Winding – tensioning – or guiding – Helical or random winding of material – Including wound package or empty spool handling
Reexamination Certificate
2001-10-12
2004-01-20
Mansen, Michael R. (Department: 3654)
Winding, tensioning, or guiding
Helical or random winding of material
Including wound package or empty spool handling
C294S082230, C294S115000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06679450
ABSTRACT:
CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application claims the benefit of German patent application 10050693.3 filed Oct. 13, 2000, herein incorporated by reference.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a tube feeding device for a work station of a cheese-producing textile machine equipped with an arrangement for transferring an empty tube from a tube reservoir into a tube transfer position for placement on a pivotably seated creel.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
It is known to provide cheese-producing textile machines with traveling service units, also known as cheese changers, which can be moved along the work stations of these textile machines and can be positioned at the individual work stations when needed. Similarly, it is also known to provide such machines with separate changing devices, which are arranged stationarily at the work stations.
For example, a traveling service unit which can be moved along the work stations, can be positioned at the respective work station when needed thereat to replace a finished cheese with an empty tube, is described, for example, in German Patent Publication DE 37 26 508 A1.
This known movable service unit has a multitude of manipulating devices, which are controlled in accordance with a preset program during a change cycle.
Among other things, the service unit has a tube ejection arm which, when needed, transfers the finished cheese to a special conveying device extending over the length of the machine, as well as a tube gripper, which removes an empty tube from a tube reservoir forming part of the work station, and places the empty tube into the creel of the respective work station. In this case, the tube gripper has individual gripper fingers, whose initial position can be manually adjusted in accordance with the tube format to be manipulated.
A comparable service unit is also described in European Patent Publication EP 0 126 352 B1.
This known service unit is provided with a tube feeder arranged on a pivotably seated intermediate frame, which is also quite elaborate. Depending on whether the tube feeder is required to handle cylindrical or conical empty tubes, the intermediate frame can be pivoted into a first or a second operating position. In accordance with European Patent Publication EP 0 126 352 B1, tube holders are also located on the output side of an empty tube reservoir, which can be manually set in accordance with the respective tube diameter.
Since the structural design of such complex operating units as a whole is relatively elaborate and complicated, the manufacture of such units also becomes quite costly.
Therefore various attempts have been made in the past to replace these movable, relatively complicated service units by stationary, simply constructed changing devices at each one of the work stations of a textile machine.
Other textile machines are described in German Patent Publications DE 21 57 304 B and DE 21 21 426 B, for example, each of whose work stations have a creel, which can be pivoted between a winding position and a cheese delivery position.
Moreover, an empty tube reservoir is assigned to the individual work stations, whose outlet can be positioned within the pivot range of the creel in such a way that, after having delivered the finished cheese, the creel can be automatically provided with a fresh empty tube.
A comparable device is also known from European Patent Publication EP 0 157 654 B1.
With this bobbin-winding machine, the individual work stations are also each equipped with a creel which is pivotable between a winding position, a cheese delivery position and an empty tube pickup position.
Each work station is also assigned its own tube reservoir, which can be acted upon by means of a pivot drive mechanism such that the tube at the front in the tube reservoir can be brought exactly to the level of the empty tube pickup position of the creel and can be picked up thereat by the closing creel.
A textile machine with stationary changing devices at each work station, as well as an associated empty tube reservoir, is also represented and described in German Patent Publication DE 195 28 983 A1 embodied in a false twist machine.
However, all of the above described changing devices have the serious flaw that they are only designed for a defined tube format.
Thus the empty tube reservoirs are each designed and arranged such that the empty tube feeding position of the empty tube reservoir corresponds with the empty tube pickup position of the creel only at a defined tube diameter. When changing the tube format, extensive manual adjustment or retrofitting work is respectively required, if this is even possible at all with the known devices.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In view of the above mentioned known machines and devices, it is an object of the present invention to provide a more simplified and cost-effective device for the introduction of empty tubes, even of different format, into the creels of the work stations of a cheese-producing textile machine.
In accordance with the present invention, this object is attained by means of a tube feeding device for a work station of a cheese-producing textile machine having an arrangement for transferring an empty tube from a storage position in a tube reservoir into a tube transfer position for presentation to a pivotably seated creel between rotatable tube receiving plates thereof. Briefly summarized, the tube feeding device comprises a tube gripper configured to be automatically adjustable to the diameter and the shape of an empty tube for displacing a central longitudinal axis of the empty tube during a tube transfer operation independently of the shape or the diameter of the empty tube such that, in the tube transfer position of the tube transferring arrangement, the central longitudinal axis of the empty tube coincides with a common axis of rotation of the tube receiving plates of the creel.
Briefly summarized, the tube feeding device comprises a tube gripper configured to be automatically adjustable to the diameter and the shape of an empty tube for displacing a central longitudinal axis of the empty tube during a tube transfer operation independently of the shape or the diameter of the empty tube such that, in the tube transfer position of the tube transferring arrangement, the central longitudinal axis of the empty tube coincides with a common axis of rotation of the tube receiving plates of the creel.
The tube feeding device in accordance with the present invention has the particular advantage that such a tube feeding device makes it possible without problems to transfer empty tubes of any arbitrary diameter or of different shapes (cylindrical or conical) to a creel or to change the tube format, without any prior adjustment work being necessary.
Thus, the tube feeding device in accordance with the present invention picks up the respective empty tube with is tube gripper from a preferably stationary tube reservoir, which is a part of the winding head, and conveys it into a tube transfer position, in which it can be taken over by the creel. In the course of this transport, the center longitudinal axis of the empty tube is automatically aligned such that, in the tube transfer position of the tube feeding device, it exactly coincides with the axis of rotation of the tube receiving plate positioned thereat. The empty tube can subsequently be securely grasped between the rotatably seated tube receiving plates when the creel is closed.
In a preferred embodiment, the tube gripper has a pressure application piston, which is seated to be vertically displaceable and is functionally connected with the gripper finger pairs. The gripper finger pairs are themselves fixed on connecting brackets to be rotatable to a limited extent. In this case, the functional coupling of the pressure application piston, or of a pressure application plate tiltably arranged on the pressure application piston, with the gripper finger pairs results in every movement of this pressure application piston and/or plate to lead to a comparable, but oppositely directed movement
Kennedy Covington Lobdell & Hickman LLP
Mansen Michael R.
W. Schlafhorst AG & Co.
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