Patent ID: 6340282
Filing Date: 2002-01-22
Classification: B23P,B23Q

Abstract:
A handling device for feeding and/or removing workpieces as unfinished parts to and/or from machining or assembly equipment for machining and/or assembly purposes and for picking up workpieces as finished parts after machining and/or assembly, the handling device comprising:(a) workpiece carriers, on which the workpieces are arranged; (b) workpiece-carrier stack units, which have workpiece carriers arranged one above another; (c) a workpiece handling unit, which removes the workpieces from the respective workpiece carrier and feeds them to the machining and/or assembly equipment and, after machining/assembly, sets them down again on the workpiece carrier; (d) a workpiece-carrier handing unit, which feeds the respective workpiece carriers having unmachined workpiece and belonging to a workpiece-carrier stack unit to the workpiece handling unit, from a pick-up position into a standby position and, after its workpieces have been machined, sets this workpiece carriers down from the standby position into a set-down position of a further workpiece-carrier stack unit; (e) a stack transport unit, which transports the workpiece-carrier stack units within the device in a transport direction (T), specifically from a feed position to which the workpiece-carrier stack units having the unmachined workpieces are fed from outside, as far as a removal position, from which the workpiece-carrier stack units having the machined workpieces are removed to the outside; wherein between the feed position and the removal position there is at least one further intermediate position for one workpiece-carrier stack unit in each case; the stack transport unit being constructed such that it can displace at least two workpiece-carrier stack units arranged upstream of the removal position by one position in the transport direction (T) to the removal position; a control device being constructed such that it activates the components in such a way that the workpiece-carrier handling unit removes the workpiece carriers having workpieces to be machined in a pick-up position and, after their workpieces have been machined, sets the workpiece carriers down in a set-down position; and as soon as there is a completely machined workpiece-carrier stack unit in the removal position the pick-up and set-down positions of the workpiece-carrier handling unit are displaced by one position in the direction opposite to the transport direction (T); and after the workpiece-carrier stack unit has been removed from the removal position, the workpiece-carrier stack units located upstream of the removal position are displaced at least partly by one position in the transport direction (T) by means of the stack transport unit and, at the same time, the pick-up position and set-down position of the workpiece-carrier handling unit is also displaced by one position in the transport direction (T) and, as a result, a workpiece-carrier stack unit having workpiece carriers with unmachined workpieces can be introduced into the feed position.