Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Norio Nikaido

Shozo Kasai

Yusaku Azuma

Masateru Yasuhara

Toshihiro Yamamoto

Takeo Tanita

Ryohei Inaba

Mitsuo Arai

Hirofumi Sugawara

Yozo Tohbo

Toshio Tsuda

Yasuo Karube

Hiromitsu Harada

Soft part cutting and mounting methods and soft part cutting and mounting apparatuses are capable of cutting and mounting without human intervention by using an automatic soft part apparatus. The apparatus which uses a sheet material continuously formed from a release sheet having at least a release layer on a surface and including continuously formed tack paper and a soft member having an adhesive layer temporarily adhered to the release layer to finally adhere to an article, and cuts the soft member with the adhesive layer into a predetermined shape. The sheet material is continuously intermittently fed by a sheet material convey unit so as to stop at a cutting position. In the cutting position, a contoured cutting blade moved with respect to the soft member by a first elevating mechanism is moved to the release layer, the cut soft part is drawn by suction by a suction head disposed in a portion surrounded by the contoured cutting blade and vertically moved by a second elevating mechanism, and the release sheet is drawn by suction by a suction unit including an ultrasonic wave application device for transmitting ultrasonic vibration at a frequency of 10 kHz or more. The soft member is cut together with the adhesive layer from the sheet material by controlling the driving of the individual mechanisms and components, thereby obtaining the soft part.

Methods of cutting and mounting soft parts and apparatuses for cutting

A method for stocking a plurality of containers in a stocking device and feeding one container at a time to a robot includes the steps of separately supporting each container in a vertically moveable frame and moving the frame to align a selected container at a drawing position. The selected container is withdrawn from the frame and a lid of a pallet on the withdrawn frame is removed. The articles are then supplied to the robot.

Automatic article feeding system

A method for feeding articles to a robot comprises the steps of temporarily storing a plurality of containers in a temporary storing device including a rest on which the plurality of containers are stacked and a separator for simultaneously separating the stacked containers from each other, stocking a plurality of containers supplied from the temporary storing device in a stocker, and feeding the stocked containers to the robot one-by-one.

A motor-driven vertical type injection molding apparatus with stable screw back pressure is provided with a simple structure. A plurality of guide shafts extending in the perpendicular direction are integrally provided in a lower base of an injection unit. A screw holding member is supported on the plurality of guide shafts to be movable in the perpendicular direction. The screw holding member is moved in the perpendicular direction by an injection motor through a ball screw mechanism. A screw extension shaft is integrally connected to the upper end of a screw. The screw extension shaft is supported on the screw holding member to be movable in the axial direction and rotatable. The screw extension shaft and screw are rotated by a measuring motor. In a measuring step, the dead weight of the screw holding member automatically resists the reactive force (screw back pressure) of a molten resin at a screw tip end portion.

Motor-driven vertical type injection molding apparatus

An article feeding apparatus which feeds articles from a feed source to a section to be subjected to feeding includes a stocker for stocking a plurality of pallets retaining a plurality of articles in units of types of articles, with the stocker being capable of moving one pallet to a predetermined position, and a take-out unit for taking the pallet moved to the predetermined position outside the stocker in order to transfer articles to the section to be subjected to feeding. In addition, a buffer receives replacement of the pallets retaining the articles from external equipment and temporarily stores the plurality of pallets, and a replacing unit replaces the pallets in the stocker with the pallets in the buffer in accordance with a decrease in number of articles in the pallet in the stocker to a predetermined value as the articles are fed to the feeding section.

A screw holding member in which a screw is rotatably provided is guided in a vertical direction by two guide shafts. A ball screw is integrally provided on an upper part of the screw holding member through a load cell. A ball nut screwed to the ball screw is provided internally in an upper base through bearings. A second toothed pulley is fixed to the upper part of the ball nut. The ball nut is rotated by an injection motor through the second toothed pulley. The ball screw and the screw 44 are vertically driven by rotation of the ball nut. The second toothed pulley is formed with a through-hole into which the ball screw is loosely fitted, whereby the ball screw does not protrude from the second toothed pulley even when the ball screw rises.

A handling device for a stocker, for storing various articles or containers, has a pair of engaging members for storing or extracting the articles, in which the engaging members have unbalanced engaging forces and the articles are aligned in one direction by the unbalanced engaging forces.

Handling device for articles or containers

A displacing apparatus includes a moving table provided movably on a guide rail mounted on a fixed base. A guide bar is provided on the fixed base in parallel with the guide rail. The guide bar is formed with a recess. Also provided is a driving roller maintained in contact with the guide bar and driven by a driving source provided on the moving table for moving the moving table. A device is provided on the moving table for generating a contact pressure for maintaining the driving roller in pressure contact with the guide bar at a position on the guide bar opposite to the drive roller. A detector is also provided in relation to the moving table for detecting the position of the moving table. Finally, a device is provided for nullifying the contact pressure. The nullifying device drops the driving roller into the recess of the guide bar to nullify the contact pressure of the drive roller, the drive roller moving on the guide bar.

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Tsuchiura, Japan

Norio Nikaido