JPH044099B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention provides a new and improved workpiece loading device for automatically feeding workpieces into and automatically unloading workpieces from a sanding machine. It is related to.

Conventionally, for polishing thin and brittle workpieces such as silicone or GGG (hereinafter simply referred to as workpieces) held on the surface of workpieces such as glass plates, aluminum magnetic disks, or workpiece holders made of glass plates, etc. As one of the polishing machines, a workpiece is placed in contact with a polishing surface on a turntable, and while the turntable is rotated in the presence of a slurry liquid containing abrasive grains, the workpiece on the polishing surface is driven to rotate. A polishing machine is known that polishes the surface of a workpiece by polishing the surface of the workpiece.

However, conventionally known polishing machines currently rely on humans to load the workpiece onto the turntable or take out the workpiece after polishing. The workpiece is sometimes 10
Kg or more, this installation and removal requires considerable effort, and during this process, the operator may drop the workpiece or get his or her fingers caught between the workpiece and the turntable. There was even a danger that it might get stuck.

Therefore, some studies have conventionally considered using, for example, industrial robots to attach and detach workpieces to and from polishing equipment, but in this case, a relatively large installation area is required, and Since industrial robots have the disadvantage of being expensive to design and manufacture, there has been a strong desire for a compact and fully automatic polishing device that does not require such industrial robots.

The present invention relates to a workpiece loading device proposed to meet such demands, and for automatically supplying workpieces to a polishing machine and automatically transporting workpieces from the polishing machine. This consists of a swinging arm attached to the main body of the polishing machine with a top plate suspended to hold the workpiece by suction, and a workpiece placed on the side of the sanding machine and on the rotation trajectory of the swinging arm. It consists of a piece holding plate, a mechanism for rotatably holding the holding plate between the tips of arch-shaped arms and moving it up and down, a mechanism for reversing the holding plate by 180 degrees, and a conveyor placed below the holding plate. The holding plate is reversed at its upper limit position and then lowered, the peripheral edge of the holding plate is brought into contact with the peripheral edge of the workpiece set in advance on the conveyor to suction and hold the workpiece, and then the holding plate is lowered. After raising it and inverting it at its upper limit position to return to its original state, the swinging arm is rotated to lower the top plate onto the holding plate, and the peripheral edge of the top plate is placed on the holding plate. The present invention is characterized in that the swinging arm is rotated onto the turntable of the polishing machine body after the workpiece is attracted and held by contact with the peripheral edge of the workpiece.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be explained in detail based on the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a typical embodiment of a polishing machine incorporating the workpiece loading device of the present invention, and FIGS. 2, 3, and 4 are a plan view, a front view, and a side view, respectively. It is.

As is clear from FIGS. 1 to 4, this polishing machine has a main body A and a turntable 10 installed in the center of the main body, in order to automatically load the workpiece 40 thereon. Loading device B according to the present invention that keeps the
and an unloading mechanism C for unloading the workpiece 40 taken out from the turntable 10 after polishing. A brushing mechanism D is installed to eliminate this problem.

As described above, the workpiece loading device B of the present invention includes a swinging arm 30 attached to the polishing machine main body A while suspending the top plate 20 for suctioning and holding the workpiece 40; A workpiece holding plate 50 disposed on the rotational trajectory of the swinging arm 30, a mechanism for rotatably holding the holding plate between the tips of the arched arms and moving it up and down, and a mechanism that rotates the holding plate 180°. First, the swing arm 30 will be explained with reference to FIG. 5.

That is, the swing arm 30 is pivotally supported by the machine stand of the polishing machine main body A via a rotation shaft 31, and although it is omitted to simplify the drawing, the rotation shaft 31 is
is connected to the swing drive device installed inside the machine,
Attaching the workpiece 40 to the turntable 10 of the polishing machine body A and the turntable 10
Through the operation of taking out the workpiece 40 from the machine, the swinging arm 30 is rotated between the loading device B and the unloading device C, and
The workpiece 40 is allowed to swing back and forth on the turntable 10 during the polishing operation.

A hollow rotating shaft 21 is provided in front of the swing arm 30.
is suspended, and a top plate 20 is connected and held at the lower end of the top plate 20.
is provided with a concave portion 22 on its bottom surface, and a rubber ring 23 is attached to the inner periphery of the concave portion. The hollow rotating shaft 21 is connected via a gear to a motor 24 installed in a swing arm 30, so that the top plate 20 can be forcibly rotated through polishing work as required. This hollow rotary shaft 21 is also provided with a vacuum suction pipe 25 and a coolant supply pipe 26 inside, and as shown in FIG. By reducing the pressure inside the recess 22 through the suction pipe 25 with the peripheral edges brought into close contact with each other, the workpiece 40 can be held by suction.
Coolant can be supplied inside the top plate to prevent overheating of the top plate. Although not shown in FIG. 5, an air cylinder mechanism is attached to the hollow rotating shaft 21, and has a structure that allows the top plate 20 to be moved up and down while the workpiece 40 is mounted on and taken out from the turntable 10. It is said that

Next, FIGS. 6 to 9 show the swing arm 30
This figure shows the details of the main parts of the workpiece loading apparatus B according to the present invention except for the sixth part.
7 is a front view of the loading device, FIG. 7 is a plan view of its workpiece holding plate, FIG. 8 is a plan view of its conveyor, and FIG. 9 is a side view.

Workpiece holding plate 50 in the device of the present invention
has a structure similar to that of the top plate 20, and has a concave portion 51 with a flat bottom on its surface, and a rubber ring 52 is attached to the inner peripheral edge of the concave portion,
This is held with respect to an arched support arm 53 so as to be rotatable through 180° by a reversing drive mechanism 54.
The support arm 53 is supported by three support legs 55 and an air cylinder 56, and has a vertically movable structure. Further, the conveyor 60 is constructed by holding a plurality of conveyor rollers 61 between a pair of frames 62a and 62b, and holding this frame by three fixed support legs 63.

Note that the workpiece loading device B described above is for mounting the workpiece 40 on the turntable 10 of the polishing machine main body A, but this loading device also serves to polish the workpiece 40 after polishing. It can also be used as an unloading device C for taking out the machine body A from the turntable 10 and transporting it out of the system, and normally, as shown in Figs. 1 to 4, the loading device is structurally exactly the same. are attached to the left and right sides of the main body A of the polishing machine, and one is used to function as a loading device B and the other as an unloading device C.

Next, to explain the operation of the apparatus of the present invention, first, in the loading apparatus B, a workpiece 40 prepared in advance is placed onto a conveyor 60 using a belt conveyor or a roller conveyor (not shown) as shown in FIG. After placing the workpiece in the state shown by the line, actuate the rotary air cylinder 54 to invert the workpiece holding plate 50 by 180 degrees so that its concave portion 51 faces downward, and then actuate the air cylinder 56 to rotate the workpiece holding plate 50. 50 is lowered, and the rubber ring 52 attached to the holding plate is brought into close contact with the peripheral edge of the surface of the workpiece 40. Next, a vacuum suction device (not shown) is activated to remove the holding plate concave portion 51.
The pressure inside the workpiece 40 is reduced and the workpiece 40 is placed on the holding plate 50.
After suctioning and holding the workpiece 40, the air cylinder 56 is operated again to raise the holding plate 50, and at the upper limit position, the reversing mechanism 54 is operated to reverse the holding plate 50 by 180 degrees, and the workpiece 40 is moved to the sixth position. Set it to the state shown by the solid line in the figure and stop its operation.

Next, the swing arm 3 attached to the polishing machine body A
0 (see Fig. 5) in a clockwise direction when viewed from above, and when the top plate 20 suspended and held by the swing arm 30 comes directly above the loading device B, the rotation is stopped. Next, the air cylinder attached to the hollow rotating shaft 21 of the swing arm is operated to push down the top plate 20, and the rubber ring 23 attached to the top plate is brought into close contact with the periphery of the back surface of the workpiece 40 on the holding plate. The air in the concave portion 22 is extracted through the suction pipe 25 in the hollow rotating shaft 21, and the workpiece 40 is held by suction on the top plate 20. Next, after raising the hollow rotating shaft 21, the swing arm 30
is rotated counterclockwise to position the top plate 20 on the turntable 10, and the hollow rotating shaft 21 is again slightly lowered to bring the polished surface of the workpiece 40 onto the polished surface 10a on the turntable. Then, the vacuum suction of the workpiece 40 to the top plate 20 is released to complete preparation for the polishing operation.

When the preparation is completed in this way, polishing is performed according to a conventionally known method, and when the surface of the workpiece has been polished to a desired mirror finish, the workpiece 40 is again held by suction on the top plate 20. After raising the hollow rotating shaft 21 to release the workpiece 40 from the turntable 10, rotate the swinging arm 30 counterclockwise until the top plate 20 is directly above the unloading device C. The rotation is stopped, and then the top plate 20 is pushed down together with the hollow rotating shaft 21.

The surface periphery of the downward-facing workpiece 40 suctioned and held on the top plate 20 in this way is attached to the holding plate 50 of the unloading device C (see FIG. 1).
When it comes into contact with the upper rubber ring 52, the top plate 20 stops descending and the vacuum suction of the workpiece is released.

Subsequently, the holding plate 50 performs vacuum suction, and then the holding plate 50 is reversed by 180 degrees by the reversing drive device 54, and then the holding plate 50 is lowered by the air cylinder 56, and the back side of the workpiece 40 is transferred to the conveyor 60. Finally, the vacuum suction of the workpiece 40 by the holding plate 50 is released. In this way, the polished workpiece 40 placed on the conveyor 60 is transported to a predetermined location using a belt conveyor or roller conveyor.

As described above, according to the apparatus of the present invention, it is possible to fully automatically perform the operations of mounting a workpiece on the polishing device, polishing the workpiece, and taking out the workpiece from the polishing device after polishing. This can be done by process control, and the process control programs can be set or changed, or the apparatus can be adjusted using operation panels 27 and 28 provided on the front side of the main body A of the apparatus.

As explained below, according to the present invention, polishing work that conventionally required manual labor can be performed fully automatically, which not only contributes to labor savings, but also eliminates the need for attaching workpieces to the polishing device and mounting them. Since there is no risk of damaging the polished surface of the workpiece in the presence of the reversing mechanism during removal, it greatly contributes to improving the yield and productivity, and therefore has great practical value.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic perspective view showing a typical embodiment of a polishing machine incorporating a workpiece loading device according to the present invention, and FIGS. 2, 3, and 4 are respectively a plan view, a front view, and FIG. FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram showing a main part of the main body of the polishing machine partially in cross section. 6 to 9 show details of the main parts of the loading device according to the present invention, with FIG. 6 being a front view thereof, FIG. 7 being a plan view of its workpiece holding plate, and FIG. 9 is a plan view of the conveyor roller, and FIG. 9 is a side view. A...Device main body, B...Loading mechanism, C
... Unloading mechanism, D... Brushing mechanism, 10... Turntable, 10a... Abrasive cloth (abrasive surface), 20... Top plate, 21...
...Hollow rotating shaft, 22... Concavity (gap), 23...
...Rubber ring, 24...Motor, 25...Vacuum suction pipe, 26...Cooling water pipe, 27, 28...
...Operation panel, 30... Swinging arm, 31... Rotating shaft, 40... Workpiece, 50... Workpiece holding plate, 51... Concave portion, 52... Rubber ring, 53... Support arm, 54 ... Reversing drive device, 55 ... Support leg, 56 ... Air cylinder, 6
0... Conveyor, 61... Roller, 62... Frame, 63... Fixed support leg.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A swinging arm attached to the main body of the polishing machine with a suspended top plate for suctioning and holding the workpiece, and a workpiece holding plate placed on the side of the sanding machine and on the rotation trajectory of the swinging arm. , a mechanism for rotatably holding the holding plate between the tips of arch-shaped arms and moving it up and down, a mechanism for reversing the holding plate by 180 degrees, and a conveyor placed below the holding plate, After inverting at the upper limit position, the holding plate is lowered, and the peripheral edge of the holding plate is brought into contact with the peripheral edge of a workpiece previously set on the conveyor to suction and hold the workpiece, and then the holding plate is raised. After inverting at the upper limit position and returning to the original state, the swinging arm is rotated onto the holding plate to lower the top plate, and the peripheral edge of the top plate is moved around the workpiece on the holding plate. A workpiece loading device for a polishing machine, characterized in that the swinging arm is rotated onto a turntable of the polishing machine body after the workpiece is suction-held by contacting the peripheral edge of the workpiece.