Patent GB-362803-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in devices for feeding wires to machines for making electric incandescent lamps or the like
IPC: B65G47/14
Filed: 1931-03-17
Abstract: 362,803. Feeding wires singly from bundles. GENERAL ELECTRIC CO., Ltd., Magnet House, Kingsway, London.- (Assignees of Patent-Treuhand Ges. f³r Elektrische Gl³hlampen; 11, Ehrenbergstrasse, Berlin.) March 17, 1931, No. 8204. Convention date, May 2, 1930. [Class 142 (ii).] A device for transferring individual leading-in wires of electric incandescent lamps from a bundle to working position comprises one or more grippers each of which has two or more pairs of jaws of increasing opening, the movable jaws being coupled together in such a way that a jaw pair having a larger opening only close sufficiently to grip a wire when the jaw pairs possessing smaller or the smallest opening have gripped no wire. The apparatus comprises a tubular standard 1, Fig. 3, provided with bushes 2 in which are rigidly secured two rods 3 extending obliquely upward and providing support for a sliding carriage 12 which carries the grippers. The carriage is moved between the lower or gripping position and the higher or releasing position by a chain 7 which encircles a sprocket on a cross-piece 4 and a sprocket 8 mounted on the standard 1, the latter wheel being engaged by a reciprocating rack 11 positioned inside the standard 1. The gripping means comprise stationary jaws 13, Fig. 5, secured to the carriage 12 and movable jaws 14 which co-operate with the former, the movable jaws being mounted on bars 16, Fig. 2, slidably mounted in a slot 15 in the carriage 12 and formed with lugs 17 which, under the influence of a spring 18 connecting them, are drawn towards a fixed rod 19 fitted above the chain 7. The rod 19 is formed with a narrow central portion and widened end portions 20, the arrangement being such that the lugs 17, in engaging the parts 20, cause the grippers to he opened to receive or release a wire, while the narrow portion of the rod permits the grippers to withdraw a wire from the containers 24. During the downward movement of the carriage 12, an arm 30, mounted on the lower sprocket shaft 9, is, by rotation in an anticlockwise direction, withdrawn from engagement with a member 29 associated with the containers 24, thereby allowing the latter to fall into feeding position and bring the wires into contact with the grippers. Subsequent movement of the carriage in an upward direction causes a wire to be gripped and withdrawn until the top position is reached whereupon the grippers are again opened. When the wire is released by the opening of the grippers, fingers 33, primarily forced down by a strip 35 on the container during the engaging operation and subsequently held down by the wire, move upwards under the influence of springs 34 and throw the wire 27 into a collector 36 from which it slides into a funnel 37 and tube 39 leading to a pinch-making machine. To prevent unnecessary delivery of wires when a foot tube is missing, a rod 52 pivoted on the standard 1 is provided with striking heads 51, 54, the former causing the rod to swing when a tube is correctly positioned whilst the latter prevents the container from falling to feeding position if no swinging movement of the rod takes place.