Patent ID: 9340372
Filing Date: 2016-05-17
CPC Classification: B23P,B65G,F01L,G01B

Claim Text:
1. A workpiece inspection equipment, comprising: a rotating table having along a circumference thereof a first multiplicity of workpiece housing portions spaced apart at equal intervals along the circumference, the rotating table adapted to intermittently rotate through a predetermined angle determined by the first multiplicity of the workpiece housing portions; a workpiece carry-in stage and a workpiece carry-out stage, each provided at a position along the circumference of the rotating table; and a second multiplicity of inspection stages provided at positions along the circumference of the rotating table within a circumferential region that includes the workpiece carry-in stage and the workpiece carry-out stage such that each stage is provided with an inspection device that performs an inspection assigned to the inspection stage on one workpiece housed in one workpiece housing portion of the rotating table, and that at least one of the inspection stages between the work-piece carry-in stage and the workpiece carry-out stage is configured to be a jig-utilizing inspection stage that performs an inspection on said one workpiece transferred from said one workpiece housing portion of the rotating table to a workpiece housing portion of a dedicated jig provided for an inspection device in the neighborhood of the rotating table, and a workpiece transfer mechanism provided between the dedicated jig and the rotating table and adapted to rise, fall, and intermittently rotate in association with an intermittent rotation of the rotating table so as to simultaneously transfer said one workpiece from said one workpiece housing portion of the rotating table to the workpiece housing portion of the dedicated jig and a workpiece, done with the inspection using the dedicated jig, to said one workpiece housing portion of the rotating table, wherein said workpieces are poppet valves each having a valve head integral with a valve stem and the workpiece housing portions of the rotating table and of the dedicated jig are valve-stem receiving holes each adapted to removably receive a stem of a valve inserted from above; wherein the jig-utilizing inspection stage comprises at least one valve-stem receiving hole allocated to a selected apex of a regular polygon that has two neighboring apices, other than said selected apex, located at two neighboring valve-stem receiving holes of the rotating table; wherein the workpiece transfer mechanism intermittently rotates in the same rotational direction and with the same rotational pitch as the rotating table whose rotational pitch equals a distance between any two neighboring valve-stem receiving holes of the rotating table, and wherein the workpiece transfer mechanism is adapted to