Harris Corporation

Nathaniel J Satterfield

James Douglas Struttmann

J Gregg Ellis

Leonard T Hesch, Jr

A robotically controlled wiring apparatus for stripping, cutting and installing clad wire in a waffleline plate supported on an X-Y table comprises a wire feed, stripping and cutting unit, which is displaceable toward and away from the waffleline plate. The wire installation unit includes a clamp foot that is controlled by a cam unit to engage the wire and urge a first end of the wire into a channel of the waffleline plate. After the clamp foot has been retracted away from an inserted end of wire and the installation wheel is positioned against the wire, the X-Y table is translated, causing the wheel to rotate, drawing wire from a supply spool and effectively press-fitting the wire along the channel of the waffleline plate. After a prescribed length of wire has been installed, the wire is stripped and cut. For this purpose, the wire is clamped in the channel and placed in tension. The insulation-stripping and wire-cutting unit is displaced along the tensioned wire to a location where the portion of the wire to be stripped will be impinged by a multipath laser beam. A cladding-stripping laser beam is then directed onto the portion of the cladding to be stripped, so that cladding material is vaporized off the wire. The wire-cutting unit is translated down the wire until the cutting unit surrounds the stripped portion of the wire. The wire is then cut by rotating a shear element across an aperture in a cutting anvil of the cutting unit.

Apparatus for installing wire in grid support structure

A flatpack lead forming, cutting, and straightening machine. The flatpack is unloaded from the carrier and aligned for later processing by its leads, rather than the body portion. The first processing step forms the lead by bending them downwardly against an anvil, and then bending them outwardly to form the foot. The leads are cut by an upwardly-moving cutter to prevent downward flagging of the leads. The flatpack is then placed between two vertically mounted plates such that one set of plates contacts a pair of leads disposed on opposite sides of the flatpack body. The plates are moved upwardly and downwardly to flex the leads and remove the set therein. Adjacent lead pairs are flexed 180 degrees out of phase in this process. The formed, cut, and straightened flatpack is then loaded into a handling tube for storage or transport to the assembly area. A transport mechanism transports the flatpack from each stage of the process to the next stage.

Growing community of inventors

Anderson, SC, United States of America

Nathaniel J Satterfield