JPS5811267B2 - Tablet inspection equipment - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a tablet inspection device, and a tablet inspection device that can automatically detect broken tablets with cracks or chips in round tablets.

As is well known, compressed tablets sometimes crack or chip due to collisions with other devices or tablets colliding with each other before being packaged, resulting in so-called broken tablets.

In the case of round tablets, these breakages are concentrated at the ridgeline portions, and in the case of tablets with an oval cross section such as sugar-coated tablets, they are concentrated at the slightly pointed portions at both ends.

Of course, tablet breakage is not limited to the above cases, but can also occur due to various factors during tablet compression, but overall the frequency of occurrence is 11,500,000~]/2,
500,000 tablets, which is extremely low.

However, when it is intended to package the finished tablet after tabletting or sugar coating, it is necessary to remove these broken tablets as much as possible.

For this reason, the work to detect broken tablets with cracks, chips, etc. is carried out at an appropriate time between the tabletting process and the packaging process. A mechanical method in which broken locks are removed through the holes of a vibrator-equipped sieve plate made of punched metal or wire mesh, and a non-mechanical method that involves visual inspection by one to three observers. However, one method is still being carried out by using both of them together.

However, according to the former sieving method, if the large diameter of a broken tablet is equal to that of a normal shaft (unbroken tablet), that is, a broken tablet with a planar size of 1/2 or more of a normal shaft is not passed through the sieve hole. It cannot be removed because it cannot pass through and is transferred to the next process together with the normal shaft.

Furthermore, even when visually inspected by a supervisor, the number of tablets transferred by the belt conveyor is about 1,000 to 3,000 tablets per minute, and it is extremely difficult to completely check for even the smallest damage. .

Moreover, this visual inspection is usually performed only on one side of the tablet, and there is a drawback that the tablet side facing the conveyor cannot be sufficiently inspected.

Furthermore, the fatigue of lifeguards is a problem that cannot be ignored.

In view of the above-mentioned circumstances, the inventor of the present invention has conducted various researches to develop an inspection device that can easily and reliably detect such broken tablets. He invented and applied for a patent for an inspection device for circular tablets, which is characterized by having a conveyance path consisting of parallel rails that hold and place tablets from both sides and have an inclination that imparts a tendency for the tablets to self-transfer. No. 50-22165).

Although the configuration of the inspection device itself is extremely unique, and its detection accuracy is generally satisfactory, it has been found that there are some disadvantages depending on the manner in which it is used.

In other words, the inclination of the conveyance path, which is the main body of the inspection device, must be set within the range of 2 to 9 degrees in relation to the detection accuracy of broken arms, and as a result, the transfer speed of the tablets to be inspected on the conveyance path is slow. This not only causes a decrease in efficiency, but also causes the lock to lock properly on the conveyance path.
Sometimes the tablets even form bridges and become stagnant.

Therefore, the testing device of this type has a processing capacity of about 500 to 1,000 tablets/minute per line of conveyance path.
There were also problems with compatibility with other devices (for example, tablet counting machines).

In view of this situation, the inventors further investigated and created an acceleration conveyance path that has a steeper inclination than the conveyance path before the inspection conveyance path and can impart a strong self-edge transfer tendency to the tablets. I learned that the above-mentioned problems can be overcome by installing the following equipment.

The present invention is based on this knowledge, and the gist thereof is: a first conveyance path having an inclination for holding and placing tablets arranged in rows in an upright state and imparting a strong self-edge transfer tendency to the tablets;
Continuously at the end of the conveyance path, there is a parallel rail that receives and takes tablets from the conveyance path, and has a slope sufficient to give normal tablets a tendency to self-transfer, but to prevent the broken arm from transferring. The invention resides in a tablet inspection apparatus characterized in that it includes a second conveying cage formed from a metal as an essential component.

The apparatus of the present invention will be explained in detail below based on the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a longitudinal cross-sectional view schematically showing the main parts of the device of the present invention. As shown in the figure, the device of the present invention holds and places tablets T arranged in a single row in an upright state. It is continuous with a first conveyance path 1 having an inclination α that gives a strong self-blade transfer tendency, and the tablet T is taken as is from the first conveyance path 1 and turned into a normal tablet. However, the broken arm is constituted by a second conveying path 2 having an inclination α sufficient to stop the blade transfer.

As illustrated in FIG. 2, the first conveyance path 1 includes
It is an inclined chute with an opening in cross section formed from a pair of side plates 3, 4 and a bottom plate 5 facing each other with a distance d slightly wider than the thickness of the chute (indicated by the two-dot chain line), It has an inclination angle α of 30 degrees, and forms an acceleration conveyance path for holding and placing tablets T arranged in a single row in an upright state and imparting a strong self-edge transfer tendency to the tablets.

Therefore, the length l of the first conveyance path 1 only needs to be 20 cm or more, and 20 to 30 cm is suitable in practice.

Next, the second conveyance path 2 is continuous with the terminal end of the first conveyance path 1 (the mode of connection is not particularly exemplified except that it has a bent part at the connection part as illustrated in FIG. 1). However, this also includes those in which the connecting portion is continuously formed with a gentle curve), and its configuration is such that, as shown in FIG. A pair of parallel rails that have side plates 6 and 7, have stepped portions io and il facing each other at the bottom, and are arranged oppositely so that the gap d between them is slightly smaller than the minimum thickness of the tablet T. This holds true from 8 and 9.

The gap d' between the stepped portions 10 and 11 is not limited to the example shown in FIG. 3, and the design can be changed to be slightly larger than the minimum thickness of the tablet T, as shown in FIG. T
It is natural that the thickness cannot be greater than the maximum thickness of the transport path, considering the purpose of the conveyance path.

Further, the second conveyance path 2 has an edge 12° 13 at a right angle (FIGS. 3 and 4), an obtuse angle (FIG. 5), or an acute angle (FIG. 6) at the inner end of the stepped portion 10° 11. This edge 12° 13 is used to place the ridgeline portion of the tablet T in an upright position (in the case of FIG. 3) or to hold it between them (in the case of FIG. 4).

By the way, the second conveyance path 2 is required to be inclined to one side in the longitudinal direction, and the angle α gives a normal lock a tendency to self-transfer, but a broken arm cannot stop its rotation. is selected from an angle that is sufficient for 2.
A range of 9 degrees to 9 degrees, particularly preferably 4 to 7 degrees, is set to meet the above objective.

In other words, since an inclination of 10 degrees or more gives the target tablet a strong rolling action, even a broken arm will roll down the conveyance path 2 without stopping in the middle of the conveyance path 2, making it easy to distinguish it from normal tablets. On the other hand, if the inclination is too small, the rolling motion exerted on the target tablet is extremely small.
The overall transfer speed of tablets on the conveyance path becomes slower,
This will significantly reduce the processing capacity of this device.
Either case is not preferred for the present invention.

Furthermore, regarding the longitudinal distance l of the second conveyance path 2, it is sufficient as long as it is long enough to allow the damaged arm to stop on the conveyance path, as described above, and there is no particular restriction required. 50 to 200 in consideration of applicability to other devices, etc.
cm would be appropriate.

The above conveyance paths 1 and 2 can be easily manufactured from suitable materials selected from various smooth hard plastics and metals, but the parallel rails 8 in the second conveyance path 2,
As shown in the figure, 9 may be constructed by arranging two independent rails facing each other depending on the thickness of the test tablet T, or, although not particularly shown, a connecting piece may be provided at an arbitrary location. It is also possible to form two rails integrally with each other via, etc.

Of course, the device of the present invention described above can be used alone, but usually there are problems with efficiency, so two or more devices of the present invention are installed in parallel, and tablets are continuously fed, such as in a tablet feeder or a tablet counter. It is used by being substantially connected to other devices that have functions that can provide the same.

FIG. 8 exemplifies the case where two devices of the present invention are attached in parallel to a rotary tablet feeder, and the inspection status of tablets using such device is as follows.

That is, in the same figure, a large number of tablets T supplied to the tablet feeder 15 from a discharge port 23 of a tablet counter (not shown), for example, are placed in a lying state on the table by the rotation of the turntable 16. Dama\right direction (
arrow) and reach the position of the horizontal alignment plate 17.

The horizontal alignment plate 17 has the function of knocking down any tablets standing up on the turntable 16, and leveling them into a single layer if there are two or more tablets stacked on top of each other on the table 16. .

Therefore, the horizontal alignment plate 17 is configured to be able to move up and down with respect to the turntable 16 so that the gap between it and the turntable 16 can be changed as appropriate depending on the thickness of the tablet T.

The tablets T layered in this way are placed on the turntable 1.
6, and then guided from the circumferential direction of the turntable 16 to the guide plates 18, 19, 20 which are fixed on the turntable along a substantially tangential direction thereof, and between each guide plate 1 is vertically conveyed. After being arranged in a row (however, two rows overall), the tablets are supplied from the supply sections 21 and 22 of the tablet feeder 15 to the corresponding inspection apparatus of the present invention.

In the illustrated example, the guide plates 18, 19, and 20 are installed on the periphery of the turntable 16, so the tablets located in the center of the table cannot be guided to the guide plate.
The tablets are then forced to the periphery of the table 16 by the obstruction plate 24 and end up on the guide plate 18.
, 19. It becomes ＼ when guided to 20.

When the tablets fed from the tablet feeder 15 in the above operation fall onto the first conveyance path 1 of the device of the present invention installed below the supply sections 21 and 22, they become erect by themselves and at the same time start self-blade transfer. Due to the steep inclination of the first conveyance path 1, the speed increases until the second conveyance path 2 is reached.

As shown in FIG. 7A, the tablets T on the second conveyance path 2 are placed on the edges 12, 13 of the rails 8, 9 with their ridgeline portions, so that the tablets T on the second conveyance path 2 continue to self-transfer due to the inclination of the conveyance path 2.

If the tablet T is a normal tablet, the initial upright state is maintained as it is, so it rolls all at once on the conveyance path and is transferred to the next step by itself.

However, in the case of the cracked lock T1, the cracked part c is caught on the edge 12, 13 of the parallel rail as shown in FIG. 7B, and the contact resistance between the two is greatly reduced.
If so, it cannot roll any further and stops on the conveyance path.

In addition, in the case of the hinged lock T2, as shown in FIG. As a result, the contact resistance with the parallel rail increases, and the lock stops in the middle of the second conveyance path 2, as in the case of a cracked lock.

The above questions relate to the device shown in Figure 3, but even in the device shown in Figure 4, the lower end of the tablet in the upright position gets slightly stuck between the edges of the parallel rails and rolls, so the tablet rolls. The stopping phenomenon of the broken lock is the same as in the case of FIG. 3, except that the uprightness of the broken lock is improved, and the effects of the lock shown in FIGS. 5 and 6 are exactly the same.

By the way, there is no regularity in the manner in which the broken locks with cracks, chips, etc., stop, and the state in which they stop on the second conveyance path depends entirely on the state of the breakage. It is naturally expected that the cracked lock would stop in the state shown in FIG. 7C and the chipped lock would stop in the state shown in FIG. Since an undamaged lock having a lock always stops on the second conveyance path, a broken lock can be easily detected by detecting the stopping phenomenon of this transfer movement.

Of course, the normal locks following this broken lock will stay on the second conveyance path due to the stoppage of the damaged lock, but if the leading broken lock is removed, the normal locks will start moving again by themselves.

Note that cracked pieces T3, which are even smaller than the cracked lock, will fall from the gap between the parallel rails 8 and 9 as shown in Figure 7, so if a receiver is placed below the rails, these pieces can be caught. can be collected.

As described above, according to the device of the present invention, damaged locks such as cracked or chipped locks stop their transfer on the second conveyance path, and by detecting this phenomenon, it is possible to easily and reliably distinguish the locks from normal locks. be able to.

Therefore, the device of the present invention can sort tablets by simply removing tablets stopped on the conveyance path, and has a great effect on this type of inspection work.

In the device of the present invention, operations such as detecting and removing tablets stopped on the second conveyance path may of course be performed manually;
For example, it is possible to install an automatic detection and removal mechanism that detects the stoppage of a broken lock using a phototube and removes the broken lock from the conveyance path via a solenoid based on the detection signal. The adoption of an automatic mechanism is extremely advantageous not only in terms of labor savings but also in terms of efficiency.

As detailed above, the present invention apparatus is equipped with a steeper acceleration conveyance path in front of a gentler slope inspection conveyance path, so that the tablets to be inspected are appropriately accelerated by the acceleration conveyance path. Since it is supplied to the inspection conveyance path, it is possible to prevent the formation of tablet bridges on the conveyance path, and as a result, the throughput is improved.

Therefore, the device of the present invention has excellent compatibility with other devices, and the inventors of the present invention have used the device illustrated in FIG. In terms of processing speed (number of tablets per row), a 3% loss will result in 95% of broken tablets due to weight.
It was confirmed that detection could be performed with higher accuracy.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a vertical sectional view showing an outline of the device of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a transverse sectional view at I←I in Fig. 1, and Fig. 3 is a -
4-6 are cross-sectional views showing other embodiments of the second conveyance path (conveyance path for inspection); FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating the state of detection of broken locks; 1 is a perspective view showing one embodiment of the device of the present invention. 1... First conveyance path, 2... Second conveyance path, 8... Parallel rail, 9... Parallel rail, 10, 11... Step part, 12, 1
3...Etsuji, 15...Tablet feeder.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A fourth section provided with an inclination for holding and placing tablets arranged in a single row in an upright state and imparting a strong self-edge transfer tendency to the tablets.
A conveyance path and a continuous line at the end of the conveyance path receive and take tablets from the conveyance path, and normal tablets are given a self-rolling tendency, but broken tablets are given a sufficient amount of force to stop their rolling. 1. A tablet inspection device comprising, as an essential component, a second conveyance path formed by parallel rails having an inclination.