Patent Application
20230392380
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
This U.S. non-provisional utility patent application claims the benefit of and priority to U.S. provisional patent application 63/366,002 “Fastener Driving Machine for Installing Formed Sheeting,” filed 7 Jun. 2022. The entire contents of U.S. provisional patent application 63/366,002 “Fastener Driving Machine for Installing Formed Sheeting,” filed 7 Jun. 2022, including all images in the appendix to the specification, are hereby incorporated into this document by reference.
The invention relates to a machine for installing linearly spaced-apart pluralities of fasteners into sheet materials and support framing therefor.
In the construction of roofing or decking, there is a demand for improved safety, speed, and uniform quality within the task of installing fasteners to secure sheet materials such as corrugated metal or plastic sheets to prepared structural framing. For large buildings having an expansive roof, flooring, or decking to be installed, the correspondingly large number of fasteners used in the construction represents a daunting, difficult, and tedious task. Construction workers are also exposed to outdoor elements as well as the reflected solar radiation from the roof decking, which heightens risks, strains efficient work practice, and exacerbates worker fatigue. Also, it is difficult for one or more laborers manually installing individual fasteners to assure uniformity of fastener holding strength and completeness of insertion depth from one fastener to the next over a course of tens or hundreds of thousands of fasteners to be installed.
Thus there remains a need for an automated machine for installing fasteners at greater locational accuracy, more uniformity of reliable holding strength from one fastener to the next, at a higher effective and efficient production rate, and at far lower labor intensity and risk compared to manual and individual install methods.
A primary objective of the invention is to provide a machine for installing sets of screws into sheet material to be supported by structural framing. A corollary objective of the invention is to provide and automated machine where the tasks of handling fasteners, aligning them with powered fastener driving machines, and feeding fasteners from bulk supplies to the driving machines.
Another objective of the invention is to relieve a construction worker from repetitive crouching tasks while on a partially assembled roof by providing an automatic fastener positioning and installing machine configured as a piloted vehicle capable of supporting a user as a driver in control of the machine. A corollary objective of the invention is to provide such a machine capable of operating in an autonomous mode.
Because it is desirable to be able to install fasteners along the perimeter of the roof with the installing mechanisms of the vehicle operating up to and at the very edge of the roof, for additional safety it is a preferable corollary objective of the invention to provide a vehicle capable of turning around within its own foot print. This is referred to as a “zero turn radius” vehicle.
It is usually desirable to install sheets of roofing materials so as to establish overlapping regions and edges. These overlapping regions of roofing define preferred installation zones for the fasteners to be installed as they perforate the material and secure the sheets to underlying joists. Since these zones tend to be lenticular, another objective of the invention is to provide means to deploy fastener installing machines in gang as a linearly spaced apart array so that pluralities of fasteners may be installed simultaneously for greater production efficiency.
As a corollary to the previous objective, since the vehicle's direction of travel may not always align with the lenticular orientation of the next fastener installation zone being approaches, another objective of the invention is to provide means for orienting the linearly spaced apart array of fastener installing machines to best align with the fastener installation zone.
Additional objectives of the invention include providing lifting affordances so that the vehicle may be transported from the ground to a roof via crane, and providing illumination for optical quality control verification of installed fasteners and for general safety when working in less than ideal lighting conditions ands to provide safety in that illuminated vehicles may be easily seen by other workers on a roof.
A further understanding of the nature and advantages of particular embodiments may be realized by reference to the remaining portions of the specification and the drawings, in which like reference numerals are used to refer to similar components. When reference is made to a reference numeral without specification to an existing sublabel, it is intended to refer to all such multiple similar components.
While various aspects and features of certain embodiments have been summarized above, the following detailed description illustrates a few exemplary embodiments in further detail to enable one skilled in the art to practice such embodiments. The described examples are provided for illustrative purposes and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention.
In the following description, for the purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the described embodiments. It will be apparent to one skilled in the art, however, that other embodiments of the present invention may be practiced without some of these specific details. Several embodiments are described herein, and while various features are ascribed to different embodiments, it should be appreciated that the features described with respect to one embodiment may be incorporated with other embodiments as well. By the same token, however, no single feature or features of any described embodiment should be considered essential to every embodiment of the invention, as other embodiments of the invention may omit such features.
In this application the use of the singular includes the plural unless specifically stated otherwise, and use of the terms “and” and “or” is equivalent to “and/or,” also referred to as “non-exclusive or” unless otherwise indicated. Moreover, the use of the term “including,” as well as other forms, such as “includes” and “included,” should be considered non-exclusive. Also, terms such as “element” or “component” encompass both elements and components comprising one unit and elements and components that comprise more than one unit, unless specifically stated otherwise. Also in this specification, the term “means for . . . ” as used herein including the claims, is to be interpreted according to 35 USC 112 paragraph 6.
The invention is a fastener installing vehicle that includes an articulating frame having at least one mounting rail. A plurality of fastener installing assemblies are installed along the mounting rail with each including a mounting rail grip, a rotary impact driver, a fastener magazine, and a fastener-orienting tip. A power transmission system is capable of rotating wheels or tracks counter to each other to provide zero turning radius maneuverability. The fastener installing assembly has a feed tube communicating between the fastener magazine and the fastener-orienting tip, which is extendable along an axis transverse to the mounting rail. The rotary impact driver is electrically powered with means for monitoring electric current applied to it and process controller programmed to stop it when a predetermined applied current level has been met. The frame preferably includes lighting for illuminating a work area where fasteners are installed.
Referring now to the figures,
The articulated frame includes a pivotable mounting rail [11] to which a linearly spaced-apart array of fastening installer machines [12] are secured. The pivotable frame may be free-floating or may be actuated by at least one power cylinder [21] which may be pneumatic, hydraulic, or a solenoid or a power thread driven extensible device. The articulated frame pivots about a pivot point [P] which is preferable at or near its midpoint. To reduce angular jiggling, a rotation reducing snubber is preferably included in the frame assembly. The snubber may be a rotary damper installed at a pivot point of the assembly or it may be a linear dashpot installed at an end or an intermediate portion of the articulating frame which is a point other than the pivot point of the frame.
The drill is housed within an enclosure and mounted upon a drill frame comprising linear slides or guides [43] and cross members [44] at the ends of the guide tubes. The drill is secured to one such end cross member and an intermediate cross member [45.] The drill frame is also attached to the movable portion of a linear drive system for controlled motions on command of an onboard vehicle computer or by the operator. Fasteners are delivered from a magazine through a feed tube [46] to a fastener-orienting tip [48] beneath and directly in line with the bit attached to the rotary impact drill. Electric power for the drill is delivered to a local step-down transformer [41] attached to the enclosure. The enclosure secures to mounting rails of the articulating frame by mounting rail grips [27] and [28.]
The drill frame [50] comprises guide tubes [43] which are constrained at their ends by cross bars. The rotary impact drill is secured to the upper of the two guide tube end cross bars and also secured to an intermediate crossbar attached to the guide tubes. The guide tube [43] ends are open at their ends so that they are attached to the linear excursion portion of the linear motion system by the upper [53a] and lower [53b] sets of guide bars inserting into their complementary guide tubes. Thus, excursion of the linear motion system between its raised and lowered position couples and transmits rotary impact motion of the drill chuck to the fastener while it is being installed.
The rotary impact driver is electrically powered, and the control and power deliver systems preferably further comprise means for monitoring electric current applied to the impact driver, such as a process controller programmed to stop the rotary impact driver when an adjustable and predetermined applied current level has been met or exceeded. While the fastener is penetrating and being drilled into place, the drill frame and the upper drill shroud are in linear motion in the direction of arrow as the drill bit maintains contact with the fastener head. The fastener magazine, the feed tube, the fastener orienting tip, and the lower shroud do not move with respect to the rest of the fastener installing assembly.
According to an alternative embodiment within the scope of the invention, the guide tubes of the drill frame may also be fixed with respect to the fastener installing assembly, and the cross bars to which the rotary impact drill attaches are slidably coupled to the guide bars so that during linear excursions the drill and its cross bars also slide along the fixed guide tubes.
While certain features and aspects have been described with respect to exemplary embodiments, one skilled in the art will recognize that numerous modifications are possible. Also, while certain functionality is ascribed to certain system components, unless the context dictates otherwise, this functionality may be distributed among various other system components in accordance with the several embodiments.
Moreover, while the procedures of the methods and processes described herein are described in a particular order for ease of description, unless the context dictates otherwise, various procedures may be reordered, added, and/or omitted in accordance with various embodiments. Furthermore, the procedures described with respect to one method or process may be incorporated within other described methods or processes; likewise, system components described according to a particular structural configuration and/or with respect to one system may be organized in alternative structural configurations and/or incorporated within other described systems.
The present disclosure is not to be limited in terms of the particular embodiments described in this application, which are intended as illustrations of various aspects. Many modifications and variations may be made without departing from its spirit and scope. Functionally equivalent methods and apparatuses within the scope of the disclosure, in addition to those enumerated herein, are possible from the foregoing descriptions. Such modifications and variations are intended to fall within the scope of the appended claims. The present disclosure is to be limited only by the terms of the appended claims, along with the full scope of equivalents to which such claims are entitled.
Hence, while various embodiments are described with or without certain features for ease of description and to illustrate exemplary aspects of those embodiments, the various components and/or features described herein with respect to a particular embodiment may be substituted, added, and/or subtracted from among other described embodiments, unless the context dictates otherwise. Thus, unauthorized instances of apparatuses and methods claimed herein are to be considered infringing, no matter where in the world they are advertised, sold, offered for sale, used, possessed, or performed.
Consequently and in summary, although many exemplary embodiments are described above, it will be appreciated that the invention is intended to cover all modifications and equivalents within the scope of the following claims.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63366002 | Jun 2022 | US |
