Acrometal Products, Inc.

Dennis J Gerber

The invention is directed to apparatus for controlling the lateral tracking movement of a wide abrasive belt back and forth over back supporting rollers. The apparatus is employed in the grinding head of an abrasive grinding machine in which the endless abrasive belt is movably carried by at least two spaced rollers. The upper roller is rotatably mounted in a cradle that pivots within the grinding head about an axis perpendicular to the roller axis and passing through the roller midpoint. Pivotal swinging of the cradle about this axis, as effected by opposed pneumatic actuators, causes the abrasive belt to track back and forth over the rollers. The tracking movement is cyclically controlled by a photodetector that cooperates with a solenoid valve to alternately actuate the pneumatic actuators. The photodetector comprises a radiation source generating a beam of radiated energy and a detector having a radiation detecting view field, the source and detector being disposed so that the radiation beam and view field intersect in a predetermined region. The photodetector is protectively disposed between the abrasive belt flights and carried so that the predetermined region may be traversed by one edge of the abrasive belt to control the solenoid valve.

Apparatus for tracking belt for abrasive grinding machine

The disclosure is directed to a self-centering feed apparatus for a dual head abrasive grinding machine. The grinding heads are mounted in opposed vertical relation, and workpieces are fed therebetween along a horizontal center line or plane. The self-centering feed apparatus comprises at least two sets of control arm mechanisms mounted above and below the center line. The control arm mechanisms of each set are mounted in side-by-side relation on a common pivot shaft, and are independently movable toward and away from the center line as the workpieces move through. Each mechanism includes a drive wheel for engaging the workpiece and driving it through the machine. Each control arm mechanism is urged toward the center line by a spring loaded pneumatic actuator that provides a constant gripping force, and which also generates a resistive force that increases as a function of deflection of a control arm mechanism from the center line. This causes the workpieces to self-center on the center line and insures that they will be uniformly surfaced on both sides even in the presence of warpage or variations in thickness.

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Minneapolis, MN, United States of America

Dennis J Gerber