Vacuum system with separable work piece support
AssigneeUnaxis Balzers Aktiengesellschaft
InventorsRoger Seeli, Mauro Pedrazzini, Volker Derflinger
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A vacuum system for the treatment of work pieces has an evacuatable treatment chamber having a centrally disposed low voltage arc discharge arrangement and laterally disposed loading opening. A coupling device between the work piece support and a receiving device on the system side allows simplified loading and removal of the work pieces to be treated along with the support by simply lifting onto or lowering from the receiving device.
Claims25
A vacuum system for the treatment of work pieces comprising in combination:
- a. an evacuatable treatment chamber having a bottom wall and having a central axis substantially perpendicular to said bottom wall, said treatment chamber also having at least one lateral wall;
- b. a low voltage arc discharge arrangement disposed within said treatment chamber substantially along the central axis thereof;
- c. a receiving device extending through the bottom wall of said treatment chamber about the central axis of said treatment chamber, the receiving device having opposing upper and lower ends, the upper end of said receiving device being disposed within said treatment chamber;
- d. a work piece support on which work pieces are mounted, said work piece support resting upon, and being separably linked to, the upper end of said receiving device, said work piece support having a cross section;
- and
- e. said treatment chamber having a laterally-extending closeable opening, said closeable opening having a cross section that is greater than the cross section of said work piece support so that said work piece support, and the work pieces mounted thereto, can be removed from said treatment chamber through said closeable opening by raising said work piece support off of the upper end of said receiving device.
The vacuum system recited by claim 13 wherein said guide pin is a self-centering mandrel, and wherein said recess is a bore hole for receiving said mandrel, and wherein lifting of said work piece support separates said mandrel from said bore hole, and wherein lowering the work piece support onto the upper end of said receiving device engages said mandrel with said bore hole to produces a separable link therebetween.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.