# Patent

## Title
Cam mechanism and liquid sending pump having same

## Abstract

A lubricant supply mechanism is provided to an upper portion of a cam. A fixing member of the lubricant supply mechanism includes a recovery blade as a lubricant recovery member having lower end portions in contact with side face peripheral edge portions of the cam. The lower end portions of the recovery blade are in contact with the side face peripheral edge portions of the cam. An angle θ, which the lower end portions of the recovery blade make with a direction of rotation of the cam is smaller than 90°.

## Background
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cam mechanism for operating plungers of a plunger pump and a liquid sending pump having the cam mechanism. Particularly, the cam mechanism relates to one having a lubricant supply mechanism for supplying lubricant to contact portions between cams and cam followers.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a liquid sending pump used for sending a solution such as mobile phase in liquid chromatograph, there is a pump formed to convert rotary movement of a motor into reciprocating movement in a certain direction by a cam mechanism to drive plungers (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 7-318548, for example). Base end portions of the plungers are retained by cam followers and the cam followers are displaced following peripheral faces of the cams to thereby reciprocate the plungers in a certain direction. When tip ends of the plungers are inserted into pump chambers in pump heads and slide, the solution is taken into the pump chambers and discharged from the pump chambers.
In such a liquid sending pump, mechanisms for supplying lubricant to contact portions between the cams and the cam followers are provided in order to minimize a load on the motor so that rotation of the motor is controlled with high accuracy. A common lubricant supply mechanism is one formed to apply the lubricant on the peripheral face of the cam by retaining a sponge impregnated with the lubricant in a position in contact with the peripheral face of the cam.
However, part of the lubricant applied on the peripheral face of the cam is pushed out of the contact portion between the cam and the cam follower, flows to side faces of the cam, and is wasted without utilized as the lubricant. In prior art, the lubricant flowing to the side faces of the cam cannot be utilized and some of the lubricant impregnated into the sponge of the lubricant supply mechanism is wasted.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore an object of the present invention to improve use efficiency of lubricant supplied to contact portions between cams and cam followers.
A cam mechanism according to the invention includes: a cam which has a peripheral face supplied with lubricant and a pair of parallel side faces sandwiching the peripheral face and which is driven for rotation; a cam follower in contact with the peripheral face and following displacement of the peripheral face due to the rotation of the cam; and a lubricant recovery member in contact with the opposite side faces of the cam, having such a length as to reach at least cam side face peripheral edge portions, which are boundaries between the side faces and the peripheral face, and disposed at an inclination angle smaller than 90° with respect to a direction of rotation of the cam.
Here, “the direction of rotation of the cam” means a direction of movement of tangency points of the cam side faces with the lubricant recovery member. FIGS. 3A and 3B show a relationship between an inclination angle of the lubricant recovery member 26 with respect to the direction of rotation of the cam and a direction of movement of the lubricant 30 recovered by the lubricant recovery member 26. As shown in FIG. 3A, if an angle θ between the lubricant recovery member 26 and the direction of rotation of the cam 19 is smaller than 90°, force toward the peripheral face along the lubricant recovery member 26 acts on the lubricant 30 held back by the lubricant recovery member 26 due to the rotation of the cam 19. As a result, the lubricant 30 held back by the lubricant recovery member 26 is guided toward the peripheral face. On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 3B, if the angle θ between the lubricant recovery member 26 and the direction of rotation of the cam 19 is larger than 90°, force toward an opposite side from the peripheral face along the lubricant recovery member 26 acts on the lubricant 30 held back by the lubricant recovery member 26 due to the rotation of the cam 19, and it is impossible to guide the lubricant 30 toward the peripheral face. Because the lubricant recovery member 26 is inclined at the angle smaller than 90° with respect to the direction of rotation of the cam 19 in the invention, the lubricant 30 on the cam side faces can be recovered and guided toward the peripheral face.
As described above, because the cam mechanism according to the invention includes the lubricant recovery member disposed at the inclination angle smaller than 90° with respect to the direction of rotation of the cam, the lubricant on the side faces of the cam is recovered and guided again to the peripheral face, and it is possible to utilize the lubricant which has flowed to the cam side faces and which could not be utilized in the prior art. In this way, it is possible to improve the use efficiency of the lubricant.
It is preferable to further include a lubricant retaining member in contact with the peripheral face of the cam and for retaining the lubricant. In this case, by retaining the lubricant in the lubricant retaining member, it is possible to constantly apply the lubricant on the peripheral face of the cam.
A liquid sending pump according to the invention is formed so that a plunger is retained by a cam follower, which is displaced following a peripheral face of a cam, the plunger is reciprocated on a straight line by rotating the cam, and a solution is taken into and discharged out of a pump chamber in which a tip end of the plunger is inserted. As a cam mechanism including a cam and a cam follower, the cam mechanism according to the invention is used.



BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a schematic top view of an embodiment of an internal structure of a liquid sending pump.
FIG. 2A is a front view of a cam mechanism in the embodiment and FIG. 2B is a side view of one of the cams from a direction of a section of a rotary shaft.
FIGS. 3A and 3B are conceptual diagrams for explaining a relationship between an angle, which a lubricant recovery portion and a direction of rotation of a cam form with each other, and a direction of movement of lubricant held back by the lubricant recovery portion, in which FIG. 3A shows a case of 0°<θ<90° and FIG. 3B shows a case of 90°<θ.
FIG. 4 is a schematic sectional view of pump heads when the present invention is applied to a double-plunger liquid sending pump.
FIG. 5 is a sectional view of a primary pump head out of the pump heads in FIG. 4.



DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
An embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2.
The liquid sending pump includes a pump head 2 and a driving portion. FIG. 1 shows an internal structure of the driving portion and a concrete example of the pump head 2 will be described later by using FIGS. 4 and 5. Although an internal structure of the pump head 2 is not shown in FIG. 1, the pump head 2 has two pump heads connected in series as an example. Pump chambers in the respective pump heads are provided with flow paths, which serve as solution inlets and solution outlets. Plungers 6a and 6b are inserted into the pump chambers in the respective pump heads from their tip end sides. When the tip end portions of the plungers 6a and 6b slide in the pump chambers, a solution is taken in and discharged at different times in the respective pump chambers to continuously send the solution.
The pump head 2 may include two pump heads connected in parallel or only one pump head.
Base end portions of the plungers 6a and 6b are respectively retained by cam followers 7a and 7b, which are also called cross heads. The cam followers 7a and 7b are retained by a retaining member 10 in such states as to be able to reciprocate on straight lines. The cam followers 7a and 7b are biased by elastic members (not shown) to an opposite side from the pump head 2 and base end portions of the cam followers 7a and 7b are respectively pushed against peripheral faces of cams 19a and 19b. 
A motor 8 for driving the cams 19a and 19b is fixed to the retaining member 10 by bolts 20. A rotary shaft 8a of the motor 8 passes through a through hole formed in the retaining member 10 and a pulley 12 is attached to a tip end of the rotary shaft 8a. The pulley 12 is connected to a pulley 16 attached to one end of a driving shaft 18 by a belt 14. Both of the cams 19a and 19b are mounted to the driving shaft 18 and rotate as the driving shaft 18 rotates.
In other words, the rotary shaft 8a is rotated by driving of the motor 8 and the rotation is transmitted to the driving shaft 18 by the belt 14 to rotate the cams 19a and 19b. If the cams 19a and 19b rotate, the cam followers 7a and 7b pushed against the peripheral faces of the cams 19a and 19b reciprocate on straight lines following the peripheral faces of the cams 19a and 19b and, as a result, the plungers 6a and 6b retained by the cam followers 7a and 7b slide in the pump chambers in the pump head 2 to take in and discharge the solution.
As shown in FIG. 2A, provided to upper portions of the cams 19a and 19b are lubricant supply mechanisms 22a and 22b for supplying lubricant for allowing the cam followers 7a and 7b to smoothly slide along the peripheral faces of the cams 19a and 19b. A structure of the lubricant supply mechanism 22a is shown in FIG. 2B.
The lubricant supply mechanism 22a includes a fixing member 23a and the fixing member 23a is fixed to a cover (not shown) covering the cam mechanism including, for example, the cam follower 7a and the cam 19a. The fixing member 23a retains a lubricant retaining member 24a made of sponge impregnated with the lubricant. The lubricant is, for example, metallic soap based grease. The lubricant retaining member 24a is in contact with the peripheral face of the cam 19a. 
The fixing member 23a has a recovery blade 25a. Because lower end portions 26a of the recovery blade 25a are in contact with side face peripheral edge portions of the cam 19a, the recovery blade 25a serves as the lubricant recovery member. The recovery blade 25a is provided to cover the upper portion of the cam 19a from above the cam 19a, has a width which is greater than a width of the peripheral face of the cam 19a and is gradually decreasing, and has the lower end portions 26a in contact with opposite side faces of the cam 19a. Because the recovery blade 25a is inclined with respect to the side faces of the cam 19a and the lower end portions 26a are in contact with the side faces of the cam 19a, the lubricant flowing from the peripheral face to the side faces of the cam 19a is held back and recovered by the lower end portions 26a. Here, the inclination angle of the recovery blade 25a with respect to the side faces of the cam 19a is preferably about 5° to 85°.
An angle θ that the lower end portions 26a of the recovery blade 25a make with the direction of rotation of the cam 19a is smaller than 90°. As a result, as described by using FIG. 3A, force applied to the lubricant held back by the lower end portions 26a due to rotation of the side faces of the cam 19a acts toward the peripheral face of the cam 19a along the lower end portions 26a, and therefore, the lubricant on the side faces of the cam 19a is guided to the peripheral face.
Because the other lubricant supply mechanism 22b has the same structure as the lubricant supply mechanism 22a, it will not be described here in detail.
As described above, because the recovery blades 25a and 25b for guiding the lubricant on the side faces of the cams 19a and 19b toward the peripheral face are provided, the lubricant that has flowed to the side faces of the cams 19a and 19b can be used efficiently and use efficiency of the lubricant is improved. Because the lubricant retaining members 24a and 24b of the lubricant supply mechanisms 22a and 22b can retain the lubricant guided to the peripheral faces by the recovery blades 25a and 25b again and apply the lubricant on the peripheral faces of the cams 19a and 19b, a rate of decrease of the lubricant in the lubricant retaining members 24a and 24b can be suppressed and consumption of the lubricant can be reduced.
FIG. 4 shows an example of the pump head 2 in FIG. 1. The pump head 2, for example, forms a pump for sending mobile phase to a column in high-speed liquid chromatograph. In this example, the two pump heads 2a and 2b are connected in series to form a double-plunger reciprocating liquid sending pump in order to suppress pulsation at the time of sending of the mobile phase. An intake side of the primary pump head 2a is connected to a mobile phase vessel 115 for storing the mobile phase with a check valve 110a interposed therebetween, and a discharge side is connected to an intake side of the secondary pump head 2b with a check valve 110b interposed therebetween. A discharge side of the secondary pump head 2b is connected to the column of the high-speed liquid chromatograph.
FIG. 5 shows a concrete example of the primary pump head 2a. A structure of the secondary pump head 2b is the same as that of the primary pump head 2a except that it is not provided with check valves, and therefore, the secondary pump head 2b is not shown.
The pump head 2a having, in itself, the pump chamber 108a, an intake flow path 108b, and a discharge flow path 108c is mounted to a tip end of a pump body 102. The pump head 2 in FIG. 1 includes the pump body 102. In the pump body 102, the cam follower 7b in contact with a base end portion of the plunger 6b is housed and biased by a spring 106 in a direction opposite from the pump head 2a. The plunger 6b is retained on a tip end side of the cam follower 7b, and the tip end of the plunger 6b is inserted into the pump chamber 108a. 
The cam follower 7b is caused to reciprocate on a straight line (in a left-right direction in FIG. 5) by a driving mechanism (see FIG. 1) including the cam 19b, and, as a result, the plunger 6b also reciprocates on the straight line to increase and decrease a capacity in the pump chamber 108a. The intake flow path 108b is connected to a pipe 129, which is connected to the vessel for storing the mobile phase, with the check valve 110a interposed therebetween, and the discharge flow path 108c is connected to a pipe 128, which is connected to the secondary pump head 2b, with the check valve 110b interposed therebetween.
Between the tip end portion of the pump body 102 and the pump head 2a, a plunger seal 112, a seal holder 114, and a cleaning seal 116 are sandwiched in this order from the pump head 2a side. The plunger seal 112 is for sealing the pump chamber 108a while retaining the plunger 6b for sliding at a portion of the pump chamber 108a where the plunger 6b is inserted and the plunger seal 112 is supported by the seal holder 114.
The seal holder 114 has, in itself, a cleaning chamber 118 and cleaning chamber flow paths 120 and 124. A pipe 121 for supplying a cleaning solution is connected to the cleaning chamber flow path 120, and a pipe 125 for discharging the cleaning solution from the cleaning chamber 118 is connected to the cleaning chamber flow path 124. The cleaning chamber 118 is sealed with the cleaning seal 116.

## Claims

1. A cam mechanism comprising:
a cam having a peripheral face supplied with lubricant and a pair of parallel side faces sandwiching the peripheral face, the cam being driven for rotation;
a cam follower in contact with the peripheral face and following, displacement of the peripheral face due to the rotation of the cam; and
a lubricant recovery member configured to direct lubricant on the side faces of the cam to the peripheral face, the lubricant recovery member being in contact with the pair of parallel side faces of the cam, having such a length as to reach at least cam side face peripheral edge portions, which are boundaries between the side faces and the peripheral face, and being disposed such that a line of contact between the lubricant recovery member and a side face of the cam is at an inclination angle smaller than 90° with respect to a direction of rotation of the cam.

2. The cam mechanism according to claim 1, further comprising a lubricant retaining member in contact with the peripheral face of the cam and for retaining the lubricant.

3. A liquid sending pump comprising:
a cam mechanism including:
a cam having a peripheral face supplied with lubricant and a pair of parallel side faces sandwiching the peripheral face, the cam being driven for rotation;
a cam follower in contact with the peripheral face and following displacement of the peripheral face due to the rotation of the cam; and
a lubricant recovery member configured to direct lubricant on the side faces of the cam to the peripheral face, the lubricant recovery member being in contact with the pair of parallel side faces of the cam, having such a length as to reach at least cam site face peripheral edge portions, which are boundaries between the side faces and the peripheral face, and being disposed such that a line of contact between the lubricant recovery member and a side face of the cam is at an inclination angle smaller than 90° with respect to a direction of rotation of the cam;
a pump chamber; and
a plunger having a base end portion in contact with the cam follower and a tip end portion inserted into the pump chamber and for reciprocating on a straight line as the cam rotates to increase and decrease a capacity of the pump chamber to thereby take and discharge solution into and out of the pump chamber.

4. The liquid sending pump according to claim 3, further comprising a lubricant retaining member in contact with the peripheral face of the cam and for retaining the lubricant.