Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture – Surface bonding means and/or assembly means therefor – With work feeding or handling means
Reexamination Certificate
1999-12-30
2001-11-27
Osele, Mark A. (Department: 1734)
Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture
Surface bonding means and/or assembly means therefor
With work feeding or handling means
C156S523000, C156S579000, C118S076000, C242S160400, C242S171000, C242S588600
Reexamination Certificate
active
06321816
ABSTRACT:
The invention relates to a reel arrangement for a device for transferring a film located on one side of a foil tape to a substrate, comprising a feed reel for the foil tape, a take-up reel for the foil tape after the film has been transferred, said take-up reel being coaxial with the feed reel, and a friction coupling provided between the two reels so as to drive the take-up reel from the feed reel side under slipping.
Devices for transferring adhesive films or correction colour films, or reel arrangements therefor, respectively, have become known in varying embodiments. Thus, e.g., DE 37 36 367 C shows a hand device for transferring a film from a carrier foil to a substrate, in which the tape-shaped carrier foil is reeled off a first reel, guided over an applicator, where the film is transferred to a substrate, e.g. paper, and then is reeled up again on a second reel. The two reels are arranged separate from each other, and the tape plane of the carrier foil remains unchanged during the entire procedure. Thus, this device is comparatively awkward as a hand-used device since, due to the two successively arranged reels, it must be rather large and, furthermore, must be actuated in a relatively uncomfortable position of the hand, the hand extending over the top of the device, by its back inhibiting the view of the location of transfer.
Similar hand-used devices having successively arranged feed and take-up reels, having the drawbacks described, are disclosed in EP 427,870 A. Moreover, this document also shows a hand device having a co-axial arrangement of feed and take-up reels, a friction coupling being realized between the two reels by means of a sphere against which the two reels are axially forced by aid of springs. This embodiment, however, also gives rise to an awkward, large structural height of the device, apart from the expenditures at production and the cumbersome mounting of the spring-biased reels in the housing.
An other hand-used device which is to be held and actuated similarly is known from U.S. 5,380,395 A, in which the feed reel simultaneously serves as application device for adhesive members resting on the carrier tape. Although in this case the tool as such is compact and small—because the used tape is guided out of the housing and can be cut off—, the tape projecting from the housing is experienced as hindering. Moreover, the user cannot control the exact application site very well.
In EP 368,070 A, furthermore, a hand-used device is described in which the axes of the feed and take-up reels are inclined relative to each other by an angle. Between the reel hubs, a kind of toothed coupling is active, the one set of teeth being arranged on separate, elastic coupling ratchets. Thereby, the thus realized coupling can slip with a correspondingly high safety torque, by the teeth sliding above one another, with the coupling ratchets resiliently bending inwardly. This design is, however, extremely complex and expensive to produce, and, moreover, also the slip torque can be controlled with little exactness only.
DE 196 09 533 C1 discloses a gear arrangement for a take-up reel of a transfer dispenser wherein an annular sleeve is provided with an external toothing which meshes with an internal toothing on the reel core of the feed reel. Hence follows that both reels are not and cannot be arranged coaxially, i.e. the axes of the two reels are provided at a distance from each other, which renders their connection to a unit in the manner of an exchangeable cassette difficult and increases the costs therefor and the dimensions of the reel arrangement. Slipping of the take-up reel is enabled by radial supporting webs integral with the annular sleeve and resilient webs extending from the radial supporting webs approximately at right angles, the resilient webs contacting the inner circumference of the reel core of the take-up reel under resilient bias. It is not possible to exactly determine the torque range with respect to an entrainment or slipping of the take-up reel, i.e. particularly also when taking into consideration the dimensional changes of the respective parts in case of temperature variations, apart from the fact that the annular sleeve forming the friction coupling being comparatively complex to produce with its supporting and resilient webs on the one hand and the external toothing on the other hand.
Finally, from EP 377,085 A a device for applying an adhesive film and comprising co-axial arrangement of feed and take-up reels is known, wherein, moreover, a friction or slip coupling is operating between the two reels. This, however, is a (particularly magnetic) disk coupling, axially directed surfaces contacting each other and, if need be, being capable of slipping relative to each other. Also this device is comparatively unprecise and rough in terms of torque control, so that the tape is liable to tear.
In this connection it should be mentioned that the transmission of torque in the transfer devices of the type mentioned here is relatively delicate; when drawing off the full tape from the feed or supply reel, when applying a correction colour film or an adhesive film or the like to the respective substrate, this feed reel is driven, the latter being intended to drive the take-up reel via the friction coupling, so that the foil tape from which the film has now already been transferred will be wound up accordingly on the take-up reel. The drive of both reels thus strictly speaking is effected in the region of the applicator, by displacing the device over the substrate while drawing off the foil tape, so that the latter is reeled off the feed reel. The feed reel has a smaller tape coil diameter or reel hub diameter as compared to the take-up reel, so that with an equal number of revolutions of the two reels, a higher peripheral speed and thus a higher tape speed would be caused on the take-up reel. This is where the function of the friction coupling enters, which must allow for a slipping of the take-up reel so as to arrive at equal tape speeds both at the feed reel and at the take-up reel. The friction or slip coupling thus must be dimensioned within an extremely narrow torque range so as to ensure an adequate tension in the foil tape both at the start of use of the device, when there is still a full tape coil on the feed reel, (whereas on the take-up reel there will be only one or two layers of foil tape,) and towards the end of use, when the almost complete foil tape has been wound up on the take-up reel, so that there the tape coil will have a correspondingly even larger diameter as compared to the tape coil on the feed reel, so that the tape will be guided neither too loosely (so that it would in particular be reeled off into a loop on the outside of the device), nor tensioned too much (in which case it would tear). Thus, the friction coupling should ensure a corresponding torque transmission, or a slipping, respectively, with the friction being dimensioned accordingly. For this, the afore-mentioned known embodiments have all proved to be too unprecise and unsuitable. Above all, tests have shown that friction coupling systems based on a resilient bias of components relatively quickly change the characteristics due to fatigue or temperature influences, in particular lose friction, so that the tape will no longer be reeled up.
It is now an object of the invention to provide a reel arrangement of the initially defined type which not only allows for a compact and handy construction and a comfortable control of the transmission procedure when using the associated device, but also reliably allows for an exact control of the torque transmission and definition of the safety torque over extended periods of time so as to always keep the foil tape under an adequate tension without tearing the latter and without the possible formation of a loose loop.
The reel arrangement according to the invention and of the initially defined type is characterized in that the friction coupling comprises at least one radially resilient arm which is non-rotationally connected with the one
Kores Holding Zug AG
Osele Mark A.
Pillsbury & Winthrop LLP
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