Mechtrix Corporation

Artos Engineering Company

John D Butler

Keith A Johnson

Ragnar Gudmestad

Vinod K Chopra

A wire prefeeder has a tower standing on a base. A horizontal upper shaft is mounted fixedly to the upper end of the tower and a plurality of pulleys are on the shaft. A carriage is adapted to in the tower and another horizontal lower shaft which has a plurality of pulleys and is mounted to the carriage in parallelism with the upper shaft. A wire infeed device is driven with an electric motor. Wire feeds to a dancer pulley after which it is looped around the upper and lower pulleys in succession and departs tangentially from a pulley on its way to a wire processing machine which draws the wire. The carriage rises when there is an instantaneous increase in wire tension and an electric signal is produced whose magnitude corresponds to the amount of carriage movement. The motor responds to the signal by changing the motor and wire infeed speed to pay out wire at a rate which keeps the tension in the drawn wire constant. A new type of clamp is provided for coupling a wire reel to a shaft. A unique retainer is provided for preventing the wire from springing off of the pulleys.

Wire prefeeder

An electro/mechanical feedback system and method for displaying the positional and sizing information relative to the hole size formed by closed stripping blades of a wire stripping machine. The feedback system includes a pair of rotary optical encoders that are tied to the respective blade tool holders via adjusting screws. The adjusting screws provide infinite adjustment resolution. Turning the adjusting screws opens or closes the blades. The encoders convert the adjusting screw rotational information into blade translatory information, which is displayed. The displayed information represents positional information of each of the blades as well as the actual diameter of the cutting hole formed by the closed blades at a true zero position. The adjusting screw includes a torque head that limits adjusting screw torque to a predetermined amount. The present invention includes a positive stop used as a home position for each blade. Translating the blade tool holders against the positive stops and slipping the torque heads of the adjusting screws assures accurate home positions for calibrating the feedback system.

Electronic display system for wire stripping machine

A pair of tooling assemblies cooperate to cut and strip insulation from an insulated electrical conductor. The first tooling assembly comprises a die type stripping blade and an insulation guide. The first stripping blade has a cutting edge located a predetermined distance from a guide face on the insulation guide. The second tooling assembly comprises a second die type stripping blade and an insulation stop. The second stripping blade has a cutting edge complementary with the first stripping blade cutting edge. The insulation stop has a stop face that is located a predetermined distance from the second stripping blade cutting edge. The two tooling assemblies are aligned in a coplanar plane and clamped in respective toolholders. When the toolholders are brought together, the stripping blade cutting edges cooperate to slice the insulation on the electrical conductor, and the insulation guide face and the insulation stop face cooperate to hold the insulation of the electrical conductor adjacent the slice in the insulation.

Interlocking die-type tooling for stripping insulated electrical

Blades for cutting and stripping insulated electrical conductors have alignment references thereon for aiding the set-up and adjustment of the blades. The alignment references comprise corners across the longitudinal edges of the blades. Each corner is formed by the intersection of the longitudinal edge and a first leg that is machined into the longitudinal edge and extends toward the blade interior. A second leg extends between the first leg and the longitudinal edge to create a generally V-shaped notch in the blade longitudinal edge. The first leg preferably intersects the longitudinal edge at a right angle to provide a sharp corner line. The second leg preferably intersects the longitudinal edge at an angle of less than about 45 degrees, thereby producing a rather blunt corner and permitting easy differentiation between the two corners.

Notch for aligning insulation cutters

A machine for precisely cutting and stripping insulated electrical conductors. The depth of cut may be accurately set to accommodate wide ranges of conductor/insulation sizes. The length of the strip may be varied and accurately set without repositioning the entire machine. The machine may be bench mounted to act as a stand alone unit, or it may be mounted on a conveyor type automatic wire cutting and stripping machine. The machine includes a base plate that reciprocates parallel to the insulated electrical conductor to perform the stripping operation. A cutterhead opens and closes over the insulated electrical conductor to perform the cutting operation. The cutterhead comprises a pair of cutterhead slides that are accurately aligned with each other and that precisely reciprocate on a common plate. The cutterhead slides are driven by a dual cam-yoke system. The base plate and cutterhead mechanisms are cushioned at the ends of their respective strokes by a shock absorbing system. The blades are accurately clamped in the cutterhead slides by means of tool holders that are easily locked and unlocked in the respective cutterhead slides.

Conveyor mounted precision wire stripping machine

Apparatus for center notching an insulated electrical conductor includes two pairs of cutting blades that circumferentially slice the insulation at predetermined locations along the insulated electrical conductor to thereby define a slug of insulation. A jaw with a knife edge is located in each of the four quadrants about the insulated electrical conductor axis. The jaws travel in respective rectangular paths in a four stroke cycle. During the first stroke the jaws are translated toward a first plane passing longitudinally through the insulated electrical conductor axis with the knife edges in a separated configuration. During the second stroke the jaws translate toward a second plane perpendicular to the first plane to close the jaws and cause the knife edges to longitudinally penetrate the insulation slug. During the third stroke the jaws are translated away from the first plane with the knife edges in the closed configuration to thereby strip the insulation slug from the conductor. During the fourth stroke the jaws translate away from the second plane to return the knife edges to the open configuration.

Apparatus and method for removing a slug of insulation along a length of

Insulation is precisely cut and stripped from insulated electrical conductors by V type stripping blades. Precision cutting and stripping is assured by forming the blades with complementary and interlocking T and U-shaped cross sections. The blades have increased stiffness compared with prior blades even though the overall thickness of the blade pair does not exceed the overall thickness of prior blade pairs. A blade stop is interlockable with either stripping blade to precisely control the cutting hole size during production. An insulation stop is also interlockable with a selected blade for precisely locating the insulated electrical conductor relative to the blade cutting edges when the blades are closed over the conductor.

Interlocking blade pair for stripping insulated electrical conductors

An ultra-sonic welding machine has independently adjustable front and rear anvils. Each anvil is independently clampable at desired locations. The rear anvil is reciprocable under power to opened and closed positions relative to the front anvil to thereby permit easy insertion and withdrawal of a workpiece. The end positions of the rear anvil are positively controlled by an adjustable and clampable stop block. The invention further comprises a welding tip that has a concave working edge and relief pockets for improving the welded connection and reducing ultra-sonic energy losses.

Sonic wire welders

Precision spacers are inserted between the cutoff and stripping blades of an insulated conductor processing machine. The spacers have accurately controlled lengths that take into account the thickness of the various blades and that corresponds with different commonly specified strip lengths. The various strip lengths are accurately set by a single selected spacer. The spacers also assure that cooperating cutoff and stripping blades mesh properly when closing over the insulated conductor during the cutting and stripping process. The spacers have small slots on their top surfaces for receiving a small screwdriver. The slots and screwdriver facilitate handling the spacers in the machine at strip length changeover.

Spacers for insulation cutters

The tool holder of a machine for cutting a supply of insulated electrical conductor into discrete lengths employs a standard cutting blade. The standard blade serves as the outer boundary of the tool holder and of the remainder of the machine, thereby assuring that the cut lengths can pass to the next processing station without striking any component and thereby become disoriented. Use of the standard cutting blades is accomplished by employing conventional fasteners to retain the blade on the tool holder. The cutting blade is located in the tool holder by a slotted member and blade shank end locator.

Tool holder for wire cutter

An improved blade for cutting and stripping insulation from insulated electrical conductors has a cutting edge with a circular cross-section when viewed in the direction parallel to the axis of the insulated conductor to be stripped instead of the elliptical cutting edge of conventional blades. The blade is manufactured by feeding a manufacturing tool through a blank so as to generate a curved surface having a longitudinal axis connecting the blank faces at an angle thereto. The curved surface has an elliptical contour when viewed along the axis.

Method of using an elliptical form to generate a perfect radius in an

A blade for cutting and stripping insulation from insulated electrical conductors has two blade angles leading to the cutting edge. The first angle is a gathering angle which opens onto the leading surface of the blade and provides a wide opening for gathering offset insulated conductors. The gathering angle converges toward the interior of the blade and intersects the second blade angle, which also converges toward the blade interior. The second blade angle, the cutting angle, terminates in a radius cutting edge adapted to slice the insulation. The blade walls defining the cutting angle are tangent to the cutting edge radius. The cutting angle is minimized so that the radius cutting edge provides a maximum circumferential contact with the conductor. The blade may include a stop for positively controlling the cutting stroke to avoid nicking the conductor.

Compound-angle blade for stripping insulated electrical conductors

The hanking machine of this invention cooperates with a lead forming machine wherein each cord, gripped near opposite ends by intermittently moving cord grippers, arrives at a discharge station where the cord, extending along a horizontal line, is released by the grippers. Two carriages are guided for motion wherein a cord clamp on each tracks said line. In initial positions of the carriages, towards which they are biased and in which their cord clamps close on a cord substantially simultaneously with its release by the grippers, they are spaced substantial distances to opposite sides of a vertical plane; in release positions, wherein they release the cord, they are substantially nearer said plane. A turntable with coiling posts spaced to opposite sides of its rotational axis, has its axis horizontal and contained in said plane and has its coiling posts projecting across said line, one above it, one below it. Hence, upon rotation, the turntable coils the cord from its center while the cord ends are guided by the carriages that are clamped to them. The carriages reach release positions and detach from the cords substantially simultaneously with conclusion of turntable rotation, whereupon the carriages return under bias to their initial positions.

Automatic cord hanking machine

This cord hanking machine has two turntables coaxially mounted on a carrier, each having pair of coiling posts spaced to opposite sides of its axis and projecting away from the other turntable. The carrier swings about an axis transverse to the coinciding axes of the turntables to carry each turntable alternately to a coiling station and to a tying station. Gripper jaws at the outer end of each post open to clamp a straight stretch of cord presented to the turntable at the coiling station. As that turntable rotates, an oscillating cord guide adjacent to the coiling station guides the cord into a coil around its posts. At the tying station a tying machine moves bodily toward the turntable and places a wire tie around the coiled cord on it. During tying, a claw on the tying machine engages behind the coil, and as the tying machine retracts from the turntable the hank is thereby drawn off of its posts.

In a wire lead forming machine whereby a European-type plug is attached to plug-end portions of two wires of a cable length, a wire bending device at each of a wire stripping and a plug attachment station has a pair of carriages mounted on parallelogram linkages for horizontal translatory movement. A clamping element on each carriage swings down to clamp a wire end portion against a flat top surface portion on the carriage, whereupon the carriages diverge, bending the wires to hold their tip portions parallel and spaced apart. A restraightening device at a station between the stripping and the plug attachment stations has upper and lower jaws between which the wires are received. The upper jaw swings down to confine the wire end portions in coplanar relationship, whereupon other jaws, moving horizontally between the upper and lower jaws, push the wires together.

Growing community of inventors

New Berlin, WI, United States of America

John D Butler