JPH0532845B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Field of Industrial Application) The present invention relates to an automatic color changing device for electric wire manufacturing equipment.

(Prior Art) Electric wires whose outer periphery is coated by extruding a powdery coating material by making it viscous using an extrusion screw are usually coated with resin or the like in several different colors to make them easier to identify during use. The production conditions on the wire production line remain the same, but only the coating material is replaced with a different color to continue production, and the boundary between colors is cut off.

This type of electric wire manufacturing equipment generally has a line as shown in FIG. That is, the core wire W comes out of the supply device 1, is coated with colored resin etc. from the extruder 2, is cooled in the water tank 3, and then transferred to the take-up device 4.
It is taken up by the winder 6 after passing through the accumulator 5.
is rolled up as a product.

Once the required production volume (covered wire length) is reached,
Switch to the next different color coating. In general, if the core wire, wire speed, resin temperature, etc. are the same, but only the color is changed,
We have planned the process in advance to ensure the best results. Continuous production creates color change boundaries in the middle of wires, which are cut off, and it is required to minimize the amount of waste wire that is cut off. In practice, skilled workers use their own methods to change the coating material fed to the extruder at appropriate times. In some cases, when the consumption of coating material reaches a required value, production of wires of that color is stopped.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) In addition to the above-mentioned color changing operations, the operations of electric wire manufacturing equipment mainly include switching operations when a certain winding amount is reached, checking production control conditions, etc. It is difficult to spend a lot of energy to reduce waste electric wires at replacement boundaries. Additionally, the problem of the aging of skilled workers and the lack of experience among workers has led to an increase in the number of discarded electric wires. It also places a burden on unskilled workers. The above-mentioned method of determining when to change the color based on the amount of coating material consumed has the disadvantage that if the volume is measured using squares, the coating length will change even if the amount is the same depending on the granular state of the material.Measuring the weight requires an expensive meter; Moreover, vibrations of the extruder cause errors, and it is troublesome to deal with the occurrence of defective coatings.

The purpose of this invention was not simply to prevent an increase in the amount of discarded wires, but also to adapt the overall wire manufacturing work to unskilled workers.As a result of research, the focus was narrowed down to automating the color changing work.

(Means for Solving the Problems) The present invention provides an extruder for making a powder coating material viscous and coating it on a running core wire, an extrusion screw tachometer for the extrusion screw, a coated wire measuring machine, and an extruder for the extruder. A multi-material supply device that can switch between supplying and stopping coating materials of several colors to the material receiving port, and an optical system that detects when the part of the extruder screw directly below the receiving port is exposed after the material supply has stopped. comprising a detector, and a control device that receives signals from the tachometer, measuring device, and optical detector to control the supply device,
The control device stops the material supply when the measuring device informs that the wire length has reached the set value, starts counting the signal of the tachometer after the optical detector sends a signal, and starts counting the signal of the tachometer, and An automatic color change device for an electric wire manufacturing device, characterized in that the supply of subsequent material is started when the screw rotation speed reaches a set value at which the lower preceding material does not remain and does not mix with the subsequent material. be.

(Function) Changing the color of wire sheathing requires skill, and if an inexperienced person operates high-performance manufacturing equipment, it may result in extra wires of a certain color being made or defective parts with mixed colors becoming longer. The amount of waste electric wire will increase. In the past, this was dismissed as a mistake or inexperience on the part of the worker, but the inventor of the present invention considers this to be a problem for the work manager. As a result of analyzing the work of the entire manufacturing process, not just the color change work,
We found that automating the color change process to reduce the burden on the workers was the best way to make the entire process work smoothly. Therefore, the present invention provides a means for improving productivity in electric wire manufacturing.

The manual labor part of color changing work is switching the coating material, but this invention can switch and stop supplying and stopping coating materials of several colors to the material receiving port of the extruder at any time according to commands from the control device. The provision of multiple material feeders eliminates manual labor on the part of the operator or operation of individual machines.

Traditionally, the brain-laden part of color change work that requires skill is deciding at what stage to stop supplying the preceding material and how to supply the succeeding material. The algorithm of the control device is important for this automation. First, when it is time to stop the supply of advance materials, either calculate the required amount of sheathing material as described above and stop the supply when that amount has been produced, or add up the length of the produced electric wire and Once the length is reached, the supply must be stopped. The former method is easy to implement, but the length of the wires will be uneven. The latter is accurate because it measures straight lines and wire lengths, but when the material supply is stopped, the amount of material remaining in the extruder or running path is wasted.

This invention adopted the latter. The latter problem of waste can be solved numerically, rather than by the intuition or tricks of an expert, by using the embodiment described later.

In the past, the timing of when to start supplying the subsequent material after stopping the preceding material depended on intuition and tricks, but as a way to use automatic control equipment to do this for you, optical detectors and optical detectors that replace the operator's eyes have been introduced. A memory and counting device was used to replace the brain.

Ordinary optical detectors cannot make difficult distinctions, so the screw, which never loses its luster, detects when it is exposed from between the materials. The presence or absence of the preceding material on the lower side of the screw, which cannot be seen, can be determined through experiments to determine how many revolutions the screw must take from the time of detection by the above-mentioned detector until all of the preceding material has advanced from the lower side of the screw under the receiving port. Investigate,
This was stored in the control device, the number of revolutions was counted, and subsequent materials were started to be dropped. It turns out that even insensitive optical detectors can replace the trained eye.

(Embodiment) Fig. 1 is a plan view of the entire electric wire manufacturing apparatus employing an embodiment of this invention, in which 1 shows a core wire supply device, 2
is an extruder, 3 is a water tank, 4 is a take-off machine, 5 is a wire storage section,
6 is a product winder, 7 is a coated wire, 8 is a multiple material supply device, 9 is an optical detector, 10 is a control device, 11 is a wire defect detection device, 12 is an extrusion screw, 1
3 is a screw rotation meter, 14 is a completion indicator light, and W is a core wire.

Although the electric wire manufacturing line remains the same as before, the material supply device 8 can be changed in color and started and stopped by remote control. The external appearance of the material supply device 8 is shown in FIG. 2. In this example, two colors of coating materials are put into the respective hoppers 8a, 8a, and both are rotated horizontally by 180 degrees by the rotating shaft 8b, so that one of them is extruded. It is arranged to stop directly above the material receiving port 2a of the machine 2.

In FIG. 3, the opening/closing device 8c of the hopper 8a is opened,
A state in which the coating material C is being dropped into the extruder receiving port 2a, and a state in which the material C is kneaded by the rotation of the extruder screw 12 and progressing to the left in the figure are shown. An optical detector 9 supported by a support mechanism 9a is installed above the receiving port 2a, and as shown in FIG.
When the screw 12 is exposed, its glossy surface is detected. In FIG. 4, the material C that had been dropped as shown in FIG. 3 has been stopped by the opening/closing device 8c, so there is no material C directly below the receiving opening 2a. Detector 9 first screws 1
When the exposed part 2 is detected, the screw 12 is still
Material C is on the bottom. After the detection signal is sent to the control unit 10, when the screw 12 rotates several more times, as shown in material C in FIG.
All of the preceding material C reaches a position where it does not mix even if the subsequent material is introduced.

Since an ordinary optical detector detects that the material C is missing near the screw 12, it is difficult to distinguish the inner surface of the screw cylinder from the material C. Therefore, it was difficult to use an optical detector to detect whether or not material remained below the receiving port 2a, and it seemed that human eyes were still needed.

However, the inventor of the present invention found that a glossy screw surface can be detected with an optical detector, and that the number of screw rotations (rotation angle) is approximately constant until there is no material left below the screw. This made it possible to mechanize the functions of an expert's eyes and mind.

Next, how to use and operate the control device 10 of this embodiment will be explained.

First, the worker calculates the current (preceding) color wire production amount (length) Q1, the wire production amount M due to residual material in the extruder, the expected amount L of discarded wires required for color change, and the wire production amount (length) of the current (preceding) color. Electric wire production amount Q2, control device 1
0 to each specified location. The production amount M due to the residual material is calculated from the upper part of the receiving port 2a and the extruder 2 when the supply of the coating material C to the extruder receiving port 2a is stopped.
This is a numerical value determined through experiments to determine the length that the core wire W can be coated with the material C that was inside. The expected amount L of discarded wires initially depends on the length of the defective portion of the conventional color boundary, but from now on, the length of the actual defective portion of the boundary by the apparatus of this embodiment is estimated. Furthermore, extruder 2
The length P of the electric wire on the running path passing through the water tank 3 and the take-off machine 4 from to the measuring device 7 does not need to be set because it is a value unique to the line.

In this embodiment, the screw tachometer 13 and the measuring device 7 both output pulse trains, which are subtracted and counted within the control device 10.

Now, when the operator presses the "confirm" switch after confirming the product quality, the microcomputer in the control device 10 calculates Q1-(M+P)=
Ask for QC. If the number of pulses corresponding to this QC is subtracted to 0 and the supply of coating material is stopped, the required wire length Q1 can be reached with the remaining material. However, if there is a defective part in the middle, it is truncated, resulting in a short length. Therefore, the first
The defect detection device 11 shown in FIG. 1 automatically reports how many meters of defective portions have occurred using conventional technology, and the control device 10 automatically corrects the above QC.

As an electric wire manufacturing apparatus, it is desirable to continuously produce electric wires of different colors through a minimum boundary portion.
Therefore, as a general rule, if the preceding coating material is stopped,
Immediately feed the subsequent material to the extruder to ensure that the core wire is uninterrupted. However, there was a contradiction between the need to make the discarded wire coated with a mixture of the preceding material and the succeeding material as short as possible, so experience and tips were essential.

In this embodiment, as described above, the control device 10 instructs the material supply device 8 to close the hopper opening/closing device 8c for the preceding material, and then rotates the rotating shaft 8b by 180° to replace it with the hopper 8a for the succeeding material. The opening/closing device 8c is, of course, closed.

Since the extrusion screw 12 is constantly rotating, the material C in the receiving port 2a sinks downward, and soon,
When the upper surface of the screw 12 is exposed, the optical detector 9 emits a signal. Control device 10 that received this signal
counts the pulse train of the screw tachometer 13 from that point on, and when the set number of revolutions (usually 2 to 3) is reached, commands the material supply device 8 to open its hopper opening/closing device 8c, and the subsequent material is Start supplying. In other words, as shown in FIG. 4, the succeeding material is started to be dropped after no preceding material C remains below the receiving opening 2a.

Note that if you drop the subsequent material on top of the remaining preceding material C, some of it will advance ahead of the preceding material, so
It is known that the color boundary portion of the electric wire becomes longer.

Even when the succeeding material starts to be dropped, the covering with the preceding material continues, and when the pulse from the measuring device 7 is subtracted by the control device 10 and the amount corresponds to the above-mentioned required production amount Q1, the covering with the preceding material continues. is completed, and when the pulses are further counted for the estimated amount L of discarded electric wires, the color change completion indicator light 14 is turned on.

The operator uses this indicator light 14 to make a final judgment as to whether the color change is complete and confirms the quality of the product.
The "confirm" switch is pressed to notify the control device 10 of the start of manufacturing of the next product and instruct calculation. Then, before the start of the next color change, the electric wire production industry Q2 using new materials, the production amount M using residual materials, the expected amount of waste L, and the production amount Q3 of the next color are set.

By repeating the above steps, automatic color change is performed continuously. The control device 10 has a built-in microcomputer and a storage device, and the necessary information for each color change can be set by simply instructing the combination of previous and subsequent color changes. FIG. 5 shows an example thereof.
Automatic/manual switch 15 and "confirm" in the center,
"Settings" and "Correction" button switches 16, 1
7 and 18, the left half has a setting section 10a, the printer 10c, and the right half has a display section 10b. The setting section 10a includes a numeric keypad, function keys, display panel, and
In this example, a data loader that can also be configured with a cassette tape is provided at the top right. Display section 10
In b, the above-mentioned electric wire production amount Q1 entered in the setting section 10a is displayed in the topmost production amount A, the above-mentioned M is placed in the residual material production amount, and L is also placed in the color change waste amount. Similarly, Q2 is displayed at the production amount B, and when a defective part of the wire is found, the corrected length of +- is displayed at the bottom.

Although one embodiment has been described above, this invention may be modified depending on the implementation conditions without changing the gist of the invention.
Needless to say, it can be varied and applied in a variety of ways depending on the well-known techniques of the designer.

(Effects of the Invention) This invention enables discarded electric wires at the boundary between color changes to be removed by automating color change work, which conventionally relied on the skill of workers, in electric wire manufacturing equipment that continuously produces electric wires of different colors. Not only has the amount been reduced, but the operator can also sit down and perform other tasks such as changing winding and checking management conditions.
The overall effect is that even unskilled workers can achieve productivity comparable to that of skilled workers.

The automatic color changing device of this invention has a simple mechanical part that only includes a multi-material supply device that mechanizes switching, starting and stopping of coating materials, and the control device is controlled by the personal control of a skilled worker. After analyzing the tricks, he was able to achieve the same effect as an expert using a normal optical detector and electrical control.

With a normal optical detector, it is difficult to detect when all of the powder material below the extruder inlet is completely exhausted. This invention detects when the glossy screw surface is exposed, which can be detected even by an insensitive optical detector, and determines when a certain amount of residual material has been reached. By counting the number of digits, it was possible to know when there was no remaining material below the receiving port.
This made it possible to transfer the tips and tricks of an expert's eyes and experience to ordinary optical detectors and electrical control.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a plan view of an electric wire manufacturing apparatus to which an embodiment of the present invention is applied, FIG. 2 is an elevational view of the multiple material supply device, FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view of the extruder and other parts during operation, and FIG. The figure is an explanatory diagram of an extruder intake port and an optical detector, and FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of an embodiment of a control device. 2... Extruder, 7... Measuring machine, 8... Multiple material supply device, 9... Optical detector, 10... Control device, 13... Screw rotation meter.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. An extruder for making powdery coating material viscous and coating it on a running core wire, an extrusion screw tachometer, a coating wire measuring device, and several types of material receiving ports of the extruder. a multi-material supply device that can switch between supplying and stopping the coating material of one color; an optical detector that detects when the part of the extruder screw directly below the receiving port is exposed after material supply has stopped; total,
a measuring device; and a control device that receives a signal from an optical detector and controls the supply device, and when the measuring device notifies that the wire length has reached a set value, stop the material supply,
After the optical detector sends a signal, the signal from the tachometer starts counting, and when the screw rotation speed reaches the set value at which the preceding material below the receiving port does not remain and does not mix with the succeeding material, the succeeding material is supplied. An automatic color change device for an electric wire manufacturing device, characterized in that the device starts the process.