Patent ID: 8056215

Claim:
A method for manufacturing a stator coil formed in a corrugated shape, comprising: a coil forming stage of forming the stator coil in a planar shape from a conductive wire, covered with an insulation film, to have a plurality of boundary corners at bending points of the wire and to have a plurality of slot accommodated portions and a plurality of coil end portions alternately arranged and divided by the boundary corners; and a coil inserting stage of rounding the planar stator coil and inserting the slot accommodated portions of the rounded stator coil into slots of a stator core, while allowing the coil end portions of the stator coil to protrude from axial ends of the stator core, to manufacture the stator coil formed in the corrugated shape, the coil forming stage comprising; a setting step of setting one of two tool units, each of which has a wall and an opening facing the wall, as a wire bending tool set and setting the other tool set as a force applying tool set; a placing step of placing the wire bending tool set at one of the bending points of the wire so as to protrude a portion of the wire by a predetermined length from the wire bending tool set while putting the wire in the opening of the wire bending tool set, and placing the force applying tool set at a force applying point of the protruded portion of the wire while putting the wire in the opening of the force applying tool set; a moving step of moving the force applying tool set relative to the wire bending tool set to apply a bending force onto the wire at the force applying point through the wall of the force applying tool set, to induce the wire to come in contact with the wall of the wire bending tool set at the bending point, and to bend the wire at the bending point in response to the bending force while forming one boundary corner of the wire at the bending point and forming one slot accommodated portion or one coil end portion substantially having the predetermined length between the boundary corner and another boundary corner previously formed; and a releasing step of releasing the wire from at least one of the tool sets, which are repeatedly performed in that order to produce the stator coil having a predetermined number of boundary corners, formed one by one, from the wire.