A TRANSPORT DEVICE FOR REMOVING AND INSERTING PLATES IN A MAGAZINE

Abstract: A transport device for removing and inserting plates in a magazine is suggested. In this magazine the plates are arranged in parallel with and on a distance from each other and rest upon ribs or in grooves at the sides of the magazine. The transport device includes a carriage that can be moved with its one end close to a plate which shall be caught. The catching device proper consists of a lower transport belt (9) and a holding down member (15) arranged thereabove so that a clamp nip is obtained between these two elements. When the edge of the plate engages between these two elements it will in particular come into friction engagement with the endless belt (9), so that the plate will be transported along the upper surface of the belt (9) away from the magazine. Advantageously the transport device is used for electronic circuit cards and in this case there are two clamping devices of the above described type, which are located aligned along the two edges of the circuit card that rests upon the ribs or is introduced into the grooves at the sides of the magazine.

Description: A transport device for removing and inserting plates in a magazine The present invention relates to a transport device for removing and inserting plates in a magazine, in particular electronic circuit cards. In known automatic systems for getting out and putting back circuit cards in a magazine, magazines are used, which are provided with grooves or ribs at the edges in or on which the different circuit cards rest. On the backside of the magazine there is furthermore an opening, through which a shifting out means can be introduced for pushing out the circuit card from the magazine at the front side thereof. The magazine is then also movable up and down so that it can be located with the circuit card concerned exactly in front of the shifting out means. In the same way magazines are designed which are intended for receiving circuit cards, with the exception that here instead a pulling in means is provided at the back side of the magazine, that catches the edge of the circuit card and pulls in the card into the intended groove in the magazine. Thus, in this case one magazine is generally required from which circuit cards are removed, and another receiving magazine, in which circuit cards are put in when some work operation has been performed thereon. Furthermore, two lift means are required, one for each magazine, for setting the respective magazine on the right height with respect to the pushing out or pulling in means, respectively. In order to allow the pulling in means to get hold of the circuit card it is also required that a considerable area at a transverse edge of the card is not provided with components, wereby the useful surface of the card is reduced. According to the invention a transport device is suggested by means of which these drawbacks are removed and furthermore other advantages are obtained. The characteristic features of the invention appear from the attached patent claims. Thus, there is used a magazine of the same type as mentioned above, but without any opening on the back side. The magazine at the side walls thereof has ribs, grooved inner side plates or grooves directly provided in the material of the wall, on which or in which, respectively, the plates or circuit cards are intended to be placed, in general horizontally above and in parallel with each other. Furthermore, there is provided in the magazine rear stops for the introduced plates so that these cannot be introduced too far into the magazine but protrude at the opening of the magazine in a suitable way. Thus, the plates lie supported in the magazine with the great surfaces thereof in parallel to each other, usually with these surfaces horizontal. The transport device operates from the open frontside of the magazine and is movable to the magazine so that the transport device and the parts included therein can catch the intended plate from the frontside, or, respectively, transfer back a plate to the space thereof. The magazine is used as above with a lift system which can move the magazine vertically. The transport device proper is, however, movable in a direction in parallel with the great surfaces of the plates and in parallel with the edges of the plates which rest on or, respectively, are introduced in the grooves at the sides of the magazine. The parts of the transport device which catch an edge of a plate are comprised of an endless belt and a holding device or holding down member cooperating therewith. The endless belt runs on suitable elements, e.g. rolls, and is furthermore powered by a suitable control motor acting upon one of the rollers. The upper path of the belt is ended by a deflection roller on the side of the transport device facing the magazine. Above this utmost end portion of the upper path of the belt said holding device is mounted. It has a lower surface lying immediately above the upper surface of the belt so that a plate can be clamped in the interspace thereby formed. When thus the transport device is moved to the vicinity of the plate that shall be collected, the edge portion of the plate is clamped down towards the upper surface of the belt by means of the holding down member. The transport belt is then started by actuating the drive motor thereof. By means of the friction between belt and plate the plate will hereby be transferred out of the magazine and up on to the upper surface of the belt provided, of course, that the friction engagement is strong enough. A sufficiently strong friction engagement can easily be obtained by a suitable choice of materi l of the belt. Preferably, the holding down device is resilient and designed as a tongue or a heel with surfaces rounded off in a downwards direction and in parallel with the plates. There can furthermore be provided an indicating device indicating that the plate has come into engagement between the endless belt and the holding down member. Such an indicator or detector can e.g. detect bending of a resilient portion of the holding down member. An alternative embodiment of the holding down device includes a further endless belt having a path that is short as compared to the path of the lower transport belt. This solution is, however, considerably more cost consuming than the suggested embodiment with a single resilient tongue. When the transport device is intended for moving circuit cards, there are on the cards after one or more mounting operations several electronic components. Therefore the transport device cannot grip in the middle of the printed card but at the edges thereof. At these edges which are introduced into the grooves or rest upon the ribs in the magazine, there are no components mounted and therefore two endless belts are provided in this case, of which each is arranged to grip the edges of the circuit card. Of course, in this case a holding down member is required for each transport belt. For having this to function proper it is furthermore required that the lists or grooves carrying the plates end at some distance from the transverse front edge of the plate. This is, however, easily done by providing the magazine with the above mentioned stops for the rear edge of the plates and by making these stops settable for different plate depths. The invention will now be described with reference to the attached drawings, on which Fig. 1 is a side view of a magazine intended to be used together with the invention, in which only one circuit card is located, Fig. 2 is a section along the line A-A in Fig. 1, Fig. 3 is a schematic side view illustrating the invention, Fig. 4 is a detail view of the front edge of the transport device as seen from the side, Figures 5, 6, 7, and 8 are a view from above of the device according to Fig. 4 without any clamp device mounted thereon, and sections along the lines A-A, B-B, C-C, respectively, Fig. 9 is a view from above of a holding down member, Fig. 10 is a section along the line D-D in Fig. 4. Figures 1 and 2 in section from the side and from above, respectively, illustrate a magazine intended to be used together with the transport device. The magazine is formed by a housing consisting of a fixed portion 1 and a wall 2 movable with respect thereto for setting different plate widths. On the side walls of the housing there are provided a number of ribs or grooved plates 3 between which, or in the grooves of which, circuit cards 4 are placed. For having the circuit cards 4 to protrude a suitable distance at their front edge from the side plates 3 a rear stop is provided, that can consist of a vertical rib attached to one of the inner side walls of the magazine. Fig. 3 schematically illustrates how the transport device is intended to be used. Only one circuit card 4 is shown as seen from the side without the magazine, in which it is inserted. The transport device consists of a carriage 7 which is horizontally movable for approaching the circuit card 4 or, respectively, moving away therefrom. In Fig. 3 a transport belt 9 can furthermore be seen, that forms one of the elements catching the front edge of the circuit card 4 and transporting the same out onto the upper path of the endless belt 9. The endless belt 9 runs around different pully rollers 13, 15 and can e.g. be a tooth belt with a poly-urethane surface and with steel reinforcement. The circuit card 4 is transferred to the upper side of the transport belt 9 by driving the latter by means of a suitable motor that actuates one of the pully rollers for the belt 9, whereupon the carriage 7 can be moved away from the space in the vicinity of the magazine for the plates 4 for allowing the plate 4 on the belt 9 to be exposed to some work operation or for transferring the plate to another work station for a treatment. Fig. 4 in a side view illustrates how the transport device is designed at the end receiving the plate 4 from the magazine. Here again the endless belt 9 can be seen, which has an upper even section. Above the pully roller 13 which is arranged for the belt 9 at the end of the carriage 7 facing the magazine, there is provided a holding down member 15. As shown, this can be provided with a lower heel located at a short distance above the upper path of the belt 13 immediately in the vicinity of the end of said path facing the magazine. The distance from the heel of the holding down member 15 and the upper surface of the belt 9 is small and less than the thickness of the plate 4 which shall be transferred out of the magazine. Thus, a clamp nip is provided and due to the high friction coefficient of the belt 9 with respect to the plate 4, the plate 4 will also be carried along by the belt 9 when this has been given such a movement that the plate 4 can be pulled out of the magazine, i.e. when the upper path in Fig. 4 moves to the right. As can be seen in Figures 4 and 9 the holding down member 15 can be shaped from a sheet member, the front end of which has been bent downwardly and backwardly so that a rounded off downwardly directed protrusion is obtained. The material of the holding down member 15 is resilient, e.g. spring steel. A clamp device according to Fig. 4 although mirrorinverted, is furthermore provided at a distance from and in parallel with that shown, so that the two clamp devices can simultaneously grip both edges of the plate 4. The edges here intended are those resting on the side ribs or, respectively, introduced inside the grooves in the side plates 3 in the magazine. For electronic circuit cards these edges are, of course, free from mounted components and can therefore be used as grip areas for the transport device. The endless belt 9 together with the different pully rollers thereof and the holding down member 15, can, for each side, be mounted in a profile member, of which a section is shown in Fig. 10. In this profile member 17 the endless belt 9 runs in upper and lower cut grooves, and at the side of the profile member 17 a sheet 19 is fixed for holding the belt 9 sidewardly on place. Above the upper path of the belt 9 an abutment edge 21 is provided for guiding the edge of the circuit card 4. At the very top the holding down member 15 is screwed on to the profile member 17. As stated above there can be a corresponding mirror-inverted profile member 17 located at a distance from that shown for carrying the other belt 9. In Fig. 4 there is also shown a detector 23 that detects the bending of the holding down member 15 and that e.g. can be a strain gauge cemented on a portion of the holding down member 15, said portion being then suitably chosen so as to be bent relatively much when the holding down member contacts a circuit card. As examples of dimensions it can be mentioned that circuit cards used in the illustrated device have a thickness of 0.8 to 2.4 mm and that the circuit cards 4 protrude approximately 25 mm (the distance a in Fig. 2) from the front edge of the grooved side plates 3. The area of the plates 4 used for the transport has a width of 2 to 3 mm, corresponding to the width of the plate 4 introduced into the grooves in the side plates 3. The used belt 9 has a thickness of 1 to 1.5 mm and a width of 10 mm and the pully roller 13 has a diameter of 15 mm. When a plate 4 shall be transported from a position above the upper running path of the belt 9 to the magazine, the magazine is first set into the right height position for the intended groove in the side plates 3. Then the carriage 7 is moved horisontally to such a position that its feeding in and feeding out side lies close to the magazine. The band or the bands 9 can now simply transport the plate 4 into these grooves. During this operation the holding down member 15 comes into contact with the edges of the plate 4 but do not considerably obstruct the movement owing to the rounded off lower shape of the holding down member 15 and the high friction coefficient between the belt 9 and the plate 4.

Claims: Cl aims 1. Transport device for removing and introducing plates into a magazine in which the plates are arranged with their great surfaces located at a distance from each other and rest upon projections at the sides of the magazine or are inserted in grooves at the sides of the magazine, characterized in that it comprises a carriage which is movably arranged with respect to the magazine, at least one movable means and a holding down means cooperating with said movable means, these being arranged so that for removal, when the carriage is moved a determined position with respect to a selected plate in the magazine, contact is obtained between an edge area of this plate and the movable means and the holding down means, whereby the edge area is pressed against the movable means by the action of the holding down means, whereafter the movable means is moved so that the plate is transferred out of the magazine in order later to be possibly carried only by the movable means without contact with the holding down member, the included means for insertion being arranged to carry through the inverted process, whereby the edge areas of the plates which come into contact with the movable means include the parallel edge areas of the plates which are on line with or comprise the areas with which the plates rest on the projections or are inserted in the grooves. 2. A transport device according to claim 1, characterized in that the movable means includes an endless belt running over rotating elements carried by the carriage, said rotating elements being so arranged that one end of the path of the belt is located at the side of the carriage facing the magazine, the belt then being able to be moved in both directions around the elements and the holding down means being arranged close to the surface of the belt and at said one end of the path of the band. 3. A transport device according to claim 2, characterized in that the holding down means is resilient in order to lie at a distance from the upper surface of the belt less than the thickness of the plates. 4. A transport device according to any of claims 2 - 3, characterized in that the portion of the holding down means intended for engagement with the plate is a downwardly directed rounded off protrusion. 5. A transport device according to claim 2, characterized in that 8 the holding down means includes a further endless belt with a path extending in parallel with a path of the endless belt of the movable means. 6. A transport device according to any of claims 1 - 5, characterized in that two movable means and two corresponding holding down means are arranged for engagement with the two parallel edge areas of a plate.

Inventors: STRIDSBERG LENNART, STRIDSBERG, LENNART
Applicants: MYDATA AUTOMATION AB
Application year: 1989
Main classification: B65G49
IPC codes: B65G1, B65G47, H05K13