JPH08322968A - Hard-soft ball sorting device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To prevent the mixing-up of hard balls with soft ones by allowing these balls to bounce obliquely in the longitudinal direction, and sorting two types of balls through utilization of the distance difference in the longitudinal direction produced by the difference in bouncing height. CONSTITUTION: A repellent hopping board 10 composed of an upper layer and a lower layer laminate and installed aslant under the ball drop position. The upper layer plate member is made of hard thin plate of steel, etc., while the lower layer plate member is made of a high elasticity material such as elastomer. The device is made movable in the longitudinal direction so as to comply with changing height of a conveyor, and its inclining angle is made adjustable so that it is practicable to change the bouncing angle in the relative positioning of the hopping board 10 with the ball release position of a ball supplying means 4. Therein a hard ball H follows a low parabolic locus (h) through action of the shock absorbing ability of the lower plate member having high elasticity, while a soft ball follows a high parabolic locus (s) through action of the high repulsive resilience of the lower plate member having high elasticity. Thereby two types of balls are assorted.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention is mainly used in a batting center for baseball, where hard and soft balls that have been struck are conveyed upward from a ball storage pit (hall) by a conveyor, and are individually set for hard batting machines. The present invention also relates to a hard and soft ball sorting device for continuously distributing and continuously supplying to a soft-type batting machine.

At the batting center where both hard and soft batting machines are installed, as shown in FIG. 1, the hard balls H and soft balls S that have been hit are mixedly guided to one or several ball storage pits 2. The spheres are automatically provided within the automatic loading operation range of the drive conveyor 3 which is inclined from the pit 2, and the hard spheres H and the soft spheres S are lifted by the conveyors 3 for each sphere without distinction. After being discharged, it is supplied to a hard or soft batting machine through a post-hard and soft ball sorting device 1 by a conveyor.

[0003]

2. Description of the Related Art As shown in FIG. 1, such a conventional hard / soft sphere sorting apparatus 1 sorts hard and soft spheres by utilizing the difference in elastic deformation in the centripetal direction due to compression from above.

That is, as shown in FIG. 3, a conveyor (not shown,
Hard and soft spheres H and S discharged from (corresponding to reference numeral 3 in FIG. 1) and supplied through a supply means 4 are mounted on a pair of bearing rotors 6 and 6 which are spaced on a sorting conveyor 5, and then the balls A pressing roller 7 having a downward biasing elastic force is made to act on the tops of H and S to move the balls H and S to the bearing rotors 6 and 6.
Soft sphere S pressed in between and reduced in diameter by its elastic deformation
Was dropped onto the soft ball receiver (8) through the space between the rotors 6 and 6, and the hard ball H having a small elastic deformation was advanced in a riding state.

Reference numeral 9 in the drawing is a pivotal link of the pressing roller 7, which is always elastically urged downward by the accumulated elastic force of a spring (not shown), and the balls H, S are caused by this elastic force and the weight of the pressing roller 7. Is given the above compression deformation. When the ball is not between the rotors 6 and 6, the ball is in the solid line position in the figure, but when the balls H and S are riding between the rotors 6 and 6 and are located directly below, the ball is inclined downward to the dotted line position.

The problems of this prior art are as follows. A) Elastic deformation due to compression is applied to the balls H and S, and therefore wear is increased. B) When the balls H and S due to compression deformation do not drop smoothly and gradually, for example, the balls are cracked so that elastic deformation is unsatisfactory. As a rule, so-called biting occurs with the next-order supply ball, which requires manual labor for maintenance. C) It is relatively troublesome to optimize the pressing force of the presser roller 7 (new ball and old ball Because the elastic deformation allowance changes).

[0007]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention aims to solve the above problems.

[0008]

The outline of the means for solving the problems of the present invention and the aims thereof are as follows. a) Instead of the conventional compression method to reduce the consumption of the ball, use the difference in the rebound and recoil of both hard and soft balls. b Oblique the recoil along the longitudinal direction instead of the vertical direction. Bounce to the surface to make the difference in jumping manifest as a difference in distance (range difference) along the longitudinal direction. C Even if there is something wrong with the jumping per ball, it hinders the jumping of the next ball. To prevent biting.

The specific solution structure of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS.
The used or new hard balls H and soft balls S are mixedly supplied in the front and rear rows, and the repulsive flip-up plate 10 is located below the ball discharging position of the supply means 4. Also, the hard spheres H1 and the soft spheres S1 that are dropped from the ball supply means 4 on the flip-up plate 10 obliquely from above and individually draw the respective parabolic loci h and s and jump up and fall in the longitudinal direction are individually received. Ball receiver 1
The present invention relates to a hard and soft ball sorting device including a soft ball receiver 1 and a soft ball receiver 12.

[0010]

2 and 3 show a typical embodiment of the present invention. The used (hit ball practiced) hard and soft balls H and S are gathered together in a ball storage pit 2 which is commonly used as a batting center facility, and they are slanted upward one by one by an oblique drive conveyor 3 that is continuously driven. It is transported and dropped from its upper end. In this example, the conveyor 3 also serves as the ball supply means 4.

A repulsive flip-up plate 10 is installed just below the ball dropping position. The flip-up plate 10 is composed of a laminated body of upper and lower two-layer plate members, of which the upper plate member 1
Reference numeral 01 is a thin hard plate member, for example, an iron plate or a hard plastic plate, and the lower plate member 102 is a high elastic plate member such as a thick high elastic elastomer plate, and is movable in the longitudinal direction in order to respond to a change in the height of the conveyor. The inclination angle can be adjusted in order to change the angle at which the ball is ejected from the ball supply means 4 (conveyor 3) and the jumping plate 10 (incident). That is, the flip-up plate 10 is movable on the rail 103 along the longitudinal direction with the roller 104 and the tilt angle can be adjusted by tilting means (not shown).

If the hard sphere for the batting center is made of leather like the official sphere, the damage is quick and it is uneconomical. Therefore, since hard synthetic rubber is often used rather than the soft sphere, the soft sphere S and the soft sphere are similar to those of the soft sphere. It is necessary to use a hard member as the upper plate member 101 and a high-elasticity plate member as the lower plate member 102 in order to perform a distinct jump (bound) with the hard balls H by using the flip-up plate 10.

In this way, the hard-to-hard impact when the hard sphere H falls onto the thin hard upper plate member 101 is buffered and absorbed by the thick high-elasticity lower plate member 102, so that the jump is significantly suppressed and the parabolic trajectory. When h becomes small, on the other hand, when the soft ball S falls, the elastic jump due to the soft-to-hard impact on the hard upper plate member 101 is urged by the high repulsive elastic force of the high elastic lower plate member 102, resulting in a jump. The uphill is amplified and the parabolic locus s becomes large, and the hard and soft balls H and S are lifted up by the flip-up plate 10.
The difference in jumping when the ball is dropped upward can be taken out as a remarkable difference between the parabolic loci h and s of the bound sphere.

When the leather balls are used as the hard balls H, the flip-up plate 10 may be a single hard plate instead of the above-mentioned laminated plate.

Hard and soft spheres H1 and S1 bounded along the longitudinal direction with different parabolic trajectories h and s are the individual hard sphere receivers 11 and soft sphere receivers 1 installed at the landing points.
Accepted by 2 respectively. The receivers 11 and 12 shown in the figure are shown as individual transport conveyors 11C and 12C, and the hard balls H received in the conveyors 11C and 12C.
1 and the soft ball S1 are transferred to a horizontal conveyor and an oblique conveyor known outside the figure via the conveyors 11C and 12C, and then continuously supplied to the hard batting machine and the soft batting machine, respectively.

Although the above-mentioned examples show typical ones of the present invention, the present invention is not limited to them, and substitutions and additions by many known techniques can be made without departing from the scope of claim 1. Needless to say, the ball can be changed (for example, a separate ball supply means 4 (for example, another conveyor) is provided at the ball discharging position of the conveyor 3 and the ball is dropped and supplied from the means 4 onto the flip-up plate 10. To do, hard ball receiver 1
(For example, 1 and 12 may be containers instead of horizontal conveyors). Further, the present invention mainly focuses on the selection of used hard and soft balls at the batting center, but it can be carried out by the same principle for selecting new balls and, in addition, for selecting hard and soft balls of tennis. .

[0017]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the present invention, the hard and soft balls are selected by the difference in the jump when the two balls are dropped on the flip-up plate, so that the consumption of the balls is small. Of course, instead of receiving both balls that jumped up in the vertical position, they are received along the longitudinal direction, so the bounce difference between both balls can be distinguished as a range difference, so accurate selection is possible, and further preceding ball After jumping up, it will go out of the trajectory of the next ball, so there is no biting between the front and rear balls and maintenance is easy. In addition, in the overall configuration, a jumper plate and a hard and soft ball receiver are added to the conventional device. Easy to configure,
There are fewer failures and costly benefits.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a side view schematically showing a hard and soft ball sorting device used in a conventional batting center.

FIG. 2 is a side view showing a typical embodiment of the present invention.

3 is an enlarged perspective view of only the flip-up plate in FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

 H Hard sphere before sorting S Soft sphere before sorting H1 Hard sphere after sorting S1 Soft sphere after sorting 1 Hard / soft sphere sorting device 2 Ball storage pit 3 Conveyor 4 Supplying means 5 Sorting conveyor 6 Bearing rotor 7 Presser roller 8 Soft ball receiver 9 Pivot link 10 jumping plate 101 hard plate member 102 high-elasticity plate member 103 rail 104 roller 11 hard ball receiver 12 soft ball receiver h hard parabolic trajectory s soft parabolic trajectory

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A ball supply means (4) in which hard balls (H) and soft balls (S) are mixedly supplied in front and rear rows, and a resilience positioned below the ball discharge position of the supply means (4). Jumping plate (10) and the ball supply means (4)
The hard sphere (H1) and the soft sphere (S1) that are dropped obliquely from the upper side of the flip-up plate (10) and draw up individual parabolic loci (h) and (s) and jump up and fall in the longitudinal direction. A hard and soft ball sorting device comprising a hard ball receiver (11) and a soft ball receiver (12) which are individually received. 2. A repulsive flip-up plate (10) is a laminate of two plate members, an upper plate member (101), a thin hard plate member such as an iron plate and hard plastics, and a lower plate member (102). 2. The hard and soft ball sorting device according to claim 1, wherein) is a thick highly elastic plate member such as a highly elastic elastomer plate.