Opti Patent-, Forschungs- Und Fabrikations-ag

Opti Patent- Forschung-und Fabrikations Ag

Jorg Geiger

Werner Rademacher

Franz Hochlehnert

Reinhard Damaschke

Kurt Scheid

Alfons Frohlich

Frank Kuhnke

Burghardt Neas

Reiner Hilterhaus

Wilhelm Wessling

Klaus Buschmann

Werner Schulz

A slide-fastener stringer is pulled through a gapping station by a motor operatively engaging the stringer without slip and at least one feed roller engaging the stringer upstream of the gapping station. A storage unit downstream of the feed roller and upstream of the gapping station loops the stringer upstream of the station in a variable-size loop and has a rotatable and movable buffer roller over which the stringer passes and a pair of rotatable but nonmoving buffer rollers flanking the movable buffer roller. The movable roller is urged away from the flanking rollers with a force sufficient to tension the stringer. The drive of the feed roller is operated in accordance with the position of the movable buffer roller for stretching the stringer between the buffer rollers by at most 1%. A gapper at the station periodically clamps and longitudinally arrests the stringer and then cuts the coupling elements therefrom at the station. A sensor roller physically engaging the stringer between the station and the loop detects and measures the displacement of the stringer after each clamping and cutting of the stringer at the station and generates an actual-value output corresponding thereto that is compared with a set point corresponding to a desired slide-fastener length after each clamping and the stringer is longitudinally advanced after each clamping and cutting of the stringer only until the actual-value output matches the set point.

Gapping system for slide-fastener manufacture

An apparatus for packing slide fasteners as they arrive in a longitudinal transport direction one after the other at a predetermined travel speed from a production facility has a speedup conveyor receiving the arriving slide fasteners and operating at a speed substantially higher than the travel speed thereof and a separating conveyor running transversely of the speedup conveyor and having an upstream end receiving the fasteners from the speedup conveyor and a downstream end transversely offset therefrom. A collection trough having a floor inclined to the horizontal, upper and lower ends, and a plate blocking the lower end is positioned underneath the separating conveyor to receive the fasteners therefrom and a downstream trough is aligned longitudinally with and has an upstream end separated by a space from the collection trough, a floor formed with a throughgoing aperture, and a downstream end. A collection vessel is provided underneath the downstream end of the downstream trough. A transport device has an upstream arm engageable in the collection trough at the lower end thereof and a downstream arm engageable in the space and downstream trough for displacing both of these arms between upstream and downstream positions for pushing respective bundles of the fasteners downstream. A packing unit in the space between the troughs applies a wrapping to the bundles thereat and a labeling unit underneath the aperture prints indicia on the wrappings as same pass the aperture.

Packaging machine for slide-fastener manufacture

A method of mounting a slider on a workpiece consisting of a pair of parallel and longitudinally extending tapes having confronting edges provided with interleavable coupling elements and formed by removal of sections of the elements to form longitudinally spaced gaps comprises the steps of first feeding the workpiece in a normally forward travel direction along a Z-shaped path having an upstream portion, a middle portion, and a downstream portion. Then the presence of one of the gaps is detected at the middle portion and, when such presence is detected, the workpiece is arrested at the middle portion. The one gap of the arrested workpiece is then spread and thereafter a slider is pushed transversely into the spread gap. The workpiece is then gripped in the upstream portion and pulled backward so as to pull the coupling elements through the slider pushed into the gap. Finally the slider is released to continue forward advance of the workpiece.

Slider-installing system for slide-fastener manufacture

A slide fastener is made from a workpiece formed of a pair of longitudinally extending parallel tapes having confronting edges provided with longitudinally extending and transversely couplable coupling elements. This workpiece is passed along a treatment path through a gapping station, a bottom-stop installing station, a slider-mounting station, a top-stop installing station, and a cutting station. The elements are removed from the tapes at gaps spaced longitudinally of the workpiece in the gapping station and a bottom stop is fitted to the elements at one end of each of the gaps in the bottom-stop installing station. A slider is mounted on the elements at the slider-mounting station between each gap and the following gap and a top stop is fitted to the elements in the top-stop installing station at each gap. Finally the tapes of the workpiece are transversely cut at the gaps at the cutting station into individual slide fasteners. The workpiece is marked upstream of the gapping station at locations spaced apart by predetermined distances and the work piece is stored in buffers downstream of each of the stations except the cutting station and only fed from each buffer into the immediately downstream station when a predetermined length of the workpiece is in the buffer. The marks on the workpiece are detected at each of the stations and the respective steps are triggered only when a one of the marks is detected.

Manufacture of slide fasteners

Growing community of inventors

Oberhausen, Germany

Jorg Geiger