Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Shozo Kasai

Yusaku Azuma

Masateru Yasuhara

Toshihiro Yamamoto

Takeo Tanita

Norio Nikaido

Ryohei Inaba

Mitsuo Arai

Tsutomu Murakami

Koichi Shimizu

Yoshifumi Takeyama

Koji Tsuzuki

Takeshi Yakou

Tsunenobu Satoi

Yasushi Aoki

Yoshimitsu Hayashi

Masayuki Kusakari

Yasuhiro Sawada

Makoto Akahira

Hirofumi Sugawara

Yozo Tohbo

Katsumi Ishihara

Toshio Tsuda

Suguru Onuma

Before electrically connecting at least two photovoltaic elements, a medium capable of absorbing at least 10% or more of a light having a wavelength of 0.4 &#x3bc;m to 2.0 &#x3bc;m is provided on an electric connection portion of the photovoltaic element, whereby the present invention provides a method of electrically connecting a group of photovoltaic elements to one another with a high yield and easy automatization.

Non-contact treatment method

Before electrically connecting at least two photovoltaic elements, a medium capable of absorbing at least 10% or more of a light having a wavelength of 0.4 &mgr;m to 2.0 &mgr;m is provided on an electric connection portion of the photovoltaic element, whereby the present invention provides a method of electrically connecting a group of photovoltaic elements to one another with a high yield and easy automatization.

Method of producing photovoltaic element module

Photovoltaic element module and its production method, and non-contact treatment method

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 The selected container is withdrawn from the frame and a lid of a pallet on the withdrawn frame is removed.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 mounting system having a function of picking up one of several different type works from a pickup position where the works having the different types are selectively fed, and of moving a picked up work to an insertion position so as to mount the work on a printed circuit board. The mounting system includes a rotary member arranged to be rotatable, head mechanisms having different types and mounted on the rotary member, the head mechanisms having a number of types corresponding to that of the types of the works, a memory for storing a pickup order and an insertion order in units of types of works, a driver for rotating and stopping the rotary member at predetermined angles, and a control device for preferentially driving the head mechanism to the pickup or insertion position.

Mounting system including a plurality of hand mechanisms for picking up,

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 parts inserting apparatus of this invention includes clinch elements arranged to be engaged with lead wires of an electronic part inserted into a printed circuit board, a detecting unit for detecting completion of insertion of the lead wires into the printed circuit board, a driving unit, connected to the clinch elements, for engaging the clinch elements with the lead wires to bend the lead wires, and a control unit for driving the driving unit to perform a clinch operation for bending the lead wires after the detecting unit detects completion of insertion of the lead wires.

Part inserting apparatus and method for use

A base plate positioning mechanism in an electronic part mounting apparatus wherein a part supplying position and a mounting position are fixed, characterized in that a friction driving mechanism is used in a rotative driving unit for setting the rotated positions of an electronic part and a base plate to predetermined angles in order to adjust the part mounting position of the base plate to the fixed mounting position.

Part mounting apparatus

A rotational driving apparatus with frictional engagement includes a base, a rotating member having rigidity and axially supported on the base, at least one frictional roller having rigidity and at least one driving roller which are in rolling contact with the rotating member, a motor for rotating the driving roller, and a pressing mechanism for pressing the frictional and driving rollers against the rotating member, thereby transmitting a driving force of the driving roller to the rotating member to rotate it.

Rotational driving apparatus with frictional engagement and robot using

A controller for an automatic assembling apparatus consisting of a plurality of operation units each of which has a variety of devices to be driven and which perform independent, different operations under the program control is disclosed. This controller includes a host control unit expressing a sequence control portion of program control for the plurality of operation units by multitask program control, a plurality of lower-order control units having control programs for controlling an independent operation of each of the plurality of devices to be driven, and a shared memory which is connected to the host control unit and the plurality of lower-order control units, and is shared and accessed by the host control unit and the lower-order control units.

Growing community of inventors

Kawasaki, Japan

Shozo Kasai