Patent Application
20200229333
The present disclosure relates generally to surface mount technology (SMT) and, more particularly, to a feeder arm for preparing reels for an SMT machine.
Non-limiting and non-exhaustive embodiments of the disclosure are described herein, including various embodiments of the disclosure with reference to the figures listed below.
One or more specific embodiments will be described below. In an effort to provide a concise description of these embodiments, not all features of an actual implementation are described in the specification. It should be appreciated that in the development of any such actual implementation, as in any engineering or design project, numerous implementation-specific decisions must be made to achieve the developers' specific goals, such as compliance with system-related and business-related constraints, which may vary from one implementation to another. Moreover, it should be appreciated that such a development effort might be complex and time consuming, but would nevertheless be a routine undertaking of design, fabrication, and manufacture for those of ordinary skill having the benefit of this disclosure.
Manufacturing facilities may use surface mount technology (SMT) machines to manufacture surface mounted devices (SMDs). For example, an SMT machine may mount electrical components, such as resistors, capacitors, inductors, diodes, integrated circuits, or the like, onto a printed circuit board (PCB). The SMT machine may pick an electrical component from a reel of electrical components and place the electrical component onto the PCB. The mounted electrical components may then be soldered onto the PCB to join the electrical components to the PCB.
SMT machines may use a feeder arm to prepare the reels for use by the SMT machine. For example, the feeder arm may include preparation circuitry that powers up the reel assembly that allows an initial electrical component position to be set in memory of the reel. Further, the feeder arm may allow an operator to set a pitch between the subsequent electrical components into memory of the reel before the reel assembly is inserted into the machine to ensure that the SMT machine is able to acquire the initial part and each subsequent part from the reel.
Space may be limited in manufacturing facilities. For example, SMT machines may be part of a manufacturing process that involves processes that occur before and/or after the surface mounting process. In some cases, SMT machines may be placed adjacent to one another due to the limited space in the manufacturing facility. However, the feeder arm for some SMT machines may extend out beyond the body of the SMT machine. In manufacturing facilities that have limited space, the feeder arm may jut into a walkway, which may be inconvenient to operators to walk around. Further, some feeder arms may take up space to the side of the SMT machine which may prevent positioning the SMT machines adjacent to each other. For the foregoing reasons, there is a need for a low profile feeder arm for SMT machines.
In the illustrated embodiment, the manufacturing facility 20 includes another SMT machine 34 that is positioned adjacent to the SMT machine 22, for example, due to the space limitations or efficiency in the manufacturing facility 20. Further, in the feeder arm 24 may extend into a walkway by a distance 42. As explained below, the feeder arm 24 may be rotated from the first position to a second position to have a lower profile when not in use for preparing the reel 32.
The feeder arm 24 includes an articulating joint 66 that rotatably couples the reel loading body 50 to the support body 52 to allow the reel loading body 50 to rotate between the first position and a second position with respect to the support body 52. The articulating joint 66 may include a rotational pin 68 that forms a hinge joint between the reel loading body 50 and the support body 52. That is, the rotational pin 68 may rotatably couple the reel loading body 50 to the support body 52 to allow the reel loading body 50 to rotate with respect to the support body 52.
In the illustrated embodiment, the support shaft 56 includes guide plates 70 and 72 to guide the reel loading body 50 between the first position and the second position. That is, the guide plates 70 and 72 may limit azimuthal rotation 80 (e.g., side-to-side) of the reel loading body 50 while allowing zenith rotation 82 (e.g., up-and-down) of the reel loading body 50 with respect to the extending shaft 54. Further, the guide plates 70 and 72 may each include a rotational opening 86 and a bolt 88 to secure the rotation of the reel loading body 50 with respect to the support body 52. That is, the rotational opening 86 and the bolt 88 may block the reel loading body 50 from moving beyond the first position from the bolt 88 contacting a first end of the opening and block the reel loading body 50 from moving beyond the second position from the bolt 88 contacting a second end of the opening 86. The guide plates 70 and 72 may be fastened to a rectangular prism support structure 80 of the support shaft 56 via fasteners 85.
The feeder arm 24 may include a gas spring 90 that includes a piston 92 and a cylinder 94. The gas spring 90 biases the reel loading body 50 towards either the first position (when in a position closer to the first position than the second) or the second position (when in a position closer to the second position than the first) to prevent the reel loading body 50 from resting in a position therebetween. Further, the pneumatic cylinder 90 may dampen movement in the first position and the second position to reduce contact of the reel loading body 50 (e.g., to protect bolt 88).
The reel loading body 50 may include reel preparation circuitry 100 that electrically connects to the reel to allow the reel to be prepared. As mentioned above, this may be used to power up the reel assembly and allow an operator to rotate the reel into a correct starting position. Further, the preparation circuitry 100 may allow a user to set a pitch between the parts into memory of the reel before the reel assembly is inserted into the SMT machine 22. Upon inserting the reel into the SMT machine 22, the SMT machine 22 may access the memory of the reel to load the initial settings and pitch settings to correctly pick and place the initial electrical component and each subsequent electrical component. When not preparing a reel, the reel loading body 50 may be moved to a second position to store the reel loading body 50 with a lower profile from the SMT machine 22.
In the illustrated embodiment, the guide plates 70 and 72 form an opening 114 with the support structure 84 to allow the preparation circuitry 100 to pass therebetween when in the second position. Further, a width of the rectangular prism support structure 84 may be sized (e.g., of equal or greater size) according to the preparation circuitry 100 to allow the protection circuitry 100 to pass between the guide plates 70 and 72 and into the opening 114 between the rectangular prism support structure 84 and the reel loading body 50.
The specific embodiments described above have been shown by way of example, and it should be understood that these embodiments may be susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms. It should be further understood that the claims are not intended to be limited to the particular forms disclosed, but rather to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of this disclosure.
The techniques presented and claimed herein are referenced and applied to material objects and concrete examples of a practical nature that demonstrably improve the present technical field and, as such, are not abstract, intangible or purely theoretical. Further, if any claims appended to the end of this specification contain one or more elements designated as “means for [perform]ing [a function] . . . ” or “step for [perform]ing [a function] . . . ”, it is intended that such elements are to be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f). However, for any claims containing elements designated in any other manner, it is intended that such elements are not to be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f).
