Method of manufacturing coil assembly unit for rotary electric machine

A method of manufacturing a coil assembly unit for a rotary electric machine by mutually weaving a plurality of coil wires each having a plurality of linear portions being accommodated in slots and a plurality of turn portions each connecting mutually adjacent linear portions among the linear portions, the method comprising steps of:

• a coil forming step of forming each of the coil wires, in which bent portions are formed at both ends of each of the linear portions formed along each of the coil wires, the bent portions being bent so that the mutually adjacent linear portions are deviated from each other;
• a coil weaving step of mutually weaving the plurality of formed coil wires in turn, in which, at one end of each of a pair of the formed coil wires, a pair of the turn portions of the formed coil wires are made to intersect to each other and the other ends of the pair of the formed coil wires are held to keep an angle between axis lines of the paired formed coil wires within a predetermined angular range, and in this held state, at least one of the paired formed coil wires is rotated so that the turn portions of the paired formed coil wires intersect in turn, wherein all the plurality of formed coil wires are subjected to the weaving step in turn to produce a woven coil assembly;
• and
• a coil compressing step of compressing the woven coil assembly by compressing the woven coil so that each of the bent portions is deformed to be linear so as to allow the mutually adjacent linear portions to come closer to each other, thus producing the coil assembly unit.