JPS60228331A - Palte-like material storing and transferring device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To make it possible to store plate-like materials having every possible size and to eliminate the necessity of stopping of a working line, by eliminating the inclination of a cassette which is set in order to prevent the materials stored for transfer from ejecting, when the materials are inserted in the cassette by means of a robot. CONSTITUTION:Glass plates 16 having an arbitrary size less than the maximum allowable size, may be stored into a storage cassette 28 having its bottom part 42 and back part 44 which are respectively inclined with the inclination of the back part 44 being set at a right angle to the inclination of the bottom part 42, and upon transfer of the cassette 28 the stored glass plates 16 may be prevented from ejecting. When the glass plates 16 are inserted into the cassette by means of a robot 34, an arm 68 is pushed upward by means of an air cylinder 64 so that the arm 68 pushes a movable bed 58 on which the cassette is set, and therefore, the inclination of the cassette 28 is cancelled out. Accordingly, the glass plates 16 may be stored into the cassette 28.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Technical Field of the Invention] The present invention relates to a plate-shaped material storage and conveyance device suitable for a system for storing processed plate-shaped materials extracted from a processing line of a plate-shaped material processing line.

[Technical background of the invention and its problems]

For example, a plate-shaped material processing line that processes plate-shaped materials such as a liquid crystal panel production line, a thermal head production line, a photomask production line, a printed circuit board production line, etc. is a system for inputting plate-shaped materials into the process. , a processing line, and a system for storing the processed plate material. Conventionally, in systems for storing processed plate materials from such plate material processing lines, the processed plate materials extracted from the processing line were stored in cassettes (material storage cases) using robots. .

However, the width of the cassette is determined by the width of the plate-shaped material to be processed, and it cannot be used for plate-shaped materials of different sizes. Therefore, even if the line for processing plate-shaped materials has a processing line that can handle plate-shaped materials of different sizes, the line must be temporarily stopped and the cassettes must be changed.

[Purpose of the invention]

This invention was made in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, and provides a plate-shaped material storage and conveyance device that can handle plate-shaped materials of all sizes and does not require stopping the line even if the material size is changed. The purpose is to provide

[Summary of the invention]

That is, the plate-shaped material storage and conveyance device according to the present invention is provided with an inclination to prevent the stored lumber from flying out during movement, and the plate-shaped material storage and conveyance device is provided with a slope to prevent the stored lumber from flying out during movement. A mechanism is provided to eliminate the inclination of the cassette when materials are inserted by the robots 1 to 1 into the L-shaped cassette which can accommodate changes in size.

[Embodiments of the invention]

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows an outline of a plate-shaped material processing line, which is roughly divided into three parts: a loader (10), a processing line (12'), and an unloader (dan).

The loader (Kawa) moves the glass plates (16) one by one from the loft (18) where plate materials (e.g. glass) (16) and interleaving paper are alternately sandwiched together, while removing the backing paper (16).
It is to be supplied on the following day. In this case, a glass plate (16
) are adsorbed by the suction pad of the orthogonal transfer robot (20) and are transferred one by one from the loft (1B) to the loading conveyor {22} of the loader (river) connected to the processing line (and-). . Figure (B') shows its movement trajectory.

Also, this loader (rule) has a lot conveyor (24) that moves as shown by the arrow in the figure (A), and this conveyor (24》) will move when the lot (18〉) becomes empty. The next standby lot (26) is automatically supplied.

The unloader (Dan) stores the processed glass plate (16) that has escaped from the processing line (Dan) into the storage cassette (28).In this case, the unloader (Dan) stores the processed glass plate (16) that has escaped from the processing line (Dan). Unloading conveyor (30) connected to the processing line (Kon) for processed glass plates (16)
It is always stopped at a fixed position and in a fixed state by a fixed position stopping device (32). Then, the glass plate (16) is placed on the suction pad of the orthogonal robot (34).
The unprocessed back side of the cassette (28) is moved and inserted into the storage cassette (28) for storage. Figure (C) shows its movement trajectory. Also, like the loader, this unloader also moves the cassette 1-conveyor as shown by the arrow.
36), and this conveyor (36) automatically moves to the next waiting cassette (38) when the cassette (28) is full or the number of glass plates (16) reaches a predetermined number.
).

The plate-shaped material processing line as described above is controlled by a control section (not shown). A block diagram of this plate-shaped material illusion line is shown in FIG. Here, the control unit (40) includes an operation panel, a CPU, a memory, an I/O, etc., and includes an operation program for this line stored in the memory in advance and a glass plate (16) that has been loaded. Based on the size and number data, robot Honkyu (20》 and (
34), Rotsu i conveyor (24), cassette conveyor (36), carry-in conveyor (22), and carry-out conveyor (
30) etc.

The above plate-like material processing line shows the case where the processing line is - line, and when subsequent lines (for example, exposure line, post-processing line, etc.) are added, the above-mentioned An unloader like this is operated in reverse and is also used as a loader.

That is, the glass plates (16) are taken out one by one from the storage cassette (28) in which the set glass plates (16) are stored and supplied to the processing line. In this case, the fixed position stop device (32) may not be provided.

The storage cassette (28) of the unloader (dan) of the plate material processing line as shown in Fig. 1 and the cassette conveyor
36》 is a plate-shaped material storage and conveyance device. Third
The figure shows the storage cassette, which has an L-shaped bottom (42) and back (44). However, in this case, the glass storage surfaces (46) and (48) of the bottom (42) and back (44), respectively, have a sloped configuration. In other words, the bottom part (42) has a slope where the rear height b is lower than the front height a, and the back part (42)
44) has an upper depth d narrower than a lower depth C, and is sloped at right angles to the slope of the bottom storage surface (46). In addition, each storage surface (4
6) and <<48>> are provided with a plurality of grooves for storing the glass plate (16).

By configuring the storage capacity sets 1 to 1 in this way, it is possible to store glass plates (1G) of any size below the maximum size. In addition, since the glass plate (16) is stored leaning against the back (44), when moving the cassette containing the glass plate (16), the glass plate (16) Board (
16) can be prevented from popping out. In addition, when transporting the cassette containing the glass plate (16) to another location after the processing line is finished, a pawl cover (50) must be attached to prevent the glass plate (16) from flying out. do.

FIG. 4 shows the cassette 1-conveyor (technique), which moves the storage cassette (28) as described above in the direction indicated by the arrow in the figure. That is, the cassette (28) containing a predetermined number of glass plates (16) is removed, and the next standby cassette (38) is loaded. In this case, the cassettes (28) and (38) are connected to the motor (52).
) and (54), and is moved by being placed on a moving table (58) that is moved by, for example, a claw-equipped chain (56).

Movement is started when the number of glass plates (16) reaches a predetermined number, based on the number of operations of the robot (34) or the detection result of the sensor (60) that detects the number of glass plates (16). As the sensor (60) in this case, for example, an optical sensor that detects the number of glass plates (16) based on the amount of transmitted light can be used.

Moreover, this cassette conveyor (36) is controlled by the control section (4).
It has a cassette conveyor control section that controls this cassette conveyor (technique) in accordance with the command of 0).

This is done by starting the motors (52) and (54) based on the detection results of the sensor (60), or by applying an electromagnetic brake to the cassette (28)' based on the amount of movement of the cassette (28)' detected by a rotation detection limit switch (not shown). Controls such as stopping the movement of (28) are performed.

Furthermore, since this plate material storage and conveyance device uses the storage cassette (28) with an inclination as described above, the glass plate (16) is stored in the cassette (28) by the robot (34). At this time, the cassette conveyor (36) is provided with a positioning (parallel alignment) mechanism (62) for eliminating the inclination of the cassette (28). That is,
As shown in FIG. 5, an air cylinder (64) and an arm (68) that is pushed up about a fulcrum by the air cylinder (64) are constructed at the storage position of the glass plate (16) of the cassette conveyor (standard). That is, when the arm (68) is pushed up by the air cylinder (64) when inserting the glass plate (16) into the cassettes i to (28), the arm (68)
) pushes up the movable table (58) on which the cassette (28) is placed. This cancels out the inclination of the cassette h (28), thus ensuring that the glass plate (16)
) can be stored.

Note that, as described above, this plate-like material storage and conveyance device can also be used on the loader side by operating in reverse.

In addition, Fig. 4 shows a 4-position cassette conveyor (3
6), but there is no problem with increasing the number of positions further.

[Effects of invention]

As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to provide a plate-shaped material storage and conveyance device that can handle plate-shaped materials of all sizes and does not require stopping the line even if the material size is changed.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Figure 1 shows an overview of the plate material processing line (A
) is an external view, (B) and (C) are diagrams showing glass movement trajectories, FIG. 2 is a block schematic diagram of the plate material processing line of FIG. 1, and FIG. 3 is a diagram according to an embodiment of the present invention. This shows the storage cassette of the plate material storage and conveyance device. (A) is a plan view, (B) is a front view, (C) is a right side view, and FIG. ) is a front view, (C) is a right side view, and FIG. 5 is a diagram explaining the positioning (parallel alignment) mechanism of the cassette conveyor in FIG. 4. Rules: loader, 12: processing line , 14...
Unloader, 16... Glass plate, 28... Storage cassette, 34... Robot, 36... Cassette conveyor, 42... Bottom, 44... Back, 62... Parallel alignment mechanism. -183-

Claims (1)

[Claims] A plurality of cross-shaped cassettes each having a groove for storing a large number of plate-shaped materials and having a bottom portion and a back portion that are inclined with respect to the horizontal state, and a transport mechanism that rotates the cassettes as described above; A plate-shaped material storage and conveyance device comprising a mechanism that offsets the inclination of the cassette and brings it into a horizontal state when inserting and removing the plate-shaped material into the cassette.