Fujikura Limited

Tatsuya Watanabe

Kazuo Tanihira

Hirotaka Sawada

Hiroaki Komatsuda

Masazumi Takagi

Kuni Yoshinuma

Toshio Onuma

Toshiaki Enami

Fumio Suzuki

Kazuyuki Koga

Toshio Ohnuma

There is disclosed an apparatus and method for bonding a sheet material to an elongated base material, in which the sheet material is transferred by a transferring device towards the base material, and the sheet material is bonded by a bonding device to the base material. A static electricity generating device is attached to the bonding device for generating static electricity on the sheet material to cause the sheet material to adhere to the bonding device, so that the sheet material is prevented from falling from the bonding device prior to the bonding step. Furthermore, an apparatus and method for manufacturing a flexible flat cable, applying the above bonding apparatus and method is also disclosed. In this apparatus and method, a pair of insulating tape sheets are transferred towards electric conductors. Prior to the bonding step at a pair of hot rolls, the insulating tape sheets adhered to the hot rolls are cut into discrete tapes, and the discrete tapes are prevented from falling from the hot rolls by the static electricity generated thereon. With this apparatus and method, not only a substantial reduction in the cost of materials but also an enhanced productivity of the flexible flat cables can be ensured, and the problem of noise generated by press machines can be avoided.

Apparatus and method for bonding sheet material and its application to

An automatic wire end arranging system includes a wire holder for holding one ends of the wires, a wire feed device for feeding the wire ends one by one from the wire holder, and a transport device for transporting each wire end from the wire feed device to an arranging device. The arranging device includes a fixture having a plurality of parallel receptive sections, and a table mounted adjacent to the fixture and having a slit, a probe device operable to make electrical contact with the wire end, fed to the table by the transport device, to feed a probe signal, a first drive device operable to move the table, a second drive device operable to bring the wire end on the table into alignment with the slit, and a third drive device operable to urge the wire end, disposed in alignment with the slit, into a selected one of the receptive sections through the slit. A control device, to which the other ends of the wires are electrically connected, is responsive to the probe signal to operate the first drive device to move the table, thereby bringing the slit into alignment with the selected receptive sections corresponding to the probed wire. The control device is responsive to the probe signal to operate the second and third drive devices to bring the wire end into alignment with the slit and to urge the wire end into the selected receptive sections through the slit.

System for automatically arranging ends of wires of connector cable in

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Chiba, Japan

Tatsuya Watanabe