Patent GB-252395-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in and relating to machines for the manufacture of electric incandescent lamps and similar articles
IPC: H01K3/14
Filed: 1926-05-21
Abstract: 252,395. British Thomson-Houston Co., Ltd., (Assignees of Stiles, W. H., Wagener, P. P., and Donovan, J. F.). May 23, 1925, [Convention date]. Making lamps.-A machine of the rotating turret type is designed to make lamps automatically by the butt-sealing process, that is, by buttwelding exhaust-tubes to the mouths of the bulbs and embedding the leading-in wires of the mount in the weld. A number of rotatable heads 10 are arranged around the turret 11, which is rotated intermittently by a cam 22 on a shaft 16 engaging rollers 23 spaced around a wheel 24 on the turret shaft. In the positions of rest where it is necessary for the heads 10 to rotate, friction discs 139 arranged in each head are brought into contact with driving-discs 127 mounted on the table 13. The discs 127 are mounted resiliently on their shafts so as to press radially on the discs 139. Each head comprises a suction cup 28, Fig. 9, to hold a bulb 25, and each cup is connected by a pipe 34 and through a central valve 33 to a vacuum pump. The bulbs are placed by the attendant into the cups with the filament mounts supported in them by their leading-in wires 27, Fig. 13, resting on the mouths of the bulbs. At the third position around the turret the exhaust tubes 40 are placed automatically into a clamp 37 above the bulb. At the fourth position the bulbs are centred in the cups by a pair of jaws 90, Fig. 9. These are mounted on a slide 95 which advances until a stop 108 meets the cup 28, and then the jaws close on the neck of the bulb. A vertically moving gauge then presses down the exhaust tube 40 into contact with the mouth of the bulb, as shown at position D<1>. Fig. 13. In the next four positions the rotating bulbs and exhaust tubes are heated, and the rods 29 that support the cups 28 ride down an inclined track 123, causing the bulbs again to be separated from the exhaust tubes, as shown at positions G, H, Fig. 13. At the next position K the parts to be joined are heated to the plastic stage by burners 144, and a plunger 143 raises the bulb to the tube and seals them together. At the following stations L - - P, heating is continued while the rods 29 again ride down an inclined track 168, causing a contraction 170 to form in the exhaust tube at the point for sealing off after the bulb is exhausted. In the remaining positions the bulbs are removed. The exhaust tubes are fed into the clamps 37 by apparatus of the kind described in Specification 212,412, [Class 117, Sifting &c.]. A vertically operating segment 42, Fig. 4, raises the tubes 40 from a hopper 39 so that they slide down a tube 41 until stopped by a gate 55, their passage through the tube being controlled by an escapement comprising two rods 66. 67 at the ends of a rocker 68 operated by the segment 42. A transfer arm 54 is pivoted on a slide 78, and when in the position shown it opens the gate 55 so that a tube 40 slides down on to it. As the slide is pushed towards a head 10 of the turret a cam 80 rocks it to bring the tube 40 into a vertical position, and a catch 58 closes over the tube to hold it on the transfer arm.