Patent GB-865417-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in, or relating to, platen type transfer machines
Inventor: LAWLESSTHOMAS ALAN PHILLIP
IPC: B23Q7/14
Filed: 1956-04-13
Abstract: 865,417. Drilling-machine details. SKINNER Ltd., EDWARD, J. April 15, 1957 [April 13, 1956], No. 11239/56. Class 83 (3). In a platen-type transfer machine in which the work (not shown) is held, as by jigs or clamps, on identical platens 4 on a bed 1, the platens are in a common plane and the workstations, occupied in succession by the platens, are disposed around the periphery of a polygonal area having at least four straight sides, each of which is equal in length to a whole multiple of the length or the width of a platen, the number of platens being one less than the number of stations, leaving one station unoccupied by a platen. The unoccupied station facilitates transfer of the platens in groups, as described below. The bed is formed from units of identical cross-section with that of the platens which, as illustrated, is a square. Four corner units 2 and eight intermediate units 3, keyed together at 5 and arranged in a square, are used in this example. Adjacent. each unit, except the unoccupied corner unit and the loading and discharge station 1a, is at least one drilling, boring, reaming, cleansing, &c., device 7, 7a, 8, mounted on a control cabinet 10 or on the master control cabinet 9, which has press buttons 11 facing the operator at the loading station 1a. The bed units are formed with passages 17, Fig. 5, for wiring or compressed-air lines, and with windows or apertures 18 in the walls of the passages. Wear plates 22 on the underside of the platens bear on guide rails 6 on the top of the bed units, and one pair of two diagonally opposite pairs of pockets 26 in the platens co-operates with a pair of locking plungers 27 in each unit, the plungers being operated by double-acting pneumatic cylinders 33, acting through links 30, 31. Pneumatic cylinders 37, Fig. 4, for transferring the platens are also arranged in a channel 36 formed in the tops of the units. Operation.-The displacement of the eleven platens in four groups, each of three platens (one platen taking part in the movement of two groups, as described below) is initiated and timed by the master control cabinet 9, which also controls the control cabinets 10 so that at the end of the displacement of each group, the tools 7, 8, at the stations into which the platens have been moved, are operated under the control of the cabinets 10. The platens along one of the sides of the bed adjacent the unoccupied station are moved first by the engagement of the lip 40, on a plate 39 moved by the cylinder 37, and the end-platen on that side. Operation of the cylinder 37, after disengagement of the locking pins 27, advances the group of platens by one station, leaving unoccupied the previously occupied end station, which is then occupied by the leading platen of the next group, &c., movement of the fourth group, which includes the leading platen of the first group, again leaving unoccupied the originally unoccupied corner station. As each platen moves to a different side of the bed, a different zone of the work is exposed to the tools. Specification 720,494 is referred to.