The present invention relates generally to shoemaking equipment, and more particularly to an automatic lacing mechanism which could automatically run a shoelace through lace eyelets of a shoe during the making of the shoe.
Conventional footwear usually needs to have the shoelace run through the lace eyelets before leaving the factory. Such process is troublesome, for the upper of footwear has to be soft and breathable, and therefore is commonly made of fabric or leather. There is another type of footwear that provides lace eyelets on thin shoe pieces in advance, and the shoe pieces are combined with fabric or leather to form differently novel shoe uppers. However, no matter how an upper is made, manual lacing always has low efficiency, which inevitably affects the production capacity.
Some manufacturers in the industry have developed automatic lacing machines, such as Taiwanese invention patent No. I581731, titled “Method and device of automatic lacing”, and Taiwanese invention patent No. I543717, titled “automatic lacing machine”. The objectives of these inventions are both to replace manual work by automation. However, the aforementioned patents fail to explicitly disclose how to keep an upper stable for the lacing process performed by an automation machine. Though automatic lacing equipment which is currently available has some design to firmly fix an upper, there is still no specific technical disclosure on how to deal with the problem that the distance between two successive lace eyelets may be different in different footwear specifications. Said problem is particularly critical when lacing through lace eyelets on shoe pieces of different specifications. Therefore, the currently available automatic lacing machines still have room for efficiency improvement.
In view of the above, the objective of the present invention is to provide an automatic lacing mechanism, which could keep a shoe upper steady for automatic lacing process, and would be suitable for various specifications of footwear regardless of how the distance between two successive lace eyelets varies.
The present invention provides an automatic lacing mechanism for automatically lacing a shoelace between two shoe pieces. The automatic lacing mechanism includes a positioning module, a clamping module, a shoelace-running module, and a shoelace-arranging module. The positioning module includes a first moving unit and two positioning pins, wherein the first moving unit is adapted to move the positioning pins in and out of two lace eyelets on one of the shoe pieces, and a distance between the positioning pins is adjustable. The clamping module includes a fixed plate and a movable plate, wherein the movable plate is operable to approach or leave the fixed plate. When the movable plate approaches the fixed plate, the clamping module is adapted to fixedly clamp one of the shoe pieces; when the movable plate is away from the fixed plate, the clamping module is adapted to release said shoe piece. Furthermore, the positioning pins of the positioning module exits the lace eyelets when said shoe piece is clamped. The shoelace-running module is adapted to run the shoelace through the lace eyelets of the shoe pieces. The shoelace-arranging module is adapted to change a running direction of the shoelace.
In an embodiment, the automatic lacing mechanism further includes a controller, which is adapted to be used to input parameters to automatically adjust the distance between the positioning pins of the positioning module.
In an embodiment, the positioning module comprises a casing, a power source, and a sliding block; the casing is provided with a chute on a lateral side thereof; the power source and the controller are electrically connected; the sliding block is disposed in the casing, and is drivable by the power source to rectilinearly reciprocate; a part of the sliding block passes through the chute and protrudes outside to link one of the positioning pins.
In an embodiment, the first moving unit includes a first cylinder and a first sliding seat. The first cylinder has a first retractable rod which is movable relative to a cylinder body of the first cylinder. The first sliding seat is movably engaged to an external of the first cylinder. An end of the first retractable rod is connected to the first sliding seat. The casing is engaged onto the first sliding seat. The other one of the positioning pins of the positioning module is fixed at the casing or the first sliding seat.
In an embodiment, the clamping module includes a second moving unit, which includes a second cylinder and a second sliding seat. The second cylinder has a second retractable rod which is movable relative to a cylinder body of the second cylinder. The second sliding seat is movably engaged to an external of the second cylinder, and an end of the second sliding seat is connected to the movable plate. An end of the second retractable rod is connected to the second sliding seat. The first cylinder is engaged onto the second sliding seat.
In an embodiment, the fixed plate and the movable plate of the clamping module have a plurality of hollow portions formed on upper parts thereof, and a pressing sheet is formed beside the hollow portions. When said shoe piece is fixedly clamped between the fixed plate and the movable plate, the lace eyelets of said shoe piece are aligned with the hollow portions, and the pressing sheet pushes against said shoe piece without covering the lace eyelets thereof.
In an embodiment, the shoelace-running module includes an X-axis module, a Y-axis module, a Z-axis module, and a gripping unit. The Y-axis module is engaged to the X-axis module and is movable in an X-axis direction. The Z-axis module is engaged to the Y-axis module and is movable in a Y-axis direction. The gripping unit is engaged to the Z-axis module and is movable in a Z-axis direction. The gripping unit has a claw to grip an aglet of the shoelace.
With the above-mentioned design, the automatic lacing mechanism could be used for footwear with different distances between its lace eyelets by automatically adjusting the distance between the positioning pins. Furthermore, the clamping module could be utilized to steady an upper for automatic lacing process.
The present invention will be best understood by referring to the following detailed description of some illustrative embodiments in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which
An automatic lacing mechanism 100 of an embodiment of the present invention is shown in
The aforementioned base 10 is provided with a sliding platform 12 on a top thereof, wherein a position of the sliding platform 12 could be adjusted in a horizontal direction. The clamping module 20 and the positioning module 30 are installed on the sliding platform 12, and therefore their position could be changed along with the sliding platform 12. The shoelace-running module 40 and the shoelace-arranging module 50 are fixedly provided on the top of the base 10. The controller 60 includes a control interface 61 and a central processing unit (not shown). The sliding platform 12 is provided with two retaining brackets 14 thereon. There is a set of a clamping module 20 and a positioning module 30 respectively provided on two sides of each of the retaining brackets 14. For ease of interpretation, we hereinafter take one set of the clamping module 20 and the positioning module 30 as an example.
As shown in
In addition, the fixed plate 22 of the clamping module 20 is engaged to a lateral side of the corresponding retaining bracket 14, and the movable plate 23 is engaged to an outside of the second front end portion 212a of the second sliding seat 212. Furthermore, the fixed plate 22 and the movable plate 23 respectively have a plurality of corresponding hollow portions 22a, 23a formed on upper parts thereof. A pressing sheet 22b, 23b is formed beside a hollow portion or between two adjacent hollow portions. When the second sliding seat 212 is driven by the second retractable rod 211a to move back and forth, the movable plate 23 consequently approaches or leaves from the fixed plate 22.
The positioning module 30 is engaged onto the second sliding seat 212 of the second moving unit 21, and is located on a side of the movable plate 23 other than the side that the fixed plate 22 is located. The positioning module 30 includes a first moving unit 31 and two positioning pins, wherein said two positioning pins include a first positioning pin 32 and a second positioning pin 33. The first moving unit 31 includes a first cylinder 311 and a first sliding seat 312, wherein the first cylinder 311 is fixedly engaged to a top of the second sliding seat 212 through an engaging board 34. The first cylinder 311 has a first retractable rod 311a which is movable relative to a cylinder body 311b of the first cylinder 311. The first sliding seat 312 is engaged to an external top surface of the first cylinder 311, and match the first cylinder 311 in a manner of forming a sliding pair. In other words, one of the first cylinder 311 and the first sliding seat 312 has a chute, while the other one has a sliding block matching the chute. The first sliding seat 312 has a first front end portion 312a to be linked to an end of the first retractable rod 311a. When the first retractable rod 311a is driven by a pressure source to move back and forth, the first sliding seat 312 is also synchronously moved. The aforementioned pressure source could be pneumatic or hydraulic.
The positioning module 30 of the current embodiment further includes a casing 35, a power source, which is a motor 36 as an example, and a sliding block 37. The casing 35 is fixedly engaged onto the first sliding seat 312 through an engaging board 38. The casing 35 has a chute 35a provided on a lateral side thereof. The first positioning pin 32 is optional to be fixed on the casing 35, the engaging board 38, or the first sliding seat 312. In the current embodiment, the first positioning pin 32 is fixed on the engaging board 38. The motor 36 is provided on a side of the casing 35, and is electrically connected to the controller 60. The sliding block 37 is provided in the casing 35, and is drivable by the motor 36 to rectilinearly reciprocate. A part of the sliding block 37 passes through the chute 35a to protrude outside, and is connected to the second positioning pin 33, so that the second positioning pin 33 is movable along with the sliding block 37, and therefore changes a distance between it and the first positioning pin 32.
As shown in
As shown in
The components of the automatic lacing mechanism 100 of the current embodiment are explained above, and the procedure on how the shoelace is automatically run through the lace eyelets 201 of the shoe pieces 200 is going to be described below. We need to explain first that, since one shoe has two shoe pieces 200, and in order to successfully run the shoelace between the shoe pieces 20, the automatic lacing mechanism 100 of the current embodiment provides a set of clamping module 20 respectively provided on two sides of each of the retaining brackets 14 to fixedly clamp the shoe pieces 200, and the shoe pieces 200 are set in a manner that a proper spacing is maintained therebetween. The controller 60 is adapted to control the clamping module 20, the positioning module 30, the shoelace-running module 40, and the shoelace-arranging module 50 to sequentially perform the lacing based on the arrangement of a program.
The illustration shown in
As shown in
As shown in
In the aforementioned embodiment, the fixed plate 22 and the movable plate 23 improve the stability of the shoe piece 200 by pressing the pressing sheets 22b, 23b against the shoe piece 200 in opposite directions. Therefore, the hollow portions of the fixed plate and the movable plate could be made as various specifications with different spacing to adapt the change on the distance between the first positioning pin 32 and the second positioning pin 33. In view of this, it would be preferred to make the fixed plate and the movable plate replaceable. However, since the shoe piece has certain toughness to maintain a standing position, the fixed plate and the movable plate in other embodiments could also have no structures of hollow portions and pressing sheets, as long as the lace eyelets on the upper part of the shoe piece could be ensured uncovered when the shoe piece is fixedly clamped.
It must be pointed out that the embodiments described above are only some preferred embodiments of the present invention. All equivalent structures which employ the concepts disclosed in this specification and the appended claims should fall within the scope of the present invention.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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107217540 | Dec 2018 | TW | national |
Number | Date | Country |
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I543717 | Aug 2016 | TW |
I581731 | May 2017 | TW |
Entry |
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English Abstract for TWI543717, Total of 1 page. |
English Abstract for TWI581731, Total of 1 page. |
Number | Date | Country | |
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20200196711 A1 | Jun 2020 | US |