Patent GB-190427404-A (GB)
Title: Machines for Making Compound Lengths of Wire, Rods, or the like from Two Metals and for Counting and Arranging the same in Boxes.
Filed: 1904-12-15
Granted: 1905-10-19
Abstract: 27,404. British Thomson-Houston Co., [General Electric Co.]. Dec. 15. Measured quantities, delivering.-A machine for welding short lengths of platinum wire to lengths of copper wire to form leading-in wires for incandescent electric lamps is shown in Fig. 2, but it may be used for welding together other wires or rods for various purposes, the compound lengths of wire being delivered in particular quantities into boxes. The machine shown is duplex, about four inches of copper wire being fed from each of the reels 20 by the rolls 18, and about a quarter of an inch of platinum wire from each of the reels 38 by the rolls 34. The ends of the latter wires are stuck into the ends of the former wires, which have been softened by blowpipe flames, and the welded parts are severed from the continuous wires and knocked by ejectors 77 into a shoot 81, from which they drop into boxes 86 on an intermittently-rotated table 87. The reels 20 or 38 or all of them are provided with spring braking- devices 23, the wires from the reels 20 passing round tension pulleys (not shown) and pulleys 27, through the rolls 18, between a lower fixed and an upper movable shear-blade, and on to a grooved supporting-table provided with a clamping-cover 45, while the wires from the reels 38 pass through tubes of'insulating-material mounted in levers 110, between the rolls 34, and through guide-holes in a part 58 which is slid from left to right and vice versÔ in the carriage 35 by means of a cam 61, a lever 60, and a spring. The rolls 18 have a braking-device 29, and the rolls 34 are mounted in the carriage 35 which is reciprocated in ways 36 by a cam 64, a lever 63, and a spring 65 ; both sets of feed-rolls are driven by gearing 16. 14, 13 and 33, 32 from a shaft 11 which is rotated a sixth of a revolution for every revolution of a shaft 7 by Geneva-stop mechanism 10, 9, the shaft 7 being driven by gearing 5, 6, from the main shaft 1. When the lengths of copper wire have been fed forward, the cam 47 releases the lever 46 of the spring-depressed clamping-plate 45, the blowpipe flames are turned up to fuse the ends of the copper wires during two-thirds of a revolution of the shaft 7 by a cam 54, a spring-pulled arm 55 on a rock-shaft 52, and a valve 51. The flames are then turned down again, the carriage 35 and the part 58 are advanced by the cams and levers 64, 63, 61, 60 to stick the platinum wires into the copper wires, and the cam 61 allows the part 58 to be drawn back by a spring out of the way of upper and lower cutters which are actuated by a lever 71 and a cam 73 to sever the platinum wires at the same time as the lever 68 actuates the upper shear-blade to sever the copper wires. The carriage 35 is then withdrawn, the clamping-plate 45 is raised, and the ejectors 77 are operated by a rod 78 and a cam 80. The two finished articles are arrested by an upper gate 82 in the shoot 81 and then by a lower gate 82, both gates being operated from the rock-shaft 52. At each revolution of the shaft 7 two articles are made, and, as this shaft rotates a shaft 90 at oneeighth the speed by Geneva-stop mechanism 88, 89, each revolution of the latter shaft corresponds to sixteen articles made, and each tooth of the sixteen-toothed wheels 91 to one article made. These wheels gear with wheels 92, 93, having sixteen and twenty-five teeth respectively ; every time four hundred articles are made, bridgepieces 94 on the wheels simultaneously close a circuit through contacts 95 and an electromagnet 97, which attracts its armature, rocks a shaft 98, and momentarily removes the cam 100 from a pin 101 which is then moved by a spring to clutch the beltdriven wheel 102 to the shaft 103 and thus cause the table 87 to be partially rotated. When the shaft 103 has made a complete revolution, the cam 100 engages the pin 101 and unclutches the wheel 102. Any knots or kinks in the platinum wires cannot pass through the insulating-tubes in the levers 110, and thus rock the same to complete a circuit through an electromagnet 114 which withdraws a catch 115 and allows a spring 116 to oscillate the lever 113 and move the driving-belt on to the loose pulley 117, the circuit through the magnet 114 being then broken at 118.