Patent GB-365435-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in the manufacture of electric incandescent lamps or the like
IPC: B63H21/22
Filed: 1931-04-16
Abstract: 365,435. Thermionic valves &c. GENERAL ELECTRIC CO., Ltd., Magnet House, Kingsway, London.-(Assignees of Patent-Treuhand-Ges. f³r Elektrische Gl³hlampen; 11, Ehrenbergstrasse, Berlin.) April 16, 1931, No. 11269. Convention date, March 22, 1930. [Class 39 (i).] Lamp bulbs, thermionic valves, and the like are transferred from the sealing-in machine to the exhausting-machine by two conveying members or grippers which are mounted between them and are swung in opposite directions in vertical planes so that they arrive simultaneously at their respective positions, being closed to grip a lamp at the sealing-in machine and opened to deliver it at the exhausting-machine. The sealing-in machine consists in known manner of an intermittently rotated table, Fig. 1 provided with a series of bulb-holding heads 2 each provided with a spherical recess to receive an inverted lamp bulb secured in known manner to an exhausting- tube which is supported by clamping-jaws. The exhausting-machine, also of known kind, comprises an intermittently rotating table 11 with a series of spaced heads 12 to receive the exhausting-tubes 9. A table 22 disposed between the two machines is fitted with two guideways 23, 24 for horizontal racks 25, 26, which are coupled together by a pinion 28 mounted between them. Reciprocating movement is imparted to the rack 25 by a connecting- rod 35 and a crank 34 pivoted on a disc 33 which is driven by bevel wheels 30, 31, the pinion 28 causing the racks 25, 26 to reciprocate in opposite directions. The upper edges of the racks 25, 26 are provided with additional racks 44, 45 respectively engaging pinions 42, 43, which are mounted upon shafts 38, 39 within journals 36, 37 mounted on the guideways 23, 24, so that arms 40, 41 secured to the ends of the shafts 38, 39 are swung to and fro in opposite directions between the two machines. The outer extremities of the arms 40, 41 are provided with a pair of gripping-arms 47 which are normally held closed by a spring 48 connecting them. As shown in Fig 1, the guideways 23, 24 of the racks are disposed obliquely to each other, the result being that the grippers on the ends of both arms 40, 41 operate alternately at the position X of the sealing-in machine, whereas the grippers on arm 40 act only at position Y of the exhausting machine and those on arm 41 act only at position Z of that machine. The time interval between each movement of the exhausting-machine is double that of the sealing-in machine, the distance of each movement of the table 11 of the exhausting machine being equal to the space between two receiving-heads 12. The open grippers are swung towards the sealing-in machine and are closed automatically around the exhausting-tube 9 of a lamp bulb by an abutment 50, Fig. 2, on the table 22 displacing a pin 52 slidably mounted in a journal 53 at the end of the gripper arm. The central portions 54 of the pins 52 are of smaller diameter than the end portions so that the jaws are opened when either of the thicker parts are forced between them, and are closed by the spring 48 when the pin is displaced by the abutment 50 to position the narrow portion between the jaws. The arms 40, 41 swing over and insert the exhausting-tubes 9 within the receiving- heads 12 of the exhausting-machine, whereupon the pins 52 strike abutments 51 which cause the jaws to open, allowing the tubes 9 to slide down within the sockets where they are clamped by an automatically operated gripping-sleeve.