modifying the dimensions of workpieces to be welded must preferably be obtained without complicating the operations of control of the cylinders actuating the mobile parts of the machine, and without increasing the travel of the cylinders, so preserving a good speed of the welding cycle.
Accordingly, an improved machine in accordance with the invention must be able to replace a plurality of existing machines each suited to a range of dimensions of the workpieces to be welded.
To achieve the above and other objects, a welding machine in accordance with the invention having a heating plate comprises a frame, a heating plate, a first workpiece support device, a second workpiece support device facing the first workpiece support device, first means for moving the heating plate along an insertion travel parallel to its plane between a welding position engaged between the first and second workpiece support devices and a loading position withdrawn from the first and second workpiece support devices, second means for moving the heating plate along a welding travel perpendicular to its plane between two extreme positions, and third means for moving the second workpiece support device along a contact travel perpendicular to the plane of the heating plate toward and away from the first workpiece support device and between two respective bearing and withdrawn positions; the machine further including indexing means for indexing the welding travel of the heating plate by movement of its two extreme positions of its welding travel perpendicularly to the plane of the heating plate toward or away from the first workpiece support device. Accordingly, in accordance with the invention, the welding travel, that is to say the amplitude of the displacement of the heating plate, retains a constant value, but can be moved in its entirety by the indexing means in its own direction.
In one advantageous embodiment, the heating plate is mounted on a mobile heating plate support bracket movable in translation along said welding travel perpendicular to the plane of the heating plate on a frame itself carried by a heating plate support carriage, the heating plate support carriage being itself movable along said insertion travel parallel to the plane of the heating plate on first guides attached to the frame, the indexing means for indexing the welding travel of the heating plate comprising means for selectively fixing the heating plate support frame to the heating plate support carriage at a plurality of positions offset from each other in the direction perpendicular to the heating plate.
The design of a machine of the above kind can be adapted to heating plates oriented vertically or horizontally. In one preferred embodiment, the heating plate is substantially horizontally oriented, its insertion travel being substantially horizontal and its welding travel being substantially vertical, the first workpiece support device being in a lower position on the frame, and the second workpiece support device being in a higher position on the frame and its contact travel being substantially vertical.
In this embodiment with a horizontal heating plate, the means for indexing the heating plate welding travel can advantageously be such that:
the heating plate support carriage comprises at least two vertical lateral flanges each of which has an indexing opening with a vertical linear main part one edge of which is joined to a plurality of oblique secondary parts diverging from each other in the downward direction and offset from each other in the vertical direction, and
the heating plate support frame comprises transverse horizontal lugs or rods that engage in the indexing openings of the heating plate support carriage, and can slide in said indexing openings to p
Eilberg William H.
Etudes Realisations Techniques et Commerciales
Mayes Curtis
LandOfFree
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