GB2110727A

GB2110727A - Aligning and individually delivering spinning cops

Info

Publication number: GB2110727A
Application number: GB08234104A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Willi Krenmayr
Original assignee: Machinenfabrik Schweiter AG
Current assignee: Machinenfabrik Schweiter AG
Priority date: 1981-12-07
Filing date: 1982-11-30
Publication date: 1983-06-22
Also published as: GB2110727B; FR2518510B1; DE3202305C2; JPS58104876A; IT8224510A0; IT1154359B; FR2518510A1; DE3202305A1; JPS58104875A; CH656110A5; JPS58104877A

Abstract

The cops arranged in an irregular manner in a cop container 2 are placed on two or more successively arranged vibratory conveyor troughs 1, 7, the cops being aligned in the feed direction. In order to reduce the flow of cops, so that individual cops can be delivered at the end, sensors, e.g. a light barrier 8, is provided through which the preceeding trough is stopped. Thus a feed of spaced and aligned cops is produced. <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Method and apparatus for aligning and individually delivering spinning cops The invention relates to a method of aligning and individually delivering spinning cops for further processing, which are supplied in an irregular manner, as well as to an apparatus for performing this method.

During the further processing of spinning cops, e.g. in a bobbin winder, it is necessary to introduce the cops individually and possibly in a specific position. The spinning cops initially fall in an irregular manner into cop containers, e.g. from a spinning machine. As a function of the nature of the machine for the further processing of the spinning cops, it is necessary to bring them into a certain order corresponding to the feed means of the following processing machine.

Means are known for removing individual cops from the cops arranged in an irregular manner. In these known means, the spinning cops are guided by the different alignment stations until they assume a suitable position for supplying the machine. However, the known solutions are very complicated and require a large amount of space.

These known means serve to sort the spinning cops on the basis of a number of standpoints, so that e.g. it is possible to detect dragging threads, covered cops, deformed cops, deformed cops and tubes, as well as telescopically nested cops.

In order to sort cops and other parts, it is known to use conveyor chutes or troughs. In this case, the workpieces or parts are conveyed from a narrow inlet port to an equally large outlet port, whereby at the outlet metering can take place, in that superfluous workpieces drop back or are diverted, i.e. although there is a conveying and metering of the work-pieces or parts, there is e.g. no automatic alignment and controlled individual arrangement of the parts in a given order (see for example DOS 2,255,091 and DOS 2,630,438).

The invention seeks to provide a method and an apparatus of the aforementioned type that it is possible to align and individually deliver spinning cops in a simple, space-saving and cop-protecting manner, with a high degree of operational reliability.

According to the invention, there is provided a method of aligning and invidually delivering spinning cops for further processing, which are supplied in an irregular manner, wherein from a feed inlet, the cops are supplied to a first vibratory conveyor, in which they are prepared in the conveying direction and moved into at least a further vibratory conveyor whereby on transferring a cop from one conveyor to the next, the transfer of the following cops is delayed by a temporary interruption of the conveying action of the preceding conveyor belt, this bringing about the arrangement of successive, separated and unidirectionally aligned individual cops up to the end of the conveyor.

The present invention further provides in a spinning cop handling apparatus, an apparatus for aligning and delivering spinning cops claim 1, wherein vibratory conveyor troughs or chutes are successively arranged in a straight or bent path, and at their inlet ends are provided with sensors for determining the presence of a cop.

As a result of the invention, the spinning cops supplied in an irregular manner are initially changed into a flow of aligned cops, which is gradually thinned out over the length of the path until a cop sequence is achieved, permitting said cops to be delivered individually.

The invention is described in greater detail hereinafter relative to a non-limitative embodiment and the accompanying drawing, which shows an apparatus for aligning and invidually delivering spinning cops supplied in an irregular manner, such as is for example necessary for charging the winding stations of a bobbin winder.

In the drawing on the inlet side of a first conveyor chute or trough, a cop container 2 is arranged in sloping manner on a not shown bearing point and in said container the cops are arranged in an irregular manner. The side wall of cop container 2 on the inlet side is removed and covered by a plate 4, which frees an adjustable opening 5, through which the spinning cops 3 pass in an irregular manner onto a first conveyor trough 1, whose width is at least equal to the cop length. The conveyor troughs can have different drives, such as e.g. vibrating magnets rotary unbalances, crank drives, etc.It is important that the first conveyor trough 1 and the further conveyor troughs can be driven independently of one another and consequently their conveying capacity, i.e. the mass flow and their interruption, as well as the vibration intensity, can be adjusted independently of the other conveyor troughs.

The first conveyor trough 1 has side walls 6, which guide the spinning cops 3 supplied in the direction of a second conveyor trough 7. On leaving opening 5, the spinning cops 3 sliding on the first conveyor trough 1 are straightened and moved towards the second conveyor trough 7. The second conveyor trough 7 receives the incoming cops 3, a sensor 8 arranged at the inlet side serving to establish the presence of a cop and being e.g.

in the form of a light barrier. As soon as sensor 8 determines the presence of a cop, the first conveyor trough 1 is stopped, so that no further cops are conveyed in the direction of the second conveyor trough 7. Advantageously, sensor 8 is arranged at about a half cop length from a separating gap 9 between the first and second conveyor troughs 1, 7.

Due to the fact that no cops are supplied by the first conveyor trough 1, the flow of cops 3 is thinned out, in that only the cops on the second conveyor trough 7 are conveyed onto a third conveyor trough 1 0. As can be gathered from the drawing, the second conveyor trough 7 has a bent path. Such a design is not necessary for the function of the apparatus shown in the drawing and more particularly serves to adapt the apparatus to the space requirements of the machine individually delivering the spinning cops. At the inlet side of the third conveyor trough 1 0, preferably approximately one half a cop length after the separating gap 11 between the second and third conveyor troughs 7, 10, is provided a second sensor 1 2 determining the presence of a cop 3.If sensor 1 2 detects the presence of a cop 3, the signal generated by it interrupts the supply of further cops by stopping the second conveyor trough 7. This leads to a further thinning out of the flow of cops. As the third conveyor trough 10 is still in operation, only those cops located in front of the second sensor 1 2 and which are already in part on the third conveyor trough 10 are conveyed on until they reach a stop member 1 3 arranged at the end of the third conveyor trough 10.

A third sensor 1 4 is arranged on the third conveyor trough 10 between the second sensor 1 2 and the outlet side of the third conveyor trough 1 0. This sensor stops the third conveyor trough 10 when it finds that the cop has reached the stop member and is in the correct position for further conveying.

The cops which have reached stop member 1 3 are now completely aligned and in a waiting position in front of a slide member 1 5 and can be called up when required. The drawing also diagrammatically shows an elevator 16, which receives the individual cops and brings them to the processing point.

Between the third conveyor trough 10 and elevator 16, is provided a sloping base plate 1 7 and between the latter and the third conveyor trough 10 is provided a flap 1 8. At the transition point from base plate 1 7 to elevator 16, is provided a fourth sensor 1 9 which, on finding that there is no cop releases flap 1 8 and initiates the operation of slide member 15, so that a further cop is moved over base plate 1 7 to elevator 1 6.

Thus, the supply of cops 4 is controlled in the following manner. If the first sensor 8 detects no spinning cops, the first conveyor trough 1 operates until sensor 8 determines the presence of a cop and stops the first conveyor trough 1. As nothing has been detected by the second sensor 12, the second conveyor trough 7 continues to operate until the second sensor 1 2 detects the arrival of a cop.

If the fourth sensor 1 9 detects that there is no cop, flap 1 8 opens and slide member 1 5 comes into operation and at the end of its movement, which is monitored by a switch 23, the third conveyor trough 10 continues to operate until at the third sensor 14, the cops waiting at the second sensor 1 2 are indicated until the third conveyor trough 10 is stopped by the third sensor 14 when the cops reach the waiting position at stop member 1 3.

The aforementioned independence of the drives of the conveyor troughs 1, 7 and 10 makes it possible to operate these conveyor troughs independently of one another. As a result, it is possible to counteract certain operating situations which may occur on the movement path of the cops, e.g. the formation of bridges by increasing the conveying capacity during intervals when the supply of cops is interrupted.

It is also possible to provide certain details on the present apparatus, which increases its operational reliability. The drawing shows that the second and third conveyor troughs 7, 10 can have guide runners 20 fixed to the bottom, which extend in the conveying direction and faciiitate alignment of the cops.

In the same way as the first conveyor trough 1 is bounded by side walls 6, the second and third conveyor troughs 7, 10 are bonded by side walls 21, 22. Side walls 6, 21, 22 need not form part of the conveyor troughs and can instead be supported in a fixed manner and do not then participate in the vibration. In addition, plate 4 can form part of the apparatus against which the cop container 2 leans after removing the side wall.

The present apparatus is extremely reliable in operation. As a result, generally only a single cop 3 is positioned at stop member 1 3 and the third conveyor trough 10 only starts operating again when slide member 1 5 is again in its initial position, after delivering one or more cops to base plate 1 7. The operational reliability is increased by the mobility of base plate 17, which is inclined, so that the cop located on it is moved with certainty to elevator 16. The high operational reliability of the present apparatus cannot be easily explained. The alignment of the cops in the direction of movement takes place extremely rapidly then due to the width of the first conveyor chute 1 having a width is approximately the same or somewhat more than a cop length and there is also a favourable reciprocal influencing of the cops during alignment. The reduction of the mass flow results from the different conveying speeds of the conveyor chutes and through the controlled timed stopping thereof.

At the top outlet controlled by flap 18, it is also possible to provide a dragging thread cutter 24, which then cuts off a dragging thread, when the cop is at a particular distance from the cutting point, e.g. in the cop elevator 16.

Claims

1. A method of aligning and individually delivering spinning cops for further process ing, which are supplied in an irregular man ner, wherein from a feed inlet, the cops are supplied to a first vibratory conveyor, in which they are prepared in the conveying direction and moved into at least a further vibratory conveyor whereby on transferring a cop from one conveyor to the next, the transfer of the following cops is delayed by a temporary interruption of the conveying action of the preceding conveyor belt, this bringing about the arrangement of successive, separated and unidirectionally aligned individual cops up to the end of the conveyor.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the interruption of the conveying action of the preceding conveyor is controlled by determining the presence of the cop on the following conveyor by means of a sensor, constituted e.g. by a light barrier.

3. A method according to claims 1 or 2, wherein two or more conveyors are successively arranged and their conveying capacity and characteristics, e.g. vibrating intensity or stopping, can be adjusted or varied indepen dently of one another.

4. A method according to claim 1, wherein the cops are passed from the feed inlet which is the same size or wider than the cop length onto a wide-area, first vibratory conveyor.

5. A method according to any one of the preceding claims wherein the conveying capacity is briefly increased independently of one another at the end of a given time during which no cops are conveyed e.g. in the case of bridge formation.

6. A method according to any one of the preceding claims wherein at the end of the belt, the cop is moved out of the conveyor belt by a slide member by means of a switch and said belt is only put back into operation after the slide member has returned to its initial position.

7. In a spinning cop handling apparatus, an apparatus for aligning and delivering spinning cops claim 1, wherein vibratory conveyor throughs or chutes are successively arranged in a straight or bent path, and at their inlet aends are provided with sensor for determining the presence of a cop.

8. An apparatus according to claim 7, wherein a stop member is arranged in the end of the last of a succession of conveyors for defining the end position of a cop before leaving that conveyor trough and with it is associated with a somewhat greater spacing than the cop length, a further sensor for operating the conveyor trough during the passage of a cop and for the stopping thereof when the cop reaches the end position.

9. An apparatus according to claim 7 or 8 wherein a barrier is arranged at the end of the belt, in use, operation thereof takes place for delivering a cop at a transferpoint controlled by a transfer sensor.

10. An apparatus according to claim 7, 8 or 9 wherein on the inlet end of the succession of conveyors is provided a bearing point for supporting a cop container with irregularly arranged spinning cops and in front of it is adjustably arranged at the side of the conveyor a plate for guiding the cops.

11. An apparatus according to any one of claims 7 to 10 wherein guide runners which are at least partially parallel to the conveying direction are arranged in the conveyors.

1 2. An apparatus according to any one of claims 7 to 11 wherein the conveyors are bounded by fixed, supported side walls.

13. An apparatus according to any one of claims 7 to 1 2 wherein a dragging thread cutter is associated with the cop discharge at the belt end, and when, in use, the cop enters the transfer point, it cuts off any dragging thread, whilst retaining a residual thread.

14. A method of aligning and delivering spinning cops substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to and as illustrated in the accompanying drawings.

1 5. Apparatus for aligning and delivering spinning cops substantially as hereinbefore descried with reference to and as illustrated in the accompanying drawings.