Metal deforming – By deflecting successively-presented portions of work during... – With cutting of work or product
Patent
1995-02-27
1996-09-17
Larson, Lowell A.
Metal deforming
By deflecting successively-presented portions of work during...
With cutting of work or product
72135, 72129, 72371, B21F 1100, B21F 302, B21D 1114
Patent
active
055557589
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an improved method and apparatus for cutting coiled wire. The invention is applicable with particular advantage to the production of circlips.
Circlips are components used in a wide variety of industries and methods have been developed over the years for the mass production of such circlips. In most cases however the circlip is an important component which has to be accurately machined and treated to ensure the correct parameters of shape, dimension, strength and resilience. Thus, any method of production of a circlip depends not only on the creation of the shape but also on the further processing of the circlip.
The shape of a circlip is generally a split annulus where the annular member is generally planar. Most circlips are not exactly annular since they are designed to have a slightly different shape. However, they can be regarded as approximating to a ring. In the present specification, the term "ring" will be used to cover generally annular members, split annular members and split substantially annular members such as circlips. It is also intended to encompass in its broadest sense a piece cut from a coil which describes over more than 360 degrees.
Traditionally, there are two methods of production of circlips. For smaller circlips of diameter up to around 30 mm, for example, the circlips are pressed out of a steel strip. Most circlips having a diameter greater than 30 mm are created from coiled wire.
When a circlip is formed from coiled wire, once the ring has been cut from coil, the ring has to undergo many treatments. A major problem occurring in circlip manufacture is the tangling of circlips and expensive machinery has been developed to untangle the circlips after treatment. The need for such equipment can be avoided if throughout the production process the circlips can be kept aligned and parallel to one another in a batch. In this way a batch of circlips can be treated together.
One method of producing circlips from wire known at present is to take a length of wire and form a coil from it (the coil could be for example 1.5 m long); then to stop the coiling machine and to make one longitudinal cut along the length of the coil thus splitting the coil into a plurality of rings lying parallel and aligned to one another. The batch of rings can then be pushed on to a support to retain the rings in an orderly arrangement for further processing. The disadvantage of using this method is that it is slow since the method of production of the coil has to be stopped.
An alternative method which involves complex synchronisation is to operate a coiling means via a stepper motor which forms one ring and then stops; a cutting machine then operates to slice one ring off which drops away from the cutting station and the coiling machine then operates again. The formed rings fall beneath the cutting machine in a pile. They are then subject to tangling, which results in time consuming untangling being required.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to the invention, there is provided a method of forming a plurality of aligned rings from a length of wire, in which:
wire passes through a continuously operating coiling station to form a coil about a longitudinal axis;
the free end of the wire describes a helical path about the longitudinal axis and in the direction of the longitudinal axis away from the coiling station until the free end of the wire abuts a stop so arresting further movement of the free end of the wire;
a blade moves from a first retracted position to a second cutting position to cut the coil to form a ring;
the blade then retracts to allow the newly cut free end of the wire to progress forwards in a direction away from the coiling station;
wherein the stop is arranged such that the newly cut ring may be pushed by the free end of the wire forward in a longitudinal direction to be supported and then fed to a further processing station.
Apparatus for forming a plurality of aligned rings from a length of wire comprising:
a coiling station which inc
REFERENCES:
patent: 1560228 (1925-11-01), Garrett
patent: 1839828 (1932-01-01), Booth
patent: 2130324 (1938-09-01), Monahan
patent: 2948322 (1960-08-01), Cox
patent: 3086228 (1963-04-01), Mellowes
patent: 3581368 (1971-06-01), Gilvar
patent: 3906768 (1975-09-01), Papa, Jr.
patent: 4365492 (1982-12-01), Kortan et al.
Ellison Michael S.
Hudson Antony G.
Butler Rodney
Ellison Circlips Group Limited
Larson Lowell A.
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