Patent GB-780921-A (GB)
Title: Improved plant for assembling electrical components
IPC: H05K13/04
Filed: 1956-03-21
Abstract: 780,921. Assembling electrical components. GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. March 21, 1956 [March 21, 1955], No. 8837/56. Class 83 (2). A plant for assembling electrical components to form a circuit arrangement on a board or matrix comprises separate machines for preparing the circuit components and for placing them on the board, said machines being interconnected by automatic conveyer means. The general layout of the plant is shown in Fig. 1. The components are brought up by a conveyer 119 and distributed to one or other of two preparation stations 101 and 102 where they are mounted on carriers 202, tested, have their leads trimmed and bent and where finally the loaded carriers are assembled into magazines which pass on to the component placement apparatus 103 where the leads are inserted into holes in the circuit boards. The boards are brought up by a conveyer 104, mounted on pallets at station 105 and then travel through storage apartments 106, 107 to a closed circuit circulating device where they repeatedly pass the apparatus 103 until all the required components have been attached. They then move on through soldering apparatus 113 to a testing station 114 and finally to station 116 where the boards are taken off the pallets to a conveyer 117 while the empty pallets are returned by a conveyer 118 to station 105. At each preparation station 101 and 102 is a turret apparatus shown in Fig. 2. A belt of components arrives at 201 where the leads are bent as required and the components placed in individual carriers 202 on a turret 204 which carries them past preparation and testing stations 205 to 216. At station 217 the carriers are removed from the turret and mounted in batches of, say, twenty in magazines 218. Carriers containing defective components pass station 217 and go on through station 219, where the components are removed, to station 201 for re-loading. Magazones containing unloaded carriers are delivered at station 221 where the carriers are removed to the carrier supporting stands 203 of the turret, the magazine meanwhile being indexed towards the centre of the turret where, when empty, it is engaged by a transfer switch 224 and moved to the loading station 217. Each magazine comprises cross-braced side members 402, Fig. 4, supporting pairs of normally horizontal hinged fingers 401 adapted to engage cross-slots 416, 417 in the ends of the component carriers 405. These comprise superposed members 406, 407 and 408 having along one side teeth adapted to grip the leads of a component such as 404 when the outer members 406 and 407 are moved laterally with respect to the member 407 by a rotary cam operated by a slotted member 409. A spring 410 tends to hold the cam in leadgripping position. Each carrier has hollow collets 414 by which it is supported on pins 418 upstanding from a turret stand such as 412. Transfer of the carriers from the stands to the turret and vice versa is effected by a reciprocating member 411 with depending pins 419. When moving a carrier up into a magazine, the fingers 410 are first depressed against springs 403 by rods 421. When a magazine of loaded carriers arrives at the placement head 302, Fig. 3, a member 317 is moved down so that its pins 318 enter the collets 414 of the carriers and move them down out of the magazine to a position where the leads of the components enter the appropriate holes in a circuit board 303. Tongue 319 of the member 317 then engages the member 409 to release the leads from the carrier which is rotated away from the component and returned to the magazine. The circuit boards 303 are clamped to pallets 306 which are fed along a conveyer 305 and accurately positioned beneath the head 302 by guidebars 307 and by solenoid-operated tapered pins 311 adapted to enter locating holes 312 in the pallets.