Conveyors: fluid current – Fluid current conveyor outlet means – With material separating receptacle
Patent
1998-02-17
2000-11-14
Noland, Kenneth W.
Conveyors: fluid current
Fluid current conveyor outlet means
With material separating receptacle
29474, B65G 5360
Patent
active
061460583
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a machine for feeding and assembling seals to wires, for example single wire to electrical or fibre optic wires.
2. Summary of the Prior Art
Many electrical or optical connectors are provided with individual seals positioned around the wires for sealing such wires within a housing. Single wire seals are often assembled to the end of a wire prior to mounting of a terminal or ferrule to the wire end. Assembly of seals to wire ends thus often occurs in a harness-making-machine, as one of the processing steps in the manufacture of a harness.
Seals are typically made of elastomeric material, and they are inserted over the wire end by expanding the seals over a hollow tube within which the wire end is fed, subsequently pushing the seal off the tube onto the wire, and retracting the wire from the tube for further processing. In order to increase automation of the assembly procedure, the individual seals are sometimes mounted on a flexible support strip and fed as bandware to the seal insertion station. An alternative seal feeding method is to have a seal sorting station comprising a tumbling container and a feed track. Loose seals are tumbled by the tumbling container onto the vibrating track that captures the loose seals and feeds them to the seal insertion station. The latter procedure has the advantage of avoiding assembly of seals to a support strip thereby reducing costs and material waste.
Certain harness-making-machines have a modular construction where various processing stations such as crimping stations, wire end stripping stations and seal assembly stations are positioned in a juxtaposed manner, the type and number of stations depending on the complexity and level of automation required to manufacture a harness. In order to reduce space usage, cost and cycle time, it is advantageous to produce compact stations, in particular with regards to their width in the wire transporting direction, such that many stations can be positioned adjacent each other over a short distance. One of the problems with tumblers, is that the tumbling movement requires space, in particular a relatively large width in the wire transporting direction.
Many harness-making-machines transport wires to different stations by means of grippers holding the wire ends and fed by a conveyor or other transport system. At a processing station, the wire end is often moved to accomplish the processing operation. In order to increase simplicity of the conveying system that grips and feeds the wire ends, it is often more advantageous to reduce the amount of movement of the wire end thereby enabling provision of simpler grippers and faster cycle time.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of this invention to provide a compact, reliable and effective seal processing machine, in particular compact with regards to its space requirements in the direction of conveyance of a harness-making-machine.
It is another object of this invention to provide a seal processing machine that reduces the complexity of the overall harness making machine, by limiting the need to move the wire end during processing.
Objects of this invention have been achieved by providing a seal processing station comprising a seal sorting and feeding unit that comprises a container for receiving loose seals therein, the seal feeding unit further comprising an air feed for feeding seals from a bottom end of the container to a top end whereby a seal feeding track projects into a lower part of the container for receiving seals that fall thereonto from the top of the container. The upper part of the container above the feeding track may be separated from the lower part of the container, by a wall having an outlet for allowing a controlled flow of seals from the top part of the container into the lower part of the container. An adjustment plate can be positioned below the outlet and can be adjusted to different heights to vary the flow of seals, and in an advantageous embodiment the adjustment plate can
REFERENCES:
patent: 4356626 (1982-11-01), Waghorn
patent: 5083369 (1992-01-01), Cerda
See PCT International Search Report for any references that are not enclosed herewith.
Gerst Michael
Herzog Jorg
Hoffmann Hans-Peter
Knapp Horst
Quiring Hans
Noland Kenneth W.
The Whitaker Corporation
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