At&t Bell Laboratories

Western Electric Company, Inc.

American Telephone and Telegraph, Co.

At&t Technologies, Inc.

American Telephone and Telegraph Company, At&t Technologies, Inc.

Robert P Kennedy

Richard A Greene

William A Elliott

William H Steece

Robert P Poe, Jr

A component insertion machine having apparatus for mounting component magazines and arranged for loading components therefrom into the component insertion machine. Shuttle apparatus transversely positioned on th e mounting apparatus is arranged to receive ones of the component magazines and is slidably operable for laterally displacing one received component magazine with other received component magazines to maintain a continuous supply of components to the component insertion machine.

Component insertion machine apparatus

Apparatus for loading components into a component insertion machine. The aratus comprises structure releasably mounted on component magazine loading apparatus to retain components in component magazines received by and aligned in the component magazine loading apparatus. The structure is removable after installation of the component loading apparatus on the component insertion machine to enable components to be selected by the component insertion machine from the component magazines.

Apparatus for loading components into a component insertion machine. The apparatus comprises structure releasably mounted on component magazine loading apparatus to retain components in component magazines received by and aligned in the component magazine loading apparatus. The structure is removable after installation of the component loading apparatus on the component insertion machine to enable components to be selected by the component insertion machine from the component magazines.

An apparatus (10) and methods are disclosed for preparing the terminated end of a flat cable (25) for connectorization wherein the cable is of the type having two arrays of overlying/underlying conductors (27, 28) separated by an insulative center film (31), with each array being bonded directly to only the respectively adjacent one of two mutually disposed outer insulative films (33, 34), and wherein an aligned pair of isolating members (36, 37) are respectively positioned between, and transversely of, a different side of the center film the associated array of conductors at each predetermined terminating end of the cable, as fabricated. The apparatus includes a cross-slide assembly (12, 41), a flare-out die mechanism (14, 97), an optional trimming die mechanism (16, 134, 136) and a fold-back roller mechanism (18, 151, 167, 168). Such a composite apparatus sequentially performs the following operation on the terminated end of the described type of flat cable: (1) sequentially flare-out (separate and bend) terminated end sections (33a, 34a) of the outer cable films, together with the respective coextensive arrays of conductor end portions (27a, 28a) bonded thereto, preferably approximately 90 degrees from the normal plane of the mutually contacting one of the two leading isolating members (36 or 37); (2) trim each such bent cable end section to a predetermined length, and (3) sharply fold-back each such trimmed end section against the remaining adjacent portion of the cable so as to then fully expose the previously inner major sides of the conductor end portions (27a, 28a) in each array for subsequent connectorization.

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Columbus, OH, United States of America

Robert P Kennedy