Elongated-member-driving apparatus – With means to move or guide member into driving position – Including carrier feed means for a plurality of members
Patent
1997-03-19
1999-10-12
Harrison, Jessica J.
Elongated-member-driving apparatus
With means to move or guide member into driving position
Including carrier feed means for a plurality of members
227139, B25C 513
Patent
active
059643935
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an apparatus for setting up rivets having a shaft and a head, or similar fasteners, wherein, in particular, the shaft length is equal to or less than the head diameter, ahead of a press-bar or hammer of a fastener-driving machine. The press-bar is adjusted to the head of the fasteners. The apparatus comprises a transfer mechanism which conveys individual fasteners, with the aid of a flowing medium, to a position near the press-bar, which position is intermediate between the press-bar and the workpiece(s) to be fastened.
2. Description of the Related Art
In U.S. Pat. No. 1,730,750 a fastener-driving machine is described which has two parallel upwardly directed rails which deliver fasteners ahead of a press-bar. The heads of the fasteners can glide over the rails, with the shafts of the fasteners hanging in the gap separating the rails. The fastener-driving machine has a holding mechanism mounted to it at the delivery location of the rails in such a way that the head of the forwardmost fastener among the fasteners being conveyed on the rails is gripped from below by two laterally elastic fingers separated at a distance of the shaft diameter, which fingers are oriented toward the press-bar, in the direction of the axis of said press-bar. A disadvantage of this arrangement is that the fasteners are fed by gravity, which results in appreciable imprecision in the axial orientation of the fastener being held in readiness ahead of the press-bar.
In Ger. DE-A-36 31 657 an apparatus is described which is intended for setting up fasteners, wherein individual fasteners are conveyed through a tube by means of pressurized air, into an intermediate position near the press-bar. Each rivet thus conveyed is then transferred from this intermediate position to a position in the driving path of the press-bar, by means of a sliding carrier which can be moved transversely to the driving direction. This solution is disadvantageous in that, particularly where the fastener is a top-heavy body with shaft length equal to or less than head diameter, the apparatus does not reliably orient the fastener in the axial direction. In order for the fastener to be oriented substantially in alignment with the press-bar, a shaft of a certain length is required, so that the shaft will be securely and reliably gripped when the fastener is in the above-mentioned intermediate position. A further disadvantage is that due to the feeding of the fastener into the intermediate position, the down-holding device of the driving mechanism must be kept relatively wide in its dimension transverse to the driving direction, which causes difficulty in using the apparatus to drive fasteners into workpieces having any appreciable three-dimensional contour.
Eur. EP-A-567,240 discloses means of setting up individual fasteners ahead of a press-bar by means of a belt which is passed transversely through the driving machine, wherein a row of identically oriented fasteners is fixed on (or in) said belt. This enables one to align a fastener axially ahead of and with respect to the press-bar, in an accurate and reliable fashion. However, the belt must be disposed of after it delivers all of the fasteners which it bears, and this introduces substantial costs.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, the object of the present invention is to devise a means of reliable and accurate orientation of individual fasteners in their condition of being set up ahead of the press-bar or hammer, in an apparatus of the general type described initially supra, wherein in particular, the inventive means is effective for the described top-heavy fasteners.
This object is achieved according to the invention in that, in an apparatus of the aforesaid general type, the driving machine is provided with a radially elastic holding device which can be moved along with the press-bar, which holding device can hold the head of the fastener in an orientation directed axially toward the press-bar, at a position immediately ahe
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Blacket Stuart Edmund
Feldpausch Michael
Feldpausch Michael
Harrison Jessica J.
Paradiso John
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