Material or article handling – Apparatus for charging a load holding or supporting element... – Load holding or supporting element including gripping means
Patent
1994-10-11
1998-04-07
Merritt, Karen B.
Material or article handling
Apparatus for charging a load holding or supporting element...
Load holding or supporting element including gripping means
4147442, B23Q 704
Patent
active
057356602
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to the handling of loads.
In particular, but not exclusively, the present invention is concerned with the handling of loads in situations in which a plurality of elements, in particular similar elements, are required to be successively positioned at a work station for the purposes of carrying out some operation/process on the elements and then to be transferred, after such operation/process has been carried out, to a receiving position in which elements can be subsequently handled as required. For example, the elements are stacked at the receiving position until a predetermined number has been assembled.
There are many forms of apparatus for the handling of loads.
However, with such known apparatus there are conventionally involved several load transfer stages in which the elements are transfered from support arrangements provided for moving the elements from a first position to a work/process station, from which they are transferred to further means for supporting the elements whilst they are at the work/process station, and then to transfer the elements from such further means to still further transfer arrangements serving to transport the elements away from the work/process station to, for example, a storage position.
It will be appreciated that in relation to present day industrial activities it is invariably desirable to reduce as far as possible the times involved in the working/processing or the like of workpieces. Since the total work time involvement in relation to the processing of a workpiece obviously includes transfer times to and from a work/process station, including the transfer to arrangements for supporting an element whilst at the work/process station, it is of interest to eliminate wherever possible handling operations.
Broadly, according to a first aspect of the invention there is provided a load handling apparatus characterised by means adapted to pickup/entrain an article/element from a supply thereof, to transport the article/element to a position at which it is to be subjected to some operation/process, to support the article/element whilst being subjected to a said operation/process, and also to transfer the article/element from said position to a location at which it is required to place/deposit the processed/worked upon articles/elements.
In accordance with a further aspect of the invention, in a pick and place load handling apparatus the means provided for picking up a load, and subsequently placing the load is/are the same as the means used for handling/supporting the load whilst any operational/process activities may be carried out upon the load.
Preferably, when the apparatus of the invention is utilised for handling saw blades for the purposes of presenting such blades to a blade tooth tipping operation, the apparatus of the present invention is includes means for picking up a blade (i.e., untipped) from a supply containing a plurality of blades; and means for enabling transfer of the blade to a position at which it can be indexed successively to present the teeth of the blade to the tipping station, for supporting the blade whilst it is at the tipping station, for supporting the blade during transfer of the fully tipped blade from the work station to a position at which it is required to place the blade and for off-loading the blade
For a better understanding of the invention and to show how to carry the same into effect reference will now be made to the accompanying drawings in which:
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 schematically illustrates in elevation a first embodiment of load handling apparatus according to the invention;
FIG. 2 is a schematic plan view of the apparatus of FIG. 1, when being utilised for the handling of circular saw blades for the purpose of transferring the blades to apparatus for applying hard material tips to the teeth thereof;
FIG. 3 schematically illustrates to an enlarged scale a detail of a load carrying unit of the apparatus of the present invention;
FIG. 4 schematica
REFERENCES:
patent: 4228701 (1980-10-01), Herpin
patent: 4418589 (1983-12-01), Cowart
Merritt Karen B.
Morse Gregory A.
Razedge Limited
LandOfFree
Load handling does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Load handling, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Load handling will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-7223