Patent Application
20100133069
This application claims priority from European Patent Application No. 08020774.9 filed Nov. 28, 2008, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
The present invention deals with a transport belt module for integration in a conveyor system or a production line, particularly for integration in a modular production line as described in the patent application EP07123174 of the same applicant. Priority of this patent application is claimed, and herewith it is referred explicitly to the contents of this patent application. Production lines with conveyor belts are used nowadays almost every industry branch, especially in the electronics and automobile industry, but also for watch making.
Usually, in a production line a plurality of conveyor belt segments are used, which are assembled as a conveyor belt. The individual conveyor belts run around rotatable deflecting rollers, among which at least one is respectively driven. Depending on the type of the production line, mounting units, feeding units for feeding the pieces, sensors and in most cases a central control are foreseen, which work together with the conveyor belts.
Conveyor belts must be regularly changed when signs of wear appear. This is very complex and costly for conventional production lines; most of the time, the entire production must be stopped in order to change the conveyor belt.
It is therefore an aim of the invention to provide a possibility to make a rapid and simple change of a conveyor belt segment possible.
This is solved according to the invention thanks to a conveyor belt module according to claim 1.
The conveyor belt module has a body on which at least a deflecting roller and another deflecting element are rotatably mounted, around which a conveyor belt is guided, as well as drive means for driving at least the deflecting roller. The driving means are arranged in the body. The module further comprises mechanical and electrical connection elements for connecting the module to a conveyor system or a production line, and also comprises at least a sensor. The sensor is arranged under the conveyor belt such that the objects which are to be transported on the conveyor belt can be detected with the help of the sensor.
The mechanical and electrical connection elements can be for example bushings, in which suitable electrical contact plugs can be inserted. The module can be supplied with electrical power through these connection elements, and command signals can be transmitted from an external unit to the conveyor belt module. At the same time, the signals detected by the sensor integrated in the module can be transmitted to an external control unit.
When the conveyor belt or also another component of the module must be replaced, the whole module can be replaced with few manipulations. It is enough to separate the mechanical connections from the electrical connections realised by the connection elements, to extract the module, insert a new module, and realise the connections again with the new module. During this process the production line must not necessarily be stopped.
The module removed from the production line can then be repaired without any time constraints; a mounted conveyor belt can for example be disassembled and replaced by a new belt.
According to a preferred embodiment of the invention, the conveyor belt module comprises a plurality of sensors. Preferably one of the sensors is an RFID-reader. RFID-transponders can be mounted on the work piece carriers or the work piece themselves, in which data concerning the production are stored. The RFID-reader can read those data and transmit them to an external control unit, which can issue a corresponding order, depending on those data, to the conveyor belt module, to a gate located above the conveyor belt module, or to a production unit.
A writing unit could also be integrated in the conveyor belt module, which could modify data that would be stored in a memory incorporated into a work piece.
According to a preferred embodiment of the invention, the deflecting shaft is firmly clamped in the body on both sides outside the conveyor belt, and spaced apart sliding bushings are rotatably mounted on the deflecting shaft, wherein the deflecting shafts are supported on support elements intervening between the sliding bushings. Such a deflection of a conveyor belt is already known from the German patent application number 10 2006 038 185.8, to which it is herewith explicitly referred. The deflection over a deflecting shaft with spaced apart rotatably mounted sliding bushings and support elements there-between allows to keep a very small radius for the deflection, and yet to maintain a robust deflection and little susceptible to wear.
The sliding bushings can be made of plastic, metal coated with PTFE and/or graphite or bronze.
According to a preferred embodiment of the invention, the conveyor belt has at least two additional deflecting rollers around which a second conveyor belt is guided, which runs substantially parallel to the first conveyor belt. This yields a two-tracks conveyor belt module, which is advantageous for certain applications. Preferably, separate drive means are foreseen for each of the two conveyor belts. In principle, it is nevertheless also conceivable to have both conveyor belts driven by common driving means, whereby in this case coupling elements must be foreseen, in order to allow for different drive directions or different band speeds for both bands.
In principle, not only the first drive means but also the second optional drive means can consist of a simple drive motor, which drives the transport belt with a constant speed. It is yet also possible to provide drive means with variable speed and/or two drive directions. When two parallel conveyor belts are foreseen, those belts are preferably driven in opposite directions.
In the following of this document, the invention is described more in detail with the help of a preferred variant embodiment and in view of the enclosed drawings, which show:
On
The conveyor belt 14 located on the right, and respectively at the back of
Both conveyor belts 12, 14 are driven respectively at one end (in
On the other side (
The deflecting rollers 22, 24 are driven respectively by driving means not illustrated on the figures and housed in the body 10. It preferably consists of an electric motor with suitable power transmission means. As indicated by the arrows F1, F2 in
At least two not represented RFID-readers are furthermore integrated in the conveyor belt module. In
The conveyor belt module can thus be supplied with energy from the outside, and can exchange information and control signals over a network with other elements of a production line or with an external control unit.
It should be appreciated that the variant embodiments shown in the figures only serve the purpose of illustrating the invention as defined in the claims, and should in no way be understood as limitative. In particular, it is not necessary at all that the conveyor belt module according to the invention comprises two conveyor belts. A module with one conveyor belt only, which is driven around one deflecting roller and another deflecting element, such as e.g. the above mentioned thin deflecting shafts, is also comprised within the scope of the invention.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 08020774.9 | Nov 2008 | EP | regional |
