Patent GB-945790-A (GB)
Title: Apparatus for assembling fasteners and washers
Inventor: STERN WILLIAM CHRISTIAN
IPC: B23P19/08
Filed: 1960-02-29
Abstract: 945,790. Assembling fasteners and washers. ILLINOIS TOOL WORKS Inc. Feb. 29, 1960, No. 7055/60. Heading B3A. [Also in Division B8] Apparatus for assembling screw-blanks 24, Fig. 19, nuts &c., with washers 38 comprises a disc 68, Fig. 3, carrying the washers, and a turret 182 eccentric to the disc and carrying the fasteners 24, the disc and turret being rotated at the same or substantially the same peripheral speed and having parts of their peripheries in coincidence to telescope the fasteners and washers. Fastener blanks 24 from a hopper are fed by gravity down a shoot 26 to the assembling unit 28 and thence by shoot 30 to apparatus 44 of the kind described in Specification 736,780 for upsetting the fastener-shank at 46, Fig. 15. Instead of apparatus 44, threadrolling apparatus, Fig. 2 (not shown), as in Specification 654,659, may be provided. Drive for the turret and disc is by a motor and belts 108 to a worm-and-bevel gear 104, 80 of the type described in Specification 774,128. Gear 80 is connected to a gear 86, Fig. 6, pinned at 94 to the disc 68 and through gears 142, 148 drives a shaft 136 which is connected by gears 150, 156, 174 to the turret-shaft. This is inclined to the disc-axis and supported in an arm 124 fixed on a spigot 112. Relative angular adjustment of the disc and turret is by adjustment of gear 174 on the turret-shaft, adjusting screws 178, Fig. 7, in the gear engaging opposite sides of a rib 172 on the shaft 164. The fasteners are delivered to grooves 190 in the turret with their lower ends resting on a plate 200 projecting between the disc and turret. At the end of the plate, the fasteners fall on to the washers, which are in pockets 70 in the periphery of the disc and are guided by a slot 226, Fig. 12, towards the shoot 30. A release lever 208 prevents a fastener falling beyond a certain level in the absence of a washer 38 from the appropriate pocket. The lever is spring-pressed towards the turret and carries a detector 214 opposite the disc and a lip 218 at the level of a stationary ring 220 surrounding the turret and interrupted adjacent the shoot 26. In the absence of a washer, detector 214 enters a pocket 70, Fig. 11 (not shown), and the head of the appropriate fastener is engaged by the lip 218 which guides it on to the ring 220, the fastener remaining in the turret-groove for a complete revolution of the turret. An arcuate wall 72 retains a mass of washers on the disc 68. In a modification, Fig. 13, the turret 182b is cylindrical and the washers 38b are placed on a disc 230 in which pockets 236 deliver them to pockets 240 in a disc 238 which supplies the washers to the main disc 68b of the assembling apparatus. Instead of, or in addition to, the washer-feed arrangement of Fig. 13, a disc-feed may be provided for the fasteners. The disc 246, Fig. 16, is between the shoot 26c and the main disc 68c and includes an arcuate guide 256. In Fig. 18, the fasteners 24d are ejected from the turret-grooves 190d and forced into the washers by spring-pressed plungers 262 withdrawn by a stationary cam 280. As applied to assembling nut-blanks or nuts 284, Fig. 26, and washers 38e in which skirts 290 are swaged over the washers, as in Specification 727,605, the washers may be picked up from the surface of disc 68e, Fig. 20, or fed to the disc from a separate hopper. The nuts are fed from the shoot 28e to the turret 182e by a disc 246e from which the nuts are directed by the end 260e of a plate 258e. A washer-detecting control applicable also to the assembling of screw-blanks and washers includes a bell-crank lever 302 with a detecting finger 320 having a cam withdrawal surface 322 at one end and a biasing spring 312 at the other. A sleeve 328 on the lever presses a leaf spring 362 against a fixed abutment 360 and a spring- returned plunger 352, the end of which engages beneath a release lever 330 when detector 320 enters a pocket 70e in the absence of a washer. The lever is turned about its pivot 332, engaging its forward end 338 with the nut which would otherwise have entered the empty pocket 70e.